A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

In the home I grew up in, we had a parlor room. It went through several evolutions, new furniture, wall paper and then pink (yes) paint, but one thing that stayed always was the giant wooden bookcase. It covered one entire wall, floor to ceiling, and was full of books.

My mother always bought books, lots and lots of books. Most of them were very old, some were homeschool curriculum, a lot were religious. Sometimes I wondered how certain books made their way there. (Especially the time I crossed paths with the book State Fair (1932) by Phil Stong. I am pretty sure I was too young for that book.)

This is how I stumbled into A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889, Mark Twain.) I picked it up randomly from one of the shelves. I remember it was in the lower right-hand corner, almost hidden. It has a pretty blue cover and red lettering. I had read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, of course, so I assumed I would love it, as I loved them.

However, this story, at that time, for me, was one of the most preposterous, confounding ones I'd ever read. I was taken aback by its utter ridiculousness. And, I felt like a horrible person, when I truly believed the story (even though by such a great author) was BAD!

Hank Morgan, a 19th century resident of Hartford Connecticut, after a strong blow to the head, finds himself magically transported to Medieval England.

He's befuddled, understandably so, as are the people around him. His dress, and his speech, they all make him stand out. King Arthur, upon the insistence of a bumbling Merlin, sentences Hank to be burned at the stake. For no real reason at the time, other than he looked and acted strange.

Happily, Hank discovered what day it was - June 20, 528 -  and his vast knowledge of history gave him an advantage. He threatened the people with darkness, for he remembered a solar eclipse would happen on that day. They ignored him of course.

But as he stood, tied to a stake, the sky grew dark. The people begged for the return of the sun! The king said he would be pardoned, if only he would bring back the sun. Slowly, the sun appeared again.

Hank then became a second in command in the kingdom. They called him "the Boss." He set up all manner of "modern" contrivances: electricity, telephone, roads, explosions.

He debunked and hornswoggled Merlin and his "magic" on several occasions.

There are many more incredulous adventures, I won't relay all of them here.

It is absolutely a story well worth reading, so you can make up your own mind. 

These days, I have a much less skeptical view of time travel, and I don't think the story is quite nearly as preposterous as I once believed.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889, Mark Twain

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

Mr. Mercedes

This is one of those stories that pulls you in and doesn't let go. You always want to know what's around the corner, wondering what new twist will jump out.

In the beginning you learn about the sad, desperate lives of those standing in line outside of a great meeting hall.

They are standing in a twisty line, waiting for a weekend job fair to open its doors. Some of them have been there all night, and in the early morning fog, they crawl out of their sleeping bags to stretch. A young woman with a baby struggles to stay awake. A kind, older man in a tattered denim jacket standing nearby helps her calm the baby. They don't know each other. But he's a kind man, and offers her his sleeping bag. She crawls inside it, with her child, thankful for relief from the cold damp air. 

Off in the distance, the sleepy group hears a blaring horn. It's foggy; no one can see past the curb. None of them give the sound a second thought.

Suddenly, a giant black Mercedes burst through the fog. Barreling through the vast almost-empty parking lot, it aims straight for the crowd.

The people scream. Realizing they are in deadly peril, they scramble in vain to get out of the death path. It’s almost impossible, the crowd is packed tightly in a very small space, the old and weak are trampled.

Some escape with injuries: an arm torn off, a leg broken; but many more are killed, their bodies cold on the ground in the light of the rising sun.

One year later...

Retired detective Hodges sits in his old decrepit recliner, the repetitive daytime television blaring in his living room. He slowly fondles the gun in his hands. He's pondered many times the thought of offing himself. His life is over. He’s alone. He has nothing left to offer the world. There were a handful of cases left unsolved when he retired; they stick in his craw, irritating him. But most irritating of all, is that of the “Mercedes killer.”

He sighs, a heavy, weary sigh, and slowly drinks another beer.

He hears the metal mail slot in his front door clink. Wearily, he trudges to the door, leans over painfully and picks up a handful of mail. It’s mostly junk mail and some ridiculous nonsense about AARP.

But then, he notices an odd envelope. There is no return address; the label is printed, leaving no traces of it's origins.

