4.0 KiB
[DC] A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - an engineer attempts to modernize medieval England
-
Author: u/Timewinders *
-
Score: 15
-
Created: 2014-08-03T00:13:46
Post:
Comments:
u/Timewinders [+10] (3 minutes later)
I'm actually really surprised that no one else has recommended this since it's a classic. It's a deconstruction of romantic ideals of medieval society common in novels at the time, as well as a deconstruction of modern society at that time. It also has some rational elements that I think people here would find interesting, though it's been a long time since I read it so I don't recall exactly how rational it was. I included the project Gutenberg link because it has pictures but here's a link without pictures: http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/ . Also, this book is in a similar style, though I haven't read it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall.
u/None [+2] (21 hours later)
They also made a movie based on this starring Bing Crosby. Less about modernizing medieval England and more about jazzing it up, perhaps.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (2 days later)
The ending always felt shocking to me. Came out of nowhere. Was Twain trying to give a message, with that, or was it just lazy writing?
u/Timewinders [+3] (2 days later)
Which part of the ending? I'm not sure how to interpret it either, but I think Connecticut Yankee
u/chaosmosis [+2] and with strange aeons, even death may die (3 days later)
I agree with your interpretation. But I felt there wasn't enough effort or time invested setting that up. For 95% of the book, Boss was winning easily.
u/Timewinders [+3] (3 days later)
Fair enough. The book was more comedic early on but ended up shifting later. I'm not sure why, maybe it was the circumstances in his life or maybe he just had long breaks between working on his novels, but it's not the only book of Mark Twain that changes near the end. Huckleberry Finn is probably my favorite book by him, but the last section was pretty inconsistent in tone.