Again and again, the English armies meet their match in Joan. Michael and other saints-Joan presents herself to the king with the message that God has sent her to save France. Led by what she calls her “Voices”-miraculous visions and instructions from St. But God has a plan for Joan and a plan for France. Charles VII, the rightful king of France, remains still-uncrowned and influenced by a corrupted court. France has long been riven by the bloody Hundred Years’ War with England. “The story begins with Joan, a simple peasant girl in the sleepy village of Domremy. “On a bookshelf of Twain’s complete works, one of these things is not like the other. And on every page we find the author’s utter admiration for this visionary Catholic saint. His research is meticulous his prose remains predominantly serious, even reverent, as he crafts a novelistic biography of the girl known as the “Maid of Orleans.” What’s more, Twain claimed Joan of Arc as his favorite among all his many books, and insisted in his autobiography, “I wrote the book for love, not money.” It’s a massive novel, and one that took him-by his own estimates-over a decade of research and preparation. We find almost nothing like the vernacular sparkle or outrageous humor of Twain’s better-known works. “The mysteries multiply when we open the book. How did the creator of American icons like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn come to write the life and death of a fifteenth-century French girl? Why would a man with so strained a relationship to Christianity write such an earnest novel about a Roman Catholic martyr? Since when did the great American humorist become a hagiographer? “Today, fans of Twain still find themselves scratching their heads. “Twain knew the book would confuse readers who expected his usual fare: when Harper’s Magazine first released installments of the novel beginning in 1895, he insisted it be published anonymously. Joan of Arc, he left us one of the great conundrums of American literature.
A wonderful article about one of the world’s greatest saints whose feast day was yesterday, and the unexpected author of her story, from Catholic World Report.
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