A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by.html and three other major books - 9 out of 10

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by.html and three other major books

 

9 out of 10

 

Mark Twain has his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn included among the 100 Greatest Books of All Time, while A Connecticut Yankee is listed along four other works with the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, the Yankee in the Science fiction and fantasy, while the others are sprinkled in the Comedy, Travel and other sections

 

As the title makes clear, this Yankee, engineer Hank Morgan, finds himself at the Court of King Arthur, which means we have the chance to travel in time with the hero, and in my case, get to try and assess what has changed, how much we have progressed, and was is just the same, and let me put this first – it is not an overwhelming conclusion

The usual spoiler alert is needed, for while I have found some passages that have been interesting, overall, this book is not one my favorites, albeit, to really state that, one needs to pay attention, which I did not, alternatively, The Connecticut Yankee did not do much to get me glued to his story and what happened back some centuries ago

 

Ergo, this was a mild endorsement of the novel, and then I venture into the unknown…well, in fact, some of the usual tropes will follow, lamenting on the Decline and Fall https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/02/decline-and-fall-by-evelyn-waugh.html of the once greatest democracies in the world

Reading through The Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court, we may get the feeling that the poor people have had it so bad, and that is clear, only, this crossed my mind – they had these lords exploiting them, and we have some chapters showing you that, only now, people vote for the ghouls, the likes of Orange Jesus

 

On most levels, we are obviously light years ahead, in medicine – they die in the narrative from diseases that are under control now – but then you also have the brainless, who fight tooth and nail against…vaccination, saying that this modern, wondrous discovery is the weapon of the evil, they will dominate you

Yuval Harari is the fantastic author of three major books, Homo Sapiens, A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21^st Century and Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/homo-deus-brief-history-of-tomorrow-by.html the latter explains the future…

Yuval Harari is one of the most respectable luminaries of our age, he has an optimistic view – or used to, with the war in Ukraine things probably changed – mentioning the fact that, after two devastating, world wars, humanity has been on a path of peace, with progress on so many fronts, expect Putin came along, and we have paradigm shift

 

A paradigm shift is explained in the Booker Prize Winner Vernon God Little https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/vernon-god-little-by-dbc-pierre-divine.html by DBC Pierre - imagine you enter a room, says one character, and you see a man with a finger up your grannie’s arse, what do you say?

Oh, bastard, I will jump on him, but then you find that the fellow had learned about a massive danger, and overcoming his reluctance, has decided to try and save your relative, so what is your take now…oh, this is a hero – it was something like that, in what is a glorious book, at least in the first half, one of my favorites

 

As the tile of the book shows, Home Deus proposes a future in which we are Gods, we will live more and more, until eternity is within reach, or we are near, Artificial Intelligence will provide self-driving cars that are operated by a combination of Michael Schumacher and Immanuel Kant, albeit we will be asked to make choices

In the future, you could have the Operating Software programmed in two ways, if an accident is looming, does it prioritize the others, walkers, passengers, or is it protecting you first, in other words, the altruistic, or the selfish modes…

 

Which brings me, in a convoluted way, to the problem of the political system, however better it is from the age of King Arthur and others, it is still appalling in so many places – now that I write this, I stop and wonder, trying to calculate – so you have China, Russia, and India right there, with masses of people, and awful systems

Granted, India is a democracy, they have voted recently, bringing back Narendra Modi, but the guy is more than flawed, with his attacks on Muslims and a few days ago, he went for a bear hug with Putin, and that in itself is clear evidence that the most populous land in the world does not have a leader who is much better than King Arthur, if at all

 

Daniel Kahneman is the only psychologist who has won the Nobel Prize, although it was for economy, there is no such trophy for psychology, alas, he is the author of Thinking Fast and Slow  https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/07/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel.html and I think of the Regression to The Mean which he explains in the book

Humanity has advanced in so many ways, but to have Orange Jesus as the favorite to win the most powerful job in the world is a sign of decline for yours truly, and he is not alone, there are Putin, Xi, Kim, and so many others, and they represent the ideals of billions of eejits, yes, a number of the above rule in tyrannies, but they have fans in democracies (which is the case for Trump) and cohorts worship representatives of evil, how can it be that after millennia of progress, Renaissance, spectacular advancement in science, we have those leaders?

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”