A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Its really amusing how life works out.  I had totally planned on reading another book but somehow I started to read A Connecticut Yankee.  Mark Twain is a genius and is funny as hell.  This is one of the first time-travel books ever published and it's great.  The story follows the adventure of a Yankee from Connecticut who mysteriously ends up in England during the middle ages.  This is not a kids book akin to Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Fin.  It's a book full of political intrigue and grown up thoughts.  Twain was a republican and very much hated the British noble by birth or fealty to a sovereign.  It was released in 1889 but the spirit of 1776 (American Revolution) bleeds through this book.  Here is a great example of his republican spirit:

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it....


Another thing I very much enjoyed in this book are Twain's not so veiled cracks at the Catholic church.  He did not like the Church and did not hide from that fact.  Actually the whole book is about debunking the Monarchy.  The main characters goal is to turn Camelot (this perceived moral pinnacle of English life) into America.  If you think that would be a good thing or not I'll leave up to the reader.  It's quite clear that this book has influenced so many other time-travel books.  Many of its themes have been explored by so many other books that a few times I had wondered if I had already read this. 

I really loved this work of fiction.

The next book I am going to read is:

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I read this book when I was a kid.  Or at least I thought I had.  As I am reading/re-reading I'm not remembering much of it.  I've seen TV and movie adaptions of course but the story feels new to me which was a nice surprise.  Huck of course is resourceful and funny.  Some of the hijinks's are great and his planning and escaping near danger is what gives this book its classic nature. 

The one problem I am having with is his companion Jim.  I'm not put off by the repeated use of n-word.  As much as I hate it now I understand that when Twain was writing it was common practice to write characters in such a way.  It's his speech that is throwing me off.  Maybe it's my 21 century brain that is having trouble figuring it out.

Huck Fin really is an incredible character.  Twain really nailed it with this one.  Such a clever little chap.  Always has mischief in his mind.  Sometimes his mischief leads to bad results but most of the time he is just having some fun.  This is a book that all kids should read.  Huck keeps getting in jams with very narrow escapes.  He meets all sorts of interesting people on the river.  Give this to your child right now!

The Crusades through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf

 

I love history.  The Crusades has always been a topic that I was drawn to.  The world changed after the Crusades.  I've always read books from the Christian or Western point of view.  This book was fascinating because all the sources were from Muslim Chronicles.  I can now understand why and how the first crusade was so successful.  The Muslim world (like Europe) was fractured.  Egypt was not friends with the Turks.  Baghdad wasn't getting on with Damascus and so forth and so forth.  In many ways the east were far advanced in science, medicine and obviously mathematics.  Algebra was one of the things that came to Europe because of the Crusades (art, medical practices and the carrier pigeon were other things that the Europeans took back with them). 

 

Muslims saw the Christians are barbarians.  Uneducated blood thirsty warriors(there were a few stories of Christians eating Muslims that they had just killed).  It would take 200 years before Saladin was able to bring forces together to finally kick them out of the Holy Land.  The author goes on to explain while the Christians took so many things back with them the Muslims rejected everything and anything Christian.  This maybe as simple as invader/invaded.  The conquerors take and the invaded reject.  In fact many Muslims believe Crusades are still going on in the middle east and have a mistrust of the west dating back to the 1100.  This book is a must read for all the history buffs out there.  It takes a different spin on a sad and desperate time. 

 

I rate this book 10/10.

 

I am now reading Brave new world by Aldous Huxley