Yankee in the court of King Arthur by Michael Giglio

Book Cover

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-19 02:17:20 UTC

The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court describes what would have happened if a "modern" at the time person with "golden hands" had arrived in the 6th century. The story is about the times when people still believed in monsters, and when the protagonist, Hank, shows off his modern technology, he is treated as a god. But even a god, who created contemporary education, the weapons from thousands of years in the future, and even "inventing" the game of baseball, could not do anything against an entire country blindly believing in the church. And when the church deemed him and his gifts unholy... the reason that nobody had known about this age of enlightenment becomes prevalent.

Mark Twain

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-19 02:20:29 UTC

Samuel Clemens, or by pen, "Mark Twain" was one of the greatest humorists of all time. Writing radical, and relatable to this day works of art, he is most famous for his Tom Sawer series. However, he is now only a legend, because the visibility of slavery in some of his books is frowned down upon by us in modern society.

The Church of the respectable Anglo-Saxon

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-19 02:50:59 UTC

'Mark Twain' portrays the medieval church as a superpower and a dictatorship. As Hank starts a school, re-educating people from their speculations that they were destined to live in poverty, he leaves. His wife, whom he meets on the journey, gets sick and he leaves the country for a few months. When he comes back, all technology is shut down, and everybody who had grown up in the time of the church being an overlord returned it as such. And Hank had to stand alone, against the people he reeducated himself, and against the whole of Britain. All because the Church convinced everybody to return back to their beliefs.

House of the rising sun

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-19 13:03:36 UTC

This song is very catchy and connects to the book through some unknown means. But it talks about a wasted life, one of the book's prevalent themes. Even the royalty in those times was uneducated and didn't know what to do, according to the book.

"With that explosion, all of my grand civilization flew up into the air"(page 351)

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-21 19:52:26 UTC

This quote is from the end of the book, when Hank, and a group of 52 teens are standing against all of Great Britan, and the army of the Catholic Church. Hank knows that the knights will try to use all their factories against him, so he decides to have them self-destruct, therefore ending all of his progress and 19th-century civilization. I like this quote because the protagonist shows his being stoic by not really reacting when he had just put a country he had worked so hard on back to the middle ages.

The Medieval Church-World History Encyclopedia

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-21 22:29:25 UTC

This is an article explaining the medieval church and why it would be the main antagonist to a character believing in freedom of religion.

Praise for the book

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-21 22:58:13 UTC

Transcript: The Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur is a beautiful book. It should be recommended to all sorts of middle schoolers. Mark Twain is a great author and his works need to be one of the groundings in a young mind's literature base. I, for example, really liked the fantasy theme while it being grounded with a realistic depiction of history back in the day. The book might be a bit radical, and employ some cliche, but the read is definitely worth it. The book is a great example of hardships and illiterterature triumphed by technology. The character also has a dark side, which is not portrayed in most books today. Again, I love this book and would recommend it for all ages. -Short bow-. Thank you.

Technical progress overcoming zealots, but temporarily

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-21 23:12:04 UTC

I can't put it any other way, as that is one of the known themes of the book. Hank's story ends in one of the most epic battles of all time. When all his progress, education of people, and liberation of the people go to waste under the influence of traveling knights and the domineering catholic church, and an army of thirty thousand knights besieges him, the final test of brains vs brawn starts. Using munition from the nineteenth century, he destroys the knights and defeats them all with a group of students. And in a crushing turn of events, the church's persistence in crushing all unholy objects leaves the group trapped behind walls of the dead. Long story short, everyone becomes unknown martyrs, and Hank gets sent back to the future, where he tells his story. Brains can overcome brawn, but persistence can overcome just anything...

The lore being a little changed.

michaelgiglio — 2024-04-21 23:32:18 UTC

Mark Twain describes the entirety of the time loop with discrete clues, like a bullet made in a knight's armor, artifacts of the steam age found with an ancient sword, or Merlin's tower blown up by some gunpowder. He was one who described time travel before the genre was popularized and had some unique ideas about what would happen if it did happen.