I head seen and heard little tidbits about 'Connecticut Yankee...' over the past several years. It is one of Twain's most well known novels, after Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn, but I've mostly caught references to the story in parodies featuring Bugs Bunny or Martin Lawrence. That is to say that the time travel to the Middle Ages gag has been overutilized of late. However, the book is a commentary on the ways of modern life, as much as it is a damning critique of powerlessness of 6th Century peasants.

I won't spoil the sumptuous morsels in the book, but the protagonist Hank Morgan finds himself in the time of King Arthur Pendragon. After being hustled into prison for insulting the honor of a member of the Knight-Errantry, Hank cleverly saves himself from his own execution by using a combination of clever science and good timing. Because of the perception of his powers, he gets himself established as King Arthur's closest minister and magician, displacing the scheming, foul-tempered Merlin. Instead of taking the name of Dukeship, he settles for the title of 'The Boss.'

Far from wanting to apply the fear and power that his station allows him, he sets about modernizing the 6th Century, with all the wonders of the 19th Century, in an attempt to liberate the abused and dispossessed peasant masses. His inventions range from the hysterical and quirky, to clever and impressive. Electricity, firearms, locomotives, and advertising all come about through Morgan's hand.

But, as the book progresses, and he tries to teach King Arthur to amend the intransigence of his noble breeding to empathize with the plight of the poor English peasants, he directly challenges the authority of the Knight-Errantry, and stirs up a disastrous conflict with a desperate enemy.

In many ways, the novel works to dispel the notion that technology and education (and all the good things that come along with both of those) can reverse the damage of Centuries of indoctrination and institutional rule. Twain is at his most fatalistic here when he builds our hopes and expectations to believe that through determination and good will, one man can really confront and defeat the injustice of a nation, only to dash them. He seems clear (and the introduciton to my volumes hits on this) that Mark Twain is making a cogent point about the trappings of the Industrial Age of the 19th Century, and predicting the rise and fall of the Labor Class in America.

Twain's brilliance comes through in the excitement and wonderment he builds when presenting the view of the "modern man" in a position to reshape our dismal and banal shared past. Even after 100 years, the novel retains relevance and Twain's laugh-out-loud wit, leaving me wondering what I hadn't read this book before.