Where I Liked It Better Than His Other Stuff

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this perhaps a little more than my rating suggests; I almost bumped this to a 4. But there are things Twain does that bug me enough as I read that I could only say 3 out of 5.

I mean, outside the book itself, he is critical of Jane Austen (one of my favorites) and critical of Sir Walter Scott (another favorite), and in addition I never enjoyed either Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, though I appreciate some things about both. So I came in pretty ready to be harsh.

In many ways, it's a fun book, though. Kinda science fiction, kinda comedy, plus a whole bunch of satire. I absolutely align with his criticism of medieval society, superstition (including religion), the institution of the monarchy, the reverence for "nobility," the institution of slavery, the treatment of common people in general, and the two-tiered system of justice in particular. A discouraging number of these ills still exist. But they are rightly portrayed as evils in the book--humorously, in some cases, but directly--so I stand to applaud all that.

But the book is a bit of mess when it could have been awesome. Twain's folksy aphorisms and silly slang were a tired joke long before he wrote this. (Ironically, he skewers an old joke that I have actually heard live at least once, so he's aware that humor can go stale.) He's got decent action with serious stakes and suddenly he's joking around, his MC purposely talking in incomprehensible 19th century jargon to a confused medieval man, trying to make the ridiculous juxtaposition a laugh line. I would have liked it so much more if he had played it straight with the story. Or, conversely, if he had made the whole thing a joke without any stakes, more like Daffy Duck or something, I would have enjoyed it more. The extreme literalness and naivety of the people, believing every lie, was sometimes pretty funny. But then you have slaves chained together, dying in horrible ways, like a grimdark story, and you get emotional whiplash. The mixed tones don't work.

A concrete element of plot related to this: the MC is angry at the treatment of peasants and slaves, genuinely horrified by the beatings and common application of capital punishment, but then in a few places he lets innocent people be hanged or otherwise put to death (like some mediocre musicians he didn't care for) in throwaway scenes that are meant to be ridiculous and funny. The transition from realistic to cartoony, over and over, makes it feel like nothing matters.

So--I like this better than anything else I've read by Twain. And I applaud his stance on many issues and agree with his criticisms. But it's an odd book that could have been better.

In my opinion.

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