Joan of Arc
Mark Twain
Ignatius Press; New Ed edition (September 1989)
For someone familiar with Twain, this novel will seem a bit odd as it has none of his classic wit or biting sarcasm. Indeed, it was originally published under a pseudonym because Twain thought that people would expect these things from it and be disappointed. To be truly honest, this reviewer understands Twain’s reluctance to be associated with it, as this foray outside of his usual writing style was not his best work.
The narrator of the story is eighty-year-old man writing to his grandnephews. He was a childhood friend of Joan’s, who later became her secretary, and finally the recorder at her final trial, and thus represents a firsthand witness to all the important events of Joan’s life. His narration is colored throughout the story by an almost idolatrous esteem for Joan; he never married and it is suggested that this is because he never found a woman who could live up to her. This esteem is not a problem in itself; indeed, the reader can hardly help but admire Joan nearly as much as the narrator does. The problem is that the admiration taints the style of the storytelling. The narrator is constantly padding every part of his story with extraneous praise for Joan; barely an incident passes without him adding a comment reminding the reader that what Joan had done only served to highlight what a sublime creature she was. This is disappointing because Joan’s character is perfectly obvious from the story itself, and the added commentary only distracts. One only needs to be shown; the telling is redundant and tedious.
A second problem of the style is that the reader is never excited by what happens in the story. A good writer of historical fiction should make events of the past seem as thrilling as they were when they first happened, even if the reader knows how the story ended. Alas, Twain seems incapable of making any of the many battle scenes exciting, which is a pity as there are so many of them. The main problem is that the reader is consistently told what the outcome of all the events is going to be well beforehand, and it is usually oft repeated. Joan is injured in one battle, and he lets us know about the wound-to-be three weeks ahead of time, repeating the news of its advent so often that by the time she is actually struck by the crossbow bolt the reader is simply relieved.
The book is not without merit, however. Twain meticulously researched the subject before writing the story, reading the official records of Joan’s several trials, as well as many accounts of her life from both the French and English perspectives. So while the style may be wanting, the story itself seems as faithful to the record as possible, and thus gives the reader a fascinating glimpse into this little part of history. More importantly, what emerges from the story is the giant character of Joan herself and the model of faith and hope that she was. This seems to be what fascinated Twain about the story; he saw in Joan a larger-than-life persona and a faith that he could not entirely understand, and he wanted to capture that in a story. In this he succeeds, and the story, for all its stylistic flaws, is worth reading if only because Joan, at least as she is portrayed by Twain, is a person worth understanding and admiring.
--Reviewed by William Christopher Long
W. C. Long is, at this VERY moment, finishing his PhD in Marine Biology at VIMs University in Virginia. When asked what the heck he really does with all his time, Chris wrote: "To be pedantic, I take the clams, and mark them (the shells have to be dry otherwise the sharpies won't work) and then transplant them into the murky black York River." In his leftover time, WC enjoys his adventerous daughter and her as-yet invisible sibling.
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