If you think Bing Crosby's 1949 movie was anything like Mark Twain's fantasy classic published in 1889...Forget It! Like the precursor novels Gulliver's Travels, written in 1726 by Jonathan Swift, and Alice in Wonderland, written in 1865 by Lewis Carroll, this book was made into a movie barely representative of its source. The film starring Bing Crosby was a musical comedy that only touched on basics of Twain's novel. Mark Twain had a very harsh view of medieval England pertaining to the church and throne to say the least. On page 246, he says, "...if one could but force it (manhood) out of its timid and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any throne that ever was set up and any nobility that ever supported it". The book has none of the film's niceties; instead, it graphically describes the unjust hangings, stake burnings, murder, slavery, and unfair caste system. This is a brilliant novel written 113 years after the Revolutionary War and 24 years after the Civil War. The contents truly reveal Mark Twain's political and social views, which I think are worthy of the study they have received. For further information on his thoughts see Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader's Edition (Mark Twain Papers).
In the year 1879, Hank Morgan (his name is only mentioned once), an arms factory foreman, is knocked out in a fight with a man named Hercules (no, not that one) and regains consciousness under a tree in King Arthur's Camelot in the year 528. He is captured by the less then adequate knight, Sir Kay. At first, Hank believes he's awoken in an insane asylum, but when he is brought before The Knights of the Round Table to receive justice, he realizes it really is the sixth century. He is stripped naked, sent to the dungeon, and sentenced to be burned at the stake the next day. Clarence, a page, visits Hank, and Hank then convinces him that he, Hank, is a super magician. Clarence becomes Hank's right hand man. Hank recalls that a total solar eclipse will occur the next day. He warns King Arthur and Merlin the Magician that he will blot out the sun if they attempt to burn him at the stake. They dismiss him, and as they kindle the fire under Hank, the sun starts to go dark! The King begs Hank to stop it and offers Hank the second most powerful position in Camelot. Hank waits for the eclipse to pass and now becomes known as The Boss to the chagrin of Merlin, the now avowed enemy of The Boss.
The Boss with the help of Clarence secretly starts many modern businesses, such as a telephone system, a newspaper business, a railroad, army and naval academies, an arms factory, an electric company, and an advertising company with the knights displaying the ads on their armour, just to mention a few. King Arthur requires The Boss to go on a quest with the damsel, Sandy, to save enslaved princesses from three ogres! It turns out to be a pig sty with three farmers. He returns to Camelot a hero with his now beloved Sandy. He then has many adventures in Camelot, such as jousting tournaments with the knights armed with lances and The Boss with a pistol (who do you think won?), the blowing up of Merlin's Tower, the magical repair of the fount at the Valley of Holiness, and many more. At this point The Boss decides to go incognito with King Arthur into the realm of the peasants. They find many injustices and wrongs amongst the people, but before they can return to the castle, they are captured by an earl and sold into slavery. They are accused of murder and sentenced to hang. The Boss escapes and calls Clarence for help. The next day just before they are to be hanged, Lancelot and 500 knights arrive on bicycles to save the day!
The ensuing years are good for The Boss, his wife Sandy and their daughter, Hello-Central (that's right). Unbeknownst to The Boss, Merlin has made his family sick. The Boss takes his family away from England and goes on a long vacation cruise to heal. That's when the expression "the shit hits the fan" is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, "Where were you when the shit hit the fan?"[Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989] This is the best part of the book, the last 100 pages or so. I never could have predicted the ending. The interesting thing about this book is that Mark Twain is the narrator. The book starts out with Twain on a tour of the Warwick Castle. He is approached by a old man seemingly knowledgeable about the castle and the knights. The old man starts to tell Twain his story from thirteen centuries ago, but grows weary at the Warwick Arms, and before retiring to his room, he hands Twain the manuscript to read. This was a great book and if you only read one classic this year...make it this one!
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: I think it is ironic that even though Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which was the setting for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that he died in Connecticut in 1910 at the age of 74. William Faulkner called Mark Twain "the father of American literature". Twain had a profitable publishing house with the success of The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, but went broke when he only sold 200 copies of the biography of Pope Leo XIII. He was financially rescued by a principal of Standard Oil, Henry H. Rogers. Twain later went on tour and probably became America's first stand-up comic!
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