Curiously, a strange sense of foreboding settles over him. And he opens the letter.

What follows is a delightfully twisty tail of suspense and mystery. You need to read it for yourself.

I never read any Steven King book before 2014 and this is the second book of his I've read. I "read" this via Audible, I finished it only a couple of day; I listened every free moment I could.

Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King, 2014

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

Back Roads

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. J.D. Salinger

I won’t tell you too much about this story. I want you to read it. I want it to leave an impression with you.

I will tell you how it affected me. This book elicited one of the strongest emotional responses I’ve ever experienced while reading a book.

The story is that of Harley, a boy of nineteen. His mother has recently been thrown into prison, convicted of murdering his abusive father; leaving him, a young man of nineteen, to parent his three younger sisters. He does the best he can. He’s angry, of course. Harley is angry at his mother for leaving him in this predicament, he’s angry at his now-dead father for being the cause. He lives with bitterness as his daily companion.

He works, to support their little family; he is a good, if somewhat resentful, provider.  He tries to take care of his sisters, getting them to school, and dealing with their petty (as he sees them) issues and social injustices. But, he can’t support them emotionally; he doesn’t understand girls, and definitely not his own sisters.

He’s orphaned, barely an adult himself, and has been weighted down with the responsibilities of adult hood. It’s an extremely stressful time in his life. He resorts to drinking. He parks his truck out in the country, and drinks.

He stumbles around the countryside, exploring, looking for a way out that he knows is not there.

Then he falls in love with a neighbor. They collide with each other somewhat accidently, in a meadow.

She is a middle-aged married mother of two very young children. Tawni created a bittersweet female character: a sad woman, somewhat confident, happy to walk about in jeans and bare feet, with beautiful hazel hair, and green eyes.

They meet secretly and have picnics, and watch the stars. He sneaks into her house when her husband is gone. They talk. They drink.

When it dawned on me that Tawni was about to kill off my favorite character, I was so mad!

Angrily, I tossed the book in the back seat of the car. I left it there and didn’t pick it up for several weeks. Finally, wanting to know the ending, I did fish it out and finish reading it.

Some of the imagery is extremely graphic. I had to cringe and skip over some of it, because that’s not something I can handle. Tawni describes, sadly, the demise of my character, in grisly detail.

Undeniably, this is a story that stays with you for a long time. 

Back Roads, 2000, Tawni O'Dell 

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Time Machine

This book is not really about the time machine, as the title suggests, it’s about a time traveler.

In the beginning, along with a dinner party of the time traveler’s guests, we are told about his amazing invention – a miniature time machine. The time traveler sends his miniature time machine into the future. Of course, there is no way to validate this actually happened. To his dinner guests, it just disappeared. They think that is just a parlor trick – a prank – and accuse him of such.

He’s hurt, and frustrated. They left, leaving loud guffaws and incredulousity following in their wake.

The time traveler already has a human-sized time machine. He’s built it, and it sits silently in his workshop.

He has an idea! He wrote a note for his housekeeper, went to his study and locked the door.

The time traveler turns on his machine, and then commences its inaugural voyage.

At first it is jolty, and he gets sick, he’s not accustomed to the motion. As he learns and gets more accustomed to the levers of the machine, he slowly increases his rate of travel. Moving forward in time he eventually slows down and stops in the year 802,701.

He’s landed in a grassy meadow, in the shadow of a giant statue of a sphinx –like creature. The abrupt stop tossed him unceremoniously onto the soft grass, and he’s dazed momentarily.

He discovered several hundred humanoid-like creatures. They were very small and childlike. They didn’t understand his words, or his concerns about their simple worry-free life.

They were the Eloi, and lived together in a commune type of situation. Their diet consisted of fruit, and was provided for them. It magically appeared. They did not grow it themselves, nor did they even wonder where it came from.

One of them, a young female named Weena, became very attached to the time traveler after he saved her life. She had been drowning in a river, and he jumped in to save her. She followed him everywhere from that day forward. He tried to teach her his language, and she, after much persuading on his part, tried to learn his. Neither one of them was very successful.

