Rating: 
Summary: I didn't really like the book it was boring, the end=best.
Review: It was grat at some parts and boring at others. The end made up for alot of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Trash it
Review: This has to be the worst book Twain has every written. I had to do a book report on a book that was dull, stupid and lackluster. I love sifi and fanstay book but this is the worst I have ever read in 30 years
Rating: 
Summary: A often misunderstood satire.
Review: While the critique of the weaknesses of Arthurian society are obvious, this is a really remarkable book for its critique of Twain's (and perhaps our) America. The ending can be seen as a prophetic warning of the consequences for war of the adoption of modern technology. Even Twain's accounts of the problem of instantly democratizing a traditional society seem remarkably current to today's efforts to bring our political system to Eastern Europe, etc. This is no teenage science fiction novel, but as usual with Twain, a book with many meanings and insights.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Satire in the form of a Great work of Literature
Review: Mark Twain is no Science-Fiction author, but he makes this a good story anyway. He sends a mechanical genius back to the time of King Arthur to take a look back at America. Because of his knowledge, the narrarator becomes the King's right-hand man, the second most powerful man in England, known as The Boss. He begins to establish a more advanced society underground to gaurd against the Church. Over many years, he learns to adjust to the society and becomes respected world-wide due to his "magic." Unforetunately this results in making Merlin his great advisary. The Boss goes on many adventures and gets involved in many predicaments, each time surviving by his wit and knowledge. A wonderfully told tale that examines America's faults by looking at them from 7 centuries before. Unfortunately Twain, once again, falls short on his ending and leaves the reader mildly entertained, but not better off.
Rating:
Summary: Not a story for true King Arthor fans.
Review: I am a true fan of the King Arthor legands and of the writings of Mark Twain, but this novel does not meet up to either things. Basically the writing is not as well done as his other stories like Tom Sawyer and it puts down the whole legand of the Round Table. If you are inclined to be romantic about the Arturian period definitly do not read this story. I wish that I could have enjoyed this more, but there was little to make me love it
Rating: 
Summary: It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times..
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 the 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:
Summary: Not "cute"; but absolutely fascinating!
Review: This book is not a "good" book, in that it fails to achieve its supposed purpose (which is to deprecate chivalric romance). Yet the sheer fascination of this incredibly poigniant failure is enough to keep me returning! It nothing like the "cute" kids versions and movies that it has inspired. Prepare for a vitriolic horror-ride that seems to prove nothing but man's futility--i.e., welcome to Twaine's latter period. Mark Twain's work of psuedo-realistic phantasy is perhaps the most marked and fascinating failure in literature. In the novel Twain sets science and technology against chivalry and romance. Twaine attempts to overthrow a thousand years of fuedal and romantic tradition by means of scientific and economic efficiency. Yet (without revealing too much) in the end the Yankee must praise the romantic hero King Arthur; has used the very superstitions he disdains to dupe the people; come to love an archetype of the simple medieval personality he despises; and, amazingly, has threatened to destroy an entire civilization. In the end the only thing the Yankee proves is that modern man is far too arrogant for his own good, and that it is all too easy to become the villain you hate. So what was Twaine's point? Supposedly to prove the vast superiority of the modern age over the Chivalric Age. But did Twaine actually believe his utterly amazing ending carried out his task? I doubt it; I think the book is a classic example of Twain's disbelief of everything. But the world my never know.
