Mark Twain - Joan of Arc

[vinay87]

It will come as a mild surprise to most people that Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote a book on the Maid of Orleans. It will come as a greater surprise to learn, through reading the book, that he adores Joan and practically worships her. Indeed, that appears to be most critics' problem with the work. They claim it is biased and definitely not, as Twain himself considered, his greatest work.

 

Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte who is identified further as Joan's page and secretary. The work is fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, "Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France".

...

De Conte is a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de Contes, and provides narrative unity to the story. He is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life - as a youth in Domremy, as the commander of Charles' army on military campaign, and as a defendant at the trial in Rouen. The book is presented as a translation by Alden of de Conte's memoirs, written in his later years for the benefit of his descendants.

 

When I saw the book, I picked it up solely because I had not heard of a book by Mark Twain on Joan. And I began reading it, secretly ashamed that the little "knowledge" I had about the Maid of Orleans was what I obtained from playing Age of Empires.

 

The book is almost musical to the end that it seems to be the rendering of an ode to Joan rather than just an account. There is an element of rhyme in it, not literally I assure you but something makes me feel that Mark Twain might have wanted to write a ballad.

 

Though I sometimes felt that it would have been better with a little more dialogue than narration, scenes better with a little more detail, I can't say the magic fails to work. After all, if Twain had done all that, it would have become a work of fiction, for as he himself says in the historical essay at the end of the work,

 

Three hundred years ago Shakespeare did not know the true story of Joan of Arc; in his day it was unknown even in France. For four hundred years it existed rather as a vaguely defined romance than as definite and authentic history. The true story remained buried in the official archives of France from the Rehabilitation of 1456 until Quicherat dug it out and gave it to the world two generations ago, in lucid and understandable modern French. It is a deeply fascinating story. but only in the Official Trials and Rehabilitation can it be found in its entirety.

 

I enjoyed the book, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had finished it in a sitting rather than in three. I hope to read it again another day, slowly then and with a better understanding of the historical setting of France in that day and age.

 

And yes that reminds me, the edition I have, Ignatius; 1989 0-89870-268-2, doesn't give much of an actual introducation. Seeing as I'm neither French nor do I possess a historical understanding of the times then, I would have had a greater pleasure reading the work if I had spent the time researching the background of Franch in the 1400s. I recommend the same to people wishing to read the book with the same historical handicap.

 

Yet, Twain's book does prove why he believed it his best work, spending years writing it. I find it amusingly curious that an author should fall in love with a character who he has not come up with on a whim. A character who preceded him by nearly half a millenium. And yet, as he himself claims, a character who is "the most extraordinary human being that has ever lived."

 

As a side note, for the sheer dramatic feel of it if I may, consider this.

 

Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen.

 

 

Rating : 9/10 (Took one off for the lack of a lucid introduction; at no fault of Twain's.)

 

Wikipedia's Entry on the book

Edited February 23, 2010 by vinay87