Group Read - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain

Here is the thread for discussion of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I'm set for this. I'll start reading in about a week I think.

I've requested it from the library. SHould get it in a couple of days.

At first I didnt think I would join this one but on Audible it was only $4.95 so I will be listening to the audio book here at work.

I'll be listening to the audio version as well.

I've got my copy in my bedroom, ready to go!

I hadn't planned to join this group read. I think I read it years and years and years ago, but it's been so long that I'm not entirely certain. But last night I discovered a free audio version on Audiobooks (great source, by the way -- I'm having so much fun with my new iPad!), so I think I'll listen to it.

I may read along as I have a (free) ebook edition on my iPad. Depends on how my other reading goes.

Looking forward to rereading this one! First time I read it was for a King Arthur class at university.

I need to download a copy of it. After I read it, I may just have to watch that version of it with Bing Crosby that I'm seeing on Amazon!

I got an audio version from the library and 2 different film versions to compare, after I finish the book.

>10 thornton37814:: I saw that version at HMV! Can't remember how much it was though. If you watch it, let me know how it is -- if it's really unintentionally hilarious and the price is right I might pick it up.

Downloaded it and am ready to start.

Okay, I'm such a problem child.

I just looked at my iBook of King Arthur...

I don't supposed anyone else's book starts with "Part 9"? And Chapter XLI (which I think means 41 in English?).

That is the brown cover version. I'm now uploading the green cover version. I'll check back....
Yeah, the green cover is part 6. So, I guess I need to go download the rainbow of covers....In any case, I will begin it next week sometime.

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I got the free edition from Gutenberg... Not sure if I'll get to it this month though, I think I might be overplanning my reading for this month. We'll see, I'll just lurk around a bit :)

I got a free version for my Nook a while ago, and started it yesterday.
So far it's fun (surprise for me because I'm normally not a big classics fan.)

Fun. I really enjoyed reading this. It starts a bit slow, but more and more happens towards the end.

I'm listening to the audio book and so far I'm liking it. :)

It took me a while to warm up to the narrator's voice on my audiobook. Or maybe it took the reader a while to warm up. Anyway, I'm well into it and enjoying it.

I finished the book in the car this afternoon. I remembered the first part of the book, but nothing about the rest of it. I thought I had read it years ago, but maybe I started it and never finished it. I did enjoy it, but maybe not quite as much this time around (at least the parts that I remembered).

I finished it last night on my Kindle.

Started the audio book yesterday. So far, the narrator (of the book, not the audio) is kind of a jerk. Not loving it yet. I think I got a bad start when the first thing out of the hat was the I'm-so-powerful-I-can-control-the-sun trick. Who - really - knows the exact date of a total solar eclipse from more than a thousand years ago, and on the other side of the globe, right off the top of his head? Maybe Twain was the first one who used this device and it was fresh and clever in 1889, but it's been over-used in the last 124 years and has lost its appeal. Since that point, nothing else has happened to impress me overmuch. (Besides him being a jerk, that is.) It's a short book, and easy, so I'll finish it. But still....

I didn't love it, didn't hate it...

No, I don't expect to hate it, either. It's just that I've never actually read anything by Mark Twain (despite it having been assigned to me in school) and I expected better. I'm not seeing the genius yet. I'm still in the first third of the book, so there is still opportunity for me to be won over.

When I checked the book out, I also checked out two different movie versions of the story. I'm looking forward to watching them as soon as I finish the book. I can see that a movie might actually be more entertaining than the book, if it were done right.

Sandy, you're right about Hank. He is a jerk, and I think he's supposed to be. Hank is good at pointing out the flaws in the society he finds himself in, but he's blind to his own. I think Twain means for readers to question just how much civilization has actually progressed between Arthur's time and his own.

I think the eclipse ploy is based on something that happened on one of Columbus's voyages. In real life, Columbus had an almanac with him that predicted the date of the eclipse.

"Hate" is a bit strong for my reaction, but I don't like it and I think I may abandon it.

About a week ago I read the first few chapters, wasn't impressed and didn't go back to it. Then this week, I decided to give it another try with the audio version. I think I'm about 1/4 or a little more through it, and I'm just not enjoying it. I'm guessing that the reason I think I might have read it years ago, but remember little about it, is that I started it once and abandoned it then too. I know I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when I was a kid, and I liked them, though they weren't favorite books.

>22 sjmccreary: & 24 Sandy, my thoughts are much the same as yours. And I expected it to be funny -- isn't Mark Twain known for his wit? -- but so far the humor is mostly put-downs, which I rarely find funny.

>25 cbl_tn: Carrie, nice insights! I'll keep that in mind, as I give it one more chance this weekend.

You know, I've been thinking about Twain's contemporaries, one of whom was Henry James, who celebrated the graciousness of European life as opposed to the gaucheness of American life. Maybe one of the things Twain was doing was thumbing his nose at Henry James and his ilk.

These are some good insights into Twain's work - I'll try to keep a more open mind as I continue with the book.

I've passed the half way point and enjoying the book much more now.

You know, I'm having fun with this one. I've decided it's less a novel and more of a satire. Twain had a bunch of things he wanted to say about stuff so he just rolled it into this oddball story.

#30 I had the same thought, re it being a satire.

I think so, too. Your comments are making me want to re-read. I need to know more about listening to books. I have no MP3 player nor do I have an Ipod. So if I want to listen and walk what do you advice for machine. I tossed the old Walkman that played tapes.
:???? Any advice, anyone?

Check with your library and see if they have a device called a playaway. They are one book one a small (less than cellphone size) which will play an audio book. You just need earphones.

Well, I finished it. I got the feeling that Twain wasn't exactly sure how to end this one so he just sort of created a general explosion. I enjoyed the book. I think it told me more about Mark Twain and how he felt about America vs. Europe than anything else.

>34 Bjace:. Excatly the impression I got

End of April and I finally finished this book. As a nineteenth century satire it works brilliantly. In the twenty-first century it says a whole lot about America's opinion of itself as superior. Well that actually hasn't changed all that much. User susan67 reviewed American Notes by Dickens about his travel in America and a book by Anthony Trollope's mother, Frances Domestic Manners of the Americans. It is the flip side of this coin that Mark Twain portrays in this book with the British authors thinking that nineteenth century Americans were uncouth and beneath them.

I did enjoy the juxtaposition of nineteenth century inventions being used in the sixth century.