As a matter of history, there was no eclipse--total or otherwise--in that
part of the world anywhere close to that date. Twain would have known that,
btw.
Joe
On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 9:50 AM Alan Kitty <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I took it for granted that Hank was obsessed with History, Science, Time,
> and was armed with a photographic memory. Those qualities defined my
> father, so it wasn’t a stretch. Yet, even as a child, I laughed at the
> absurdity of the idea.
>
> Since it is fiction, I suspended disbelief long ago. But I find that
> particular work, despite its stretches, more likely than the alternative
> realities of our own times. Truth is stranger than fiction.
>
> On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 8:53 AM Carl Chimi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I can only say that even as a kid I never believed that anyone could
> > remember such a thing so specifically. And react to it with such
> precision
> > in a time when the whole idea of clocks was so relatively primitive.
> But I
> > can’t remember. Did Hank have a watch and an almanac (with historical
> > eclipse information in it) with him?
> >
> > Carl
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > > On Aug 1, 2022, at 8:43 AM, Daniel P. B. Smith <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the narrator says "But
> > all of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that
> the
> > only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth century
> > occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and began at 3 minutes
> after
> > 12 noon.”
> > >
> > > When I read the book as a kid, I just took this at face value; and of
> > course Mark Twain didn’t have any problems using unlikely coincidences in
> > his other books.
> > >
> > > But since then I’ve always wondered: are we really supposed to believe
> > this? Or was Mark Twain poking deadpan fun at unbelievable coincidences
> in
> > literature?
> >
> --
>
> *Alan Kitty, DGExecutive Director*
>
> *Mark Twain Education Society*
> [log in to unmask]
> www.marktwaineducation.org
>
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