Joan of Arc

And an American Skeptic

For a number of years we’ve had Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc on our shelves, and more than once I picked up it but decided against reading it. A few years back my wife enjoyed participating in a summer NEA program for teachers in which the group spent time in both Nevada and Connecticut looking at Twain’s career and legacy. We are agreed that Twain is not a writer we enjoy, while acknowledging his importance to American literature and culture. As well, he was an important publisher and did a great service assisting Ulysses S. Grant in publishing his superb memoirs.

I’d seen mention over time of Twain’s novel about Joan, and those writers often spoke well of that book. Finally this spring I picked it up to read. I’m glad I did. It’s safe to say it is not a perfect novel, but it is very good. The edition we have is published by Dover, with all the good and bad points of Dover’s books: inexpensive, but also with no extras, plus a less-than appealing layout and font. But huzzah to Dover for putting interesting books into print.

The good aspects of the book? It is respectful of Joan; it has moments of excitement and pathos; it hews closely to the historical record; and it does not denigrate the Faith. I did find the pace a bit sluggish at times, but the overall narrative was well-done. Sometimes battle descriptions went into expanded detail, and other times they were compressed. The narrator is a real figure, Sieur Louis De Conte, but his role is perhaps enhanced for dramatic purposes. Twain includes other figures, historical and invented, and invests them with a broad range of human characteristics. There are definite villains here, but also heroes and flawed heroes. We get glimpses of social and religious life and beliefs of the common people.

Now the problematic parts. Twain takes something from the historical record ( a certain tree in Joan’s home village of Domremy) and perhaps slants circumstances to suggest a bit more superstition than the evidence warrants. It’s not a full-fledged assault on popular belief and is actually somewhat plausible. I also think Twain mis-translated something supposed to have occurred during Joan’s trials. (This is on p. 282 of the Dover edition, near the end of chapter XV.) Joan responds to an assertion that her unyielding answers will cause her death by burning. She responds: “I will not say otherwise than I have said already, and if I saw he fire before me I would say it again!” Twain has the recorder write in the margin of his transcript “Superba responsio!” The narrator translates that as “superb answer,” but the Latin might better be translated as “proud reply.” That may connote a negative attitude, though not necessarily.

Then there is the fact that Twain may over-celebrate Joan’s virtues. This is clearly stated in an essay appended to this edition of the book. It ends with this bit of hyperbole: “She is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced” (329). Twain fails to see that Joan is a humble girl of limited abilities though undoubted virtues. She is, in fact, precisely the type of unsophisticated Christian God has often chosen for His work: the Fatima seers, Bernadette of Lourdes, the apostles. While Twain never discounts the veracity of her visions and locutions, neither does he affirm them, only that she believed them. (And that an earlier tribunal had not found them against the Faith.)

So Twain appears not to have been converted by learning of Joan, but neither did he use his book to promote heterodoxy. I recommend this book and did not find it to be contrary to the Faith. Indeed it will supply much for thought and reflection as well as historical edification.

For those looking to partner Twain with a Catholic understanding of Joan, there is St. Joan of Arc by John Beevers (Garden City, NY: Image, 1962, pb, 1959 Cdl. Spellman imprimatur). This is a solid and compact book, sticking to historical facts and situating them in a Catholic context. Indeed it mostly follows the same narrative line as Twain’s book.

St. Joan of Arc, pray for us!

Happy feast day of the first apparition at Fatima (May 13, 1917).