Joan of arc — Mark Twain — Recommend with salt

 

This is weird. I know mark twain for his classics, huck fin, tom sawer, and a lot of really good western shorts, a bit like 19th century Saturday night live. This isn't anything like his other books. Today it would be considered historical fiction, but as far as I can tell it's more history than fiction. It's reminiscent of G.A. Henty's works, only more complete.

It was interesting to hear about context and background for The Maid of Orléans as well as highlight her exploits and get a feel for who she was, but the most interesting thing was to hear her story, often latched onto by feminists, from the mouth of a 19th-century western writer. The narrative of the oppressed women by the hands of the patriarchy takes a serious blow from someone who had no intention of debunking it (we can be sure because the narrative had not yet been proposed).  Not to say the twain was free of "Sexism" he definitely sees a difference between men and women. Sometimes he makes artificial distinctions I find uncalled for, but there is no doubting that he praises, extols, and generally fons over the powerful, and feminine qualities that made Joan a heroin of France.

Final note, did anyone know that Joan never actually killed a single soul? She lead with inspiration, not example. Women have often inspired men on the battlefield; that's as old time.

Still, the book is long and archaic and it lacks the suspense and much of the humor we're used to from modern novels, or even twain's classics. I'd recommend this if you've got an itch to scratch about Joan of arc, but it doesn't make my list of books everyone should read.

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