Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives Biographies) [Hardcover]

Mary Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2000 | Series: Penguin Lives Biographies

With the passion and grace that mark her bestselling novels of women and faith, Mary Gordon contemplates one of history's earliest and most powerful female martyrs

Eternally fascinating, an enigma no less in our time than in her own, Joan of Arc has haunted Gordon's consciousness since childhood. Who was this girl who came from nowhere, supported an equivocal cause, triumphed for a scant few months, failed as a soldier, vacillated about her vision, died in agony, was refused canonization for five hundred years, yet, ponders Gordon, "stands alone in our imagination for the single-minded triumph of the she--and it must be a she--who feared nothing, knew herself right, and chosen of the Lord?"

Joan of Arc penetrates the popular cultural icon to examine the vulnerability of a woman forced by her mission into the public world of men, from her first march at the head of the French soldiery at the age of seventeen to her capture by the British in 1430, from her vilification as a witch to the formidable legacy of her struggle. Only Gordon--a storyteller the San Francisco Chronicle calls "scintillating"--could breathe life into a figure so ethereal, so puzzling, so human.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One would expect nothing less from Gordon (Spending) than a splendid, spare account of Joan's life--and she delivers in this slender but satisfying account, a new entry in the Penguin Lives series. The facts of Joan of Arc's life are straightforward: she was born in 1412, in Domr?my, France, to a peasant family; she participated in the Hundred Years' War but was in active military service for only a year; and she was burned at the stake at 19. Novelist Gordon, who has always been fascinated by the young heroine, emphasizes Joan the girl. She acknowledges that the 17-year-old could have been a wife and mother, a fully adult member of her community. But Gordon's Joan "has a young girl's heedlessness, sureness, readiness for utter self-surrender." This biography rehearses the well-known highlights in Joan's short life: the voices she heard who charged her with the mission to save France; her participation in the Battle of Orl?ans and the coronation of King Charles VII; her trial by an ecclesiastical court, where she was charged with witchcraft, heresy and idolatry. The judges, Gordon tells us in a deft and clever interpretation, connected "Joan's cross-dressing to the sin of idolatry. [They] were accusing Joan of making an idol of herself." Gordon recounts Joan's excommunication and execution in spare and arresting detail. The strength of this "biographical meditation" lies in the penultimate chapter, in which Gordon investigates the numerous re-creations of Joan on stage and screen, from Carl Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc to Verdi's opera Giovanna d'Arco-a chapter that comes like an unexpected dessert at the end of a rich feast. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Gordon introduces the peasant girl of Domr‚my as a typical young woman of her time, yet stresses emphatically the ways in which, "There is no one like her." She dramatically presents what is universally known of Joan-young, countrified, riding astride in men's armor amid fleur-de-lis banners. Readers see Joan entering Orl‚ans in triumph, controlling her frightened horse when a pennant she is carrying is accidentally set afire. Then she is a commoner at Charles's side in the cathedral at Rheims, holding her standard as he is crowned king of France. At each of the tableaux, Gordon delves into significant deeper meanings. She is particularly insightful in determining the element of danger for Joan in all of her relationships-with Charles, with the treacherous Burgundians, with the English, and ultimately with the church. She cites Joan's courage and tenacity of vision and her confidence in divine support. Gordon concludes, "Ardent, impatient, boastful, resistant, implacable, she is like all great saints a personality of genius." Teens are sure to be intrigued by her.-Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (March 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670885371
• ISBN-13: 978-0670885374
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,416,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars interesting approach, but unconvincing & not a biography, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives Biographies) (Hardcover)

While I love the short form and popular biography, I just don't think Gordon pulled it off here. I suppose, a meditation, as she calls this book, is its best description. However, a meditation is not a biography and it seems to me an easy way out of doing the hard work of research and analysis and writing required to successfuly pull off the short form. See Marcel Proust by Edmund White: exemplar writing of the short form, popular biography. While some of Gordon's meditation is interesting is just doen't belong here and she tries too hard to tie in, compare, etc Joan w/ our modern times. I did enjoy many of her insights and ideas about the Church and her unsentimentality or romanticizing of Joan refreshing. But I never was able to really get a feel for Joan or her times; I could never immerse myself in Joan's story because the author was too present, too obvious w/ all her medititations. Point of view is paramountto the short form biography but it should not overwhelm the authors subject or the subjects story. And, again, there is a difference between "meditation" (as in the essay) and point of view. It may be argued that the short form biography is an "extended essay," and that is largely true but when a short form biography becomes more of an outlet for meditation than serious exploration of the subject rather than the author's reflections, it ceases to be biography. I also found the breaking down of chapters with subheads distracting (because they simply were not needed) and pedantic. And while the author's reviews and interpretations of all the other books on Joan were interesting, still it seemed too pat and not part of the biographical dialogue; or rather, it could have worked as part of the continual narrative. I'm sorry, I erally enjoy Gordon's writing generally, but this just didn't work at all as a short form popular biography, or warrant be put between 2 book covers.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Getting to Know Joan, August 23, 2000

By 

Bob Saigh (Chicago (where we know something about shooting)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives Biographies) (Hardcover)

With my memory of Joan of Arc quite dimmed, I thought Ms. Gordon's book would be at least a suitable introduction to/reacquainting with a fascinating subject, and it was. Never did I take the book as a "serious" biography. Rather, I saw it -as others have and as I have viewed other books in the Penguin Lives series - as a meditation, an essay or a study which, in past Lives, indeed has led me to read some of the fuller biographical sources upon which the author drew. Ms. Gordon immediately oriented me on her work about Joan by noting in the first sentence of her Acknowledgement that there are more than 20,000 books about Joan in the Bibliotheque Nationale alone. How could any reader expect her or any other writer to thoroughly or fairly distill the treasure of information on Joan for the Lives series? Yet, she seemed to address the wondrous and vexing aspects of a timelessly complicated character adequately. Her bias was transparent but understandable so as not to bother me; in fact, it made for good reflection on and dialog with the book. Thank you, Ms. Gordon, for a worthy addition to the body of work on Joan, for contributing to the Lives series (which, in my opinion, has been good for biography) and for the information on the treatments of Joan in mediums other than print.

PS - I'm just a reader, not an agent for Gordon, Penguin, Joan or anything else, in this instance.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a biography, March 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives Biographies) (Hardcover)

I might have enjoyed this in an essay or under the auspices of "relections" (again, essay),but no matter how you dress it up, and no matter what you call it, a biography this book certainly is not. For a great and serious short new biography, see Siobhan Nash Marshall's : Joan of Arc: A Spiritual Biography. I may not agree with Marshall's final analysis but she's an excellent storyteller and knows how to weed out a story. She also knows how to take a strong stand, express a point of view but at the same time stay out of the story--something Ms. Gordon may learn from--at least when attempting to write a biography. A "biography" is not about the author's ruminations, reflections & "meditation", it is about the author's subject, and that subject's life and legacy.