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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

List Price: $24.99
Your Price: $15.74
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A subtle satire of epic proportions!
Review: I'm only 14 years old, but I finished reading this book for my 8th grade English class about a week ago. The edition I have is 575 pages, but I went through it in about three weeks. It is an excellent, entertaining, very funny and thought-provoking book. I enjoyed it very much. If I had read the Canterbury Tales or some other book relating to the Middle Ages, it may have been pretty boring, but this, my first Mark Twain book and the longest I've ever read, was first-rate entertainment.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "The good ol' days that weren't any good, anyway"
Review: Well, the perfect companion to La Morte d'Arthur...

Twain completely dissects the "good ol' days" of Arthurian Britain by exposing the vicious social practices of the time: white slavery, le droit de seigneur, confiscation of property in event of suicide, the complete lack of impartial justice, the degrading influence of the Church on the mass, etcetera etcetera etcetera...

The Arthurian legends are wonderful tales, but they are a mythic literary production; Twain deals with the brutal reality of daily living in the Dark Ages, and points out that the good ol' days were not so good, anyway.

As for its applicability to modern America, I am not fit to judge. Perhaps it's there. But "The Connecticut Yankee" is a wonderful tonic for those prone to romanticizing the past. Twain seems to agree with Tom Paine that the English nobility were "no-ability", and simply the latest in a series of robbers.

And, of course, the book is stuffed with wonderful Twainisms... My favorite is his observation that a conscience is a very inconvenient thing, and the significant difference between a conscience and an anvil is that, if you had an anvil inside you, it would be alot less uncomfortable than having a conscience.

Twain also mentions the beautiful mispronunciations of childhood, and how the bereaved parental ear listens in vain for them once children have grown.

You'll never look at castles the same again...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great read
Review: I thought this book was interesting, actually. It had a lot of action and comedy in it. It's a satire on many levels, and never fails to entertain. It was an intesting look at how a man with a 19th Cenutry education was able to manipulate the 6th Century Englanders with his knowledge. I think this one is worth a try.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Review: Mark Twain really tears apart the Catholic church and nobility. He also points out how the tyranny of England in Arthur's time continued on 1300 years later. The book will make you laugh and will also make you examine the myths that people take as fact today

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A satire that teaches about our own way of thinking
Review: I know this book was boring and humorless to a lot of students and I can understand why. Things like the telegraph mean nothing to us now, but in Mark Twain's time it was hot technology like a rocket or the Internet are to us today.

Mark Twain was saying, what if we took our modern technology back to a time when people believed in magic and faught with swords and armor. Whoever did this could probably convince these people that the technology was a superior magic and could use this knowledge to dominate them.

This is what happens in the story, but only for awhile. Eventually, even the people in King Arthur's court adjust to having the new technology and no longer see it as magic. For example, the people running the telephone exchange don't care about the Connecticut Yankee's "magic" they just want to keep the lines of communication open with Camelot.

This kind of story is called "satire". It is basically a story that teaches us something by making fun of something else. In this story, Mark Twain makes fun of the kind of people who think they can accomplish anything with technology. The Yankee thinks that he can use technology to trick the nights of King Arthur's court and to manipulate them. At first he succeeds, but gradually they become so immersed in the technology that they don't care about magic and legends any more. Once their mental landscape changes, the Yankee has lost the context he needed to control them. The main argument here is that technology does not solve everything, it just produces new problems. And the kind of people who worship technology are bound to fail in one way or another.

Hope this helps.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I only gave it a 1 'cause there isn't a lower Rating!
Review: Hi everyone! I had to read this book for school and it was torture. I would not ever reccommend this book to anyone. It was soo boring! Mark Twain tried to be funny, but he was not! The chapters droned on and on about boring topics. This is not a lie at all: I fell asleep with the book open on my lap!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Literary Classic With Tiny Flaws
Review: In "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", Hank Morgan is transported to the legendary times of King Arthur and Camelot. I thought that this novel was wonderfully put together. The way Hank instituted 19th century ideals into the 6th century was a perfect way to add pizazz to the novel. Although there were some parts in the novel that were slow and undeveloped, the best parts and the main parts over-shadow those. This novel is one you MUST-READ!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I gave it a 1 because there is no lower rating
Review: "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court" is a book about a man from the 19th century who "time travels" back into the 6th century when he is hit on the head by a friend. The man attempts to modernize everything. He makes people believe he is a powerful magician by performing simple acts that seem unreal to the people. For example, he blows up a tower by connecting gun powder to a lightning rod during a storm. Amazing....I think not. I thought this book was boring because there are to many unnecessary details. Who cares what each prison cell looks like? One whole chapter was on the prices of food and how they vary from town to town. Another reason I disliked this book is because it was hard to follow. All the different knights names are so hard to remember and its so slow paced that if you put the book down you can't remember what was going on and you're not interested enough to care. This was a boring 300 page book that could easily be made into an interesting 150 page book. I would only recommend this to someone who has a lot of time on their hands or to someone who likes slow paced books.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: SHANNON'S "CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT! "
Review: I read the book, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." This is about a middle-aged man from Connecticut in the 19th century. He travels back in time to the Middle Ages. He meets new people and pretends he is a magician since he knows so much about the future. He becomes a well known hero throughout the land. The book is pretty much about his successes and adventures as he learns about Medieval times. To me, I thought the book was more on the boring side, but I think someone older might enjoy it more since the book has more complicated events and words. I think it was too long and slow because it would use up pages and pages describing landscapes or how uncomfortable wearing armor is when all I really wanted to do was get to the real point of the story. Also, I don't think the characters were very exciting and interesting because they would never really act like a real person would act during a similar situation. Like how the main character, Hank Morgan, never really wondered how he got to be in the Middle Ages and how he never really missed the 1800's or thought about how he could go back. This all makes up why I don't like this book. So, if you're young and looking for some action or if you're old and looking for some adventure, I would not recommend this book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthers Court
Review: "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthers Court" is about Hank Morgan who lived in the 19th century and somehow was sent to the 6th. He develops England using modern technology. He goes on some expeditions and tries to change everything that was bad in the Medevil times. I did not like the book at all because it was incredibly boring. Most of the book had nothing to do with the main climax. The whole book was filled with completly irelevant and confusing details. There were a lot of things that happened suddenly and were not sufficently explained-like when Hank got married. Overall there were to many details where they didn't need them and not enough details where they did need them. The book was also very unrealistic. If Hank knew all that he did in the book, he would have probably rivaled Einstien's IQ. There's no way one person could make telephones, gattling guns, revolvers, newspapers, and factories using 6th century tools. The book was filled with to many, "And I just happened to remember that if,"-Hank knew to much about certain things that no one else would know about to be realistic. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK because it is boring, confusing, and unrealistic.


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