Rating: 
Summary: An American Cynic in Dystopia
Review: Mark Twain's satiric fantasy "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" sets up the premise of a 19th Century American being transported (via the application of a crowbar to his skull) to the legendary Camelot, where he initially suffers culture shock in the extreme. The novel's immediately obvious flaw (and I assume Mark Twain was aware of it but simply ignored it) is the 19th Century hero's ability to communicate with Britons of the 6th Century. They, of course, would have been speaking an English similar to that in "Beowulf"; the book has them talking like characters in "Hamlet". The opening chapters are comic in mood, complete with limp jokes. (When one character introduces himself as a page, the Yankee replies: "Go 'long, you ain't more than a paragraph." Oh, Lord.) However, the story quickly becomes dark and then increasingly darker. The degraded condition of the masses (which the modern hero compares to 18th Century France) culminates in a tour (with King Arthur disguised as a peasant) of a oountryside corrupted by monarchy and the Church, both of which were loathed by Mark Twain. Feminists should be warned that the author's misogyny is given free rein here: all the ladies of the court are thoughtless twits, and Morgan Le Fay is a shrew who habitually and casually kills her servants. The heroine Alisande (who, of course, becomes Sandy) is a tiresome chatterbox, whom the hero abruptly marries as a sort of social condescension. But his attitude towards women is merely a part of his general misanthropy, leading him to write at one point: "Well, there are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce." Once the protagonist has established himself as Arthur's right-hand man (he's called "The Boss"), he exercises his Yankee ingenuity to industrialize the realm. With the genius of Gutenberg, Morse and Bell at his disposal, he sets up a newspaper and introduces the telegraph and the telephone to the Middle Ages. (Just how he devises the technology to accomplish this is not made too clear.) At any rate, The Boss is considered a great wizard, and Merlin (or Brer Merlin, as the Yankee calls him) is treated like a fraudulent fool. Motivating all this is a somewhat smug sense of 19th Century superiority. Actually, the Yankee goes beyond his own century and into the 1900's. When Guenever's treason causes the civil war which divides Britain, The Boss drills a group of cadets (his West Pointers, he calls them) that he leads off to battle against the anti-Arthurian knighthood. The result is a blood bath presciently and repulsively similar to the trench warfare of 1914-1918. (The novel was published in 1889.) If this is meant to be an indication of future efficiency, it's an extremely pessimistic vision. But then, the whole story is Mark Twain's gloomy statement on Mankind's uneasy place in a dysfunctional world, be it the Dark Ages or the somber present.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!!! A Classic!!!
Review: Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, is one of my all time choices, an incredible tale full of imagination , funny situations , magic and amazing adventures, is funny how our hero brings to King Arthur court all the inventions , ocupations, and culture from XX century and how all the knigths and the population in a very entertaining way for the reader, assume the whole way of life supposed to be achieved in our culture centuries ahead and all that with a hilarious normality. you can find also very interesting situations in wich King Arthur is involved because of his relation with the main character, definitelly you have to read this book , this is the kind of ligth literature we all should be used entertaining with , all parets must show their kids what is good and bad literature and recommend masterpieces like this
Rating:
Summary: Not "cute"; but absolutely fascinating!
Review: This book is not a "good" book, in that it fails to achieve its supposed purpose (which is to deprecate chivalric romance). Yet the sheer fascination of this incredibly poigniant failure is enough to keep me returning! It nothing like the "cute" kids versions and movies that it has inspired. Prepare for a vitriolic horror-ride that seems to prove nothing but man's futility--i.e., welcome to Twaine's latter period. Mark Twain's work of psuedo-realistic phantasy is perhaps the most marked and fascinating failure in literature. In the novel Twain sets science and technology against chivalry and romance. Twaine attempts to overthrow a thousand years of fuedal and romantic tradition by means of scientific and economic efficiency. Yet (without revealing too much) in the end the Yankee must praise the romantic hero King Arthur; has used the very superstitions he disdains to dupe the people; come to love an archetype of the simple medieval personality he despises; and, amazingly, has threatened to destroy an entire civilization. In the end the only thing the Yankee proves is that modern man is far too arrogant for his own good, and that it is all too easy to become the villain you hate. So what was Twaine's point? Supposedly to prove the vast superiority of the modern age over the Chivalric Age. But did Twaine actually believe his utterly amazing ending carried out his task? I doubt it; I think the book is a classic example of Twain's disbelief of everything. But the world my never know.
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