Saint Joan of Arc [Paperback]

Vita Sackville-West (Author)

Book Description

Series: Grove Great Lives | Publication Date: June 9, 2001

Vita Sackville-West wrote Saint Joan of Arc in 1936 at the age of forty-four, and had, at that point, already been writing for thirty years. At fourteen, Sackville-West published her first book, and at fourteen Joan of Arc first heard the voices. Joan was seventeen when she took command of the armies of France--a peasant girl in the early fifteenth century in charge of a nation's forces. At nineteen she was captured by the British and tried as a witch by a church court. Before her twentieth birthday she was burned at the stake. In 1920 she was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint. In a clever, brisk voice, Vita Sackville-West tells the triumphant story of a French peasant girl raised in a country torn apart by the Hundred Years' War who rose from poverty to military greatness. With dazzling insight and clarity, Sackville-West breathes new life into Joan of Arc's beautiful and tragic story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove edition (June 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802138160
• ISBN-13: 978-0802138163
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #537,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sackville-West's "Saint Joan of Arc", July 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Saint Joan of Arc (Paperback)

Prof. Bonnie Wheeler of the International Joan of Arc Society has labeled this book "dead wrong" (a position which she rarely takes), and other researchers, myself included, tend to agree. More precisely: certain subjects are handled in an entirely fraudulent manner, as the author had a talent for misquoting or selectively citing the evidence, misinterpreting the original language to reflect her theories, and taking things out of context in order to make "hints" about Joan which happen to suit the author's inclinations (some of these will be dealt with in detail below). Even worse, more recent (and less honest) authors have taken some of the above innuendoes and extrapolated claims which Vita herself knew better than to make, and this has further muddled the subject.
In fairness, at least the author genuinely read a wide selection of the documents, and was honest enough to refrain from the more outrageous claims. But the numerous distortions in this book include:
- A persistent effort to remake Joan into a large, masculine, "sexually-unappealing" androgyne (in direct contradiction to eyewitness accounts describing her as "beautiful and shapely", "short", with "beautiful eyes", a "sweet girl's voice", etc). The author often manipulates such testimony until it becomes the opposite of what the eyewitnesses actually said. This is especially true with regards to the comments made by some of the men who had served in her army: what these fellows actually said (in summary) is that although they did find her attractive, they were amazed to find that their normal sexual desire (for all women) was suppressed when she was around. At no point did they say that they found her ugly or unappealing (as the author sometimes claims about this testimony), but precisely the reverse. The author admits that this was the case with the testimony from the Duke of Alencon, but characteristically sensationalizes it into something which the Duke never said, and which would be at odds with the other sources who are all agreed that Joan always slept in full clothing when with the army and never "undressed" in front of the troops, for heaven's sake. Alencon never claimed otherwise.
- Worse, the author cites - sometimes out of context - some of the testimony given by a group of women (namely Charlotte Boucher (who had been only 9 years old when she "slept with" Joan at Orleans), Hauviette de Sionne (apparently under 13 at the time), and Marguerite La Touroulde) who described a common medieval practice whereby whenever Joan and the men in her group were billeted for the night in a house in which there weren't enough beds for everyone, they placed Joan with the little girls of the house or the hostess rather than the men (her male bodyguard, Jean d'Aulon, frequently slept in the same room with her, and so the hostess or a little girl was also placed in the room for propriety's sake, and sometimes in the same bed if there weren't enough to go around). The author admits that this was "the custom", and at least never goes so far as to claim that Joan was having sex with these women (which would contradict their own testimony that she was "chaste"), but nevertheless makes enough innuendoes to prompt a few modern playwrights and others to cite this book as alleged "proof" that such was the case. An author should not make careless comments on such a subject when she knows full well what the facts of the matter were.
- Aside from the above, there are frequent misinterpretations: just to pick one random example, the author claims that Martin Ladvenu testified that Joan was raped, which is false: he said that there had been an _attempted_ rape after she agreed to give up her soldiers' clothing (which had "laces and points" by which the pants and tunic could be securely fastened together, thereby providing some protection against such assaults), and Ladvenu cites this attempted assault as one of the reasons she resumed her soldiers' clothing after the above-mentioned incident, to try to prevent another attempt from going even farther.
- There are some anachronisms, such as when the author interprets Joan as a "feminist" while ignoring certain of her recorded statements which sound like precisely the opposite (such as the comment: "I would rather stay home with my poor mother and spin wool [rather than lead an army]", or her statement to Catherine de la Rochelle to "go home to your husband and tend your household", etc). Feminism is a modern movement which really had no counterpart in the 15th century.
On the plus side, however, the author has faithfully mentioned many of the eyewitness accounts which are so often ignored, such as the testimony regarding the other reason for her return to "male clothing" (i.e., Massieu's statement that her guards had finally left her nothing else to wear, as a way to entrap her into a "relapse"); and most of the basic material on other subjects is generally accurate enough and detailed. The writing style is often engaging, and Vita Sackville-West, an aristocrat in early-20th century England, brings an almost Victorian-style flavor to the subject (which is a bit odd, but a welcome departure from most other modern books on this topic). Nevertheless, it's still a little sad to see this book in yet another reprint. Its previous popularity seems to have been due entirely to the fact that it was well-written (if not always factual), and the author did enough research to give it the illusion of being authoritative despite the fact that historians have rejected so many of the author's interpretations. The only accepted authority on Joan during the last half-century was the great French medievalist Regine Pernoud (founder of the Centre Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans, France); two of her books can be purchased here at Amazon.com.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truely Insightful, August 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Saint Joan of Arc (Paperback)

This is a must read for anyone who is interested in the real Joan of Arc. This is quite simply the best book I have read about her. Taken from recorded accounts Vita attempts to depict who Joan truely was without the romantic stories often told of this amazing woman. An important book for anyone wanting to know truth from legend.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aging bio of Joan of Arc still worth reading, May 21, 2002

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saint Joan of Arc (Paperback)

Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc, in French) was an interesting person, a female soldier in an age when women didn't fight, a visionary in an age of backwardness, a prophetess who wasn't believed in her day, and a valuable asset for the French nation, betrayed to France's enemies by Frenchmen. This book about her, written in the thirties, covers as much of her life as was known at the time (there haven't been many changes to the record since) in beautiful prose, with sympathy and understanding. Vita Sackville-West was a prominent member of society in Britain, and Catholic, so she understood some of the things that were going on in Joan's head as history unfolded around this strange young woman.

Sackville-West's book is very literary, and if there's one flaw it's that it doesn't show, sufficiently, how successful and revolutionary a soldier Joan was. She was much more aggressive than other French soldiers of the day, who had been conditioned to defend cautiously by the advent of the English longbow. How Joan overcame this isn't discussed (I suspect in part because this remains a mystery of sorts) though the remarkable fact of her becoming a soldier in this era where women didn't fight is commented on at great length. Joan's abilities as a prophet are also examined at great length, and analyzed carefully.

This book is a good starting point for anyone wishing to know more about Joan of Arc. There's nothing on the market since (at least not that I'm aware of) as well-written, and the scholarship is good, as far as it goes.