I have not read a history book about Joan of Arc. I vaguely remember seeing a play performed onstage once about thirty years ago dramatizing her life story. Most of the story in this novel seemed believable, and it was well-written. A few things brought me back to reality several times while reading this story. I questioned if a certain piece of information was correct for that time period and environment.
There were small things like: 1) would the word hurricane be used by anyone in this century in Europe? I thought the word derived from a Spanish translation of a Maya word for their god of storms and rain. Europe had not yet crossed the ocean to the biblically unknown continent of “America.” 2) Would the storms that arrive in France be classified as hurricanes? 3) Did clocks exist at that time? Someone asked Joan how many arrows she could shoot in a minute. Was time divided into these sorts of units? I just looked it up, and mechanisms for clocks were built around the early 1300s, and pocket timepieces came into use around the 1400s.
A larger question was that it seemed that in this story, she did not claim to be an agent of God. Others told her she was such a thing—an instrument made flesh to be wielded as the creator God desired to make its plans on earth manifest into reality. She had a modern sensibility regarding the supernatural. She placed the motivations of kings and people as being economic and not motivated by religion. Religion may have played a large part in justifying the actions of people in many endeavors, but here, the author was making sure that religion remained clean of all worldly contamination. Or maybe it was the opposite, and it was deeply enmeshed in worldly affairs. There was a moment when her high-born and wealthy political or royal supporters encouraged her to think of herself as an instrument of God and that this was what the public was also going to be encouraged to believe. Religion was functioning as a tool to move people in particular directions.
Religious scholars may say that you can find in religion and its sacred texts justification for good and bad actions and a way to make your viewpoint and deeds look as if they are inspired by the divine. A believer can see what they want to see and make interpretations to suit the needs of the moment and convince others to follow. People can be aware of the corruption of religious and secular leaders at any age and then say they are not inspired by what they believe to be the true essence of their god.
My impressions of her from other sources were that Joan of Arc heard voices in her head directing her actions. I thought that some form of neurological configuration that was different from most of us made her hear voices. I have met a handful of people who say they are being spoken to at that moment by someone who they believe to be a god. And they relate that message to me. This aspect of Joan is downplayed in this story. Here, it seems she is motivated by love for the kingdom of France and hatred for the