A review by nolemdaer
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

It can take some time to parse out Twain’s thoughts versus the main character’s, but the book is a satire of our Yankee and his devotion to the Industrial Revolution as much as it is of the sixth century (or at least I read it that way), so I wasn’t particularly annoyed by his superiority complex. I’d have a superiority complex over slave drivers and aristocrats too, methinks. You’ll still get the racism and Twainisms you’d expect, but the story fundamentally challenges the destruction wrought by oppressive economic and governmental systems, and I wouldn’t say it particularly suggests capitalism as the solution either.

The actual structure is very episodic and surprisingly easy to read. I didn’t “like” the book, per se, but it was anti-monarchist and anti-slavery enough to be readable.