I am ashamed to admit that I have not read anything by Mark Twain other than Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, lending further credence to my claim that I am actually a high school English teacher in disguise. So, when I came across Connecticut Yankee in my roommates personal library, i decided to give it a try. For those of you like myself who are as unfamiliar with Mark Twain as Pat claims to be with macro-economics, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court follows our protagonist "Hank" or "The Boss" as he is later known, a nineteenth-century all-American, Hartford man. Hank takes a blow to the head in a scuffle and finds himself suddenly transported LOST-style to the sixth century. Hilarity and hi-jinx ensue. Duels are fought, peasants are dazzled, and the satire! Oh the satire!
In Connecticut Yankee, Twain spends most of his time lambasting the church and making fun of the superstitious, both favorite pastimes of mine, so it was fun to see some of that classic Twainonian wit applied to things which I like to apply my less classic, Gowlandious wit.
I don't think I came into my reading of this book with the right expectations. I was hoping for pages and pages of satire that would feel self-satisfied about the points with which I agreed and humbled by those that revealed how far I had yet to come to reach that shining city on a hill that is Twainistan enlightenment, but I mostly got plot. ENGAGING plot, ENTERTAINING plot, but plot, nonetheless. That being said, there were moments it this story that were heartbreaking in Lamplian proportions as well as moments that made me laugh out loud on the subway, but I just didn't have any amazing greater truths revealed to me.
Overall, I had a blast reading this book and seeing what nineteenth-century technology would have done to the sixth century and making fun of the church, but it's not the book I would pick up if I wanted my world-view shattered, all tall order, but it's Mark Twain. 6.5/10
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