Joan of Arc
by Mark Twain

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Book Reviews of Joan of Arc

Book Review: A 54 yr old Joan of Arc fanatic reviews Mark Twain.
Summary: 5 Stars

Twain's book is the obligatory "first Joan book". True Joan fans move on to Regine Pernoud's historically accurate and complete works, but no one recreates Joan's character as intimately as Twain. Historians couldn't do so without endangering their professional objectivity in the eyes of their peers.

See also Twain's wonderful 1906 essay on Joan easily found on the Internet.

Twain wrote five earlier versions of this book and let his wife read them. She was not impressed. The book shown here is Twain's sixth version which his wife liked.

In the earlier versions, Twain probably wrote historical biographies, but ran into problems. It is difficult to keep track of the many characters. Without pictures to look at it's hard to imagine what's going on. So Twain watered down the sixth version, leaving out a lot of historical details, and used certain literary devices.

The character Sieur Louis Conte, who somehow managed to be near Joan from her childhood all the way to the stake, was a fictional character used to provide continuity. "SLC" are the initials of Samual Langhorne Clemens, Twain's real name. "Conte" is French for tales.

There are many pages of casual dialogue between a group of fictional characters who supposedly accompanied Joan from her village to the wars. They were Joan's band of personal friends. Twain's purpose was to show how popular and human Joan was. In reality, when Joan entered Orleans, people kissed the footprints left behind by the horse Joan was riding! Joan showed all the emotions of a typical teenaged girl. She really did cry when wounded by the arrow, and insulted by the enemy. She showed a sense of humor even at the trial she knew would condemn her to death.

The fictional giant soldier called "Dwarf" deserted the army to attend to his sick family all of whom died and then returned to the army to seek death himself for desertion. Joan pardoned him and they fought together. Of course, the giant Dwarf is a symbol of France.

The most mysterious device Twain uses is beginning the book with a long discussion of the "Fairy Tree". You wonder what it will lead to, but there is nothing about it later in the book. What was that all about? The Fairy Tree represents the family tree of the Western world which is what it is today largely because of Joan. If she had not saved France as an independent nation 600 years ago, the history books would have to be thrown out and completely rewritten. And what of the new world? Discovered by someone else. Discovered at another time. Explored by someone else. Settled by someone else. No United States of America! Another country, or other countries, here. Other peoples living here. Your family? Never born. You and I would not exist.

That's what Mother of Nations Saint Joan of Arc was all about.

Too bad that 14 year old, and much older people, can't find the time to understand Joan's story. We owe her a lot.

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