There were other creatures in this place –Morlocks. They lived underground in great caves. At first, the time traveler thought they were the ones who were a lower order of creature, one devolved into an ape-like creature.

But, what he soon realized was that they in fact were the ones in charge of things. They raised and fed the Eloi and then ate them!

He walked with Weena to an abandoned building and found a library. He wanted to find out the history of the world between 1800 and 802,701. But he was sorely distraught when he touched the books that remained, for they disintegrated to dust in his hands.

The time traveler’s time machine was stolen by the Morlocks, and he had some difficulty retrieving it, as they had hidden it a cavern underneath the sphinx. However, they didn't know he could escape their time via his machine. So he sneaked in and turned the levers on and escaped.

He decided to travel forward once more and he watched the sun getting bigger and bigger, and then fading completely away, he watched the planet get cold and become covered with ice.

He saw a frozen beach. A giant crab, eating the carcass of a dead humanoid creature. He shivered at the cold and at the ghastly sight.

The note which the time traveler had left for his housekeeper had told her to have supper ready a week from his departure, and to invite the same guests back.

They were there at the appointed time, once again haranguing him. He was late and he was crazy and how rude of him to not show for his own dinner party.

He burst through the door, disheveled and spent. Shaking, he poured himself a glass of wine, and then another, as his guests looked at him speechless.

And then he recounted to them the tale you've just read.

This was a great book. I don’t know why I hadn't read it until just this year. The story starts out a little slow. But have patience, you will be rewarded. 

The Time Machine, H. G. Wells, 1895

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Giver

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.” 

This is the story of Jonas. He lives with his family in a futuristic Utopian world. It is a place completely isolated from the rest of the planet, where everyone's decisions are made for them. 

Colors are not seen. The people only see black and white; their memories of color are gone. Their memories were suppressed, along with their ability to experience emotion.

Everything in the community is in order; no one breaks the laws, everyone lives in perfect harmony, assigned to their tasks, and assigned to their family unit.

The community advisers “protect” the people from making the “wrong” choices.  In essence, they completely eradicate the freedom of choice.

“When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong.”

There is continual sameness. There is nothing unique, or special defining their lives.

Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver, the only mind receptacle for all the world's memories. There is one only, in the whole community. When Jonas receives from the Giver, the memories of history, he starts to question the leaders. He wants to share the happy wonderful things he can share, the colors he can now see, and the wonderful smells. Even after he starts learning about pain, and war, and starvation, fear, and many horrible things, he still wants to share the memories with the rest of the community.

He starts breaking the rules. His friends question his decisions to speak out against the authorities, and the perceived way things are “supposed to be”, because they don’t, and can’t, understand.

“The way things look and the way things are, are very different.”

We should question the stories fed to us, we should questioning their validity and accuracy. Far too often, in our world, we take the information that is given to us, and don’t bother to do our own research, or to even think for ourselves. That is a worthy part of this story: it reminds us to live with eyes wide open. Things are not always as they appear.  

My overwhelming feeling, upon finishing this book, was disappointment. I know there are many people who love it, but it was not a great story for me. It’s possible that reading books like 1984, The Hunger Games, and Divergent have ruined me for this type of story. I do wish I had read The Giver first.

Jonas did take a baby, Gabriel, and save him from “Elsewhere” but we never find out what happens.

It ended in a weird, unsolved way. There was no real resolution.

Undoubtedly, I need to read the rest of the four-book series. Perhaps the entire story will make more sense if I read them all.

The Giver, Lois Lowry, 1993

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Glass Castle

This is a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale, one that somewhat resembles my childhood. It’s a story of survival, and triumph. Some of the stories remind me of things that happened in my childhood. And, reading this made me grateful for what I did have, because what I went through was not quite as bad as everything that Jeannette and her siblings endured.

A very vivid story was when the author (Jeannette Walls) described a room in the rotting house she and her family were living in. There was mold covering the walls, and holes in the floor that led all the way to the dirt below. When I was growing up, our house was a “fixer upper” and somewhat dilapidated, but the holes in our floors at least went directly to the basement and not the true outdoors.

Her father was a drunk, and her mother was always very lost in her art. She mostly just forgot that she had children, and they were left to fend for themselves.

They didn’t go to school; her mother “homeschooled” them. Meaning, she left them to their own devices, and they read books from the library. This is one of the parts that reminded me of my life. I feel like my mother left us alone to fend for ourselves. Our curriculum was also based almost solely on library books. Because they were free.

When Jeannette was about five years old, she burned her stomach while cooking. Her mother was off in another room, painting. She had forgotten about her children. She would often disappear into trance-like states, where nothing existed in her life, except whatever painting she was working on.

(This reminds me of my life because, after my mom got her first computer in 1994, she checked out. That was the demarcation point where she stopped paying attention to her children. We were by then old enough to fend for ourselves at that point (not boiling hot dogs on the stove at five years old) but it still hurt.)

Jeannette had seen her older sister boil hot dogs. She was hungry, so she attempted to make them for herself. The scalding hot water splashed onto her belly and she ended up in the local hospital with third degree burns.

There were questions about her well-being. The doctors asked her if she felt safe and secure in her home. It was the only life she knew, she did feel safe, and it was her home. She knew nothing different. This is why, when the topic of reporting my home life to authorities came up in my very young life, I chose not to. Because the monster you know is better than the monster you don’t.

The doctors wanted Jeannette to stay in the hospital for a few days, because the burning was quite severe. But her father broke her out of the hospital. Shortly after, she and the rest of the family were on the move.

Their family moved all the time. There were many times they could not pay the rent, so they would skip town and try somewhere new. Her mother and father would always spin it as an adventure. (They were also running from the authorities, as they had never paid taxes. They didn’t want to give the government any money.)

They lived as nomads. Sometimes, they would sleep in the car because they could not find anyone who would rent to them. Her father was a drunk who could not keep a job. Her mother every now and again could sell her paintings, but the money never lasted long.

One time they got a lot of popcorn and got sick, eating too much popcorn. But it was all they had. There was no money for food. Her mother hid chocolate from her children and kept it for herself. She was not well. Jeannette tells of her anger at her mother for doing this. But, Jeannette as an adult, I feel as if she forgave her mother, because she realized her mother was insane.

It was a miracle that the children even ate at all.

Her father was always telling Jeannette about this wonderful glass castle he would build “one of these days” for their family. He would tell her about his blueprints and all the lovely things he would create. He would describe each detail to her as if he was a painter, creating a masterpiece.

Eventually Jeannette realized the castle was a creation that would only ever exist in his mind.

Jeannette Walls weaves this horrible tale with grace, forgiveness, and understanding. She holds no grudges against her parents.

Everyone should read this book

The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, 2005

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

a few words about books

“But even now, with the crates piled high in the hall, what I see most plainly about the books is that they are beautiful. They take up room? Of course they do: they are an environment; atoms, not bits. My books are not dead weight, they are live weight — matter infused by spirit, every one of them, even the silliest. They do not block the horizon; they draw it. They free me from the prison of contemporaneity: one should not live only in one’s own time. A wall of books is a wall of windows.” 

― Leon Wieseltier

“Fiction does something unique in that it takes us out of our heads and puts us into other people's heads. And I think reading, and experiencing fiction through reading, is something that gives us empathy. And that, I think, is vital. It takes us out of our lives. 

Without reading, you're stuck with one life. Reading gives you more than one life. It gives you an infinite number of lives, which I think is wonderful. Or at least, not infinite, but as many as there are books on the shelves.” 
― Neil Gaiman

“She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. "A few hundred," she said.

"How do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on?” 
― Eleanor Brown

“Some say they get lost in books, but I find myself, again and again, in the pages of a good book. Humanly speaking, there is no greater teacher, no greater therapist, no greater healer of the soul, than a well-stocked library.” 
― L.R. Knost

“No time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: there’s always something to be learned. It’s just that, every now and again, you hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if you’re pootling about… But what can you do about it? We don’t choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down.” 
― Nick Hornby

“He read it over twenty times and though the darkness that sang on held steady about him, the unhurried words fell bright through his mind, going down golden through deep water, and when one passed another came, ceaselessly, shining.” 
― Elizabeth Spencer

Photo: blissinimages

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series.