Wikipedia says: “Twain was aware of his reputation as a comic writer and he asked that each installment appear anonymously so that readers would treat it seriously.”
This is, indeed, a serious book. It claims to be a translation, but it is historical fiction. My understanding is that the trial of Joan of Arc was so well documented that it gives a surprisingly good picture of life in 1400s France, and this extensive documentation served as the basis for Twain’s novel.
Twain’s narrator (speaking for Twain) says:
“I give you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the facts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you honestly, detail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily in the official record of the court, and just as one may read them in the printed histories. There will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with you, I shall use my right to comment upon the proceedings and explain them as I go along, so that you can understand them better; also, I shall throw in trifles which came under our eyes and have a certain interest for you and me, but were not important enough to go into the official record.”
I misunderstood the title. I thought the title was THE Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, which would have made it a memoir told from her point of view. But it’s not, as I learned upon beginning to read the book. It’s someone else’s personal recollections. My bad. It makes much more sense for the story to be told by someone close to her who survived her martyrdom, rather than for the story to be told by Joan herself, even given that it’s a novel.
I don’t think it works as a novel, though, to be frank. Certainly it’s not my favorite Twain novel, though he said it’s his favorite. I liked A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court better than this one. Quite possibly I liked all the books of his that I’ve read better than this one. Why is that?
Continue reading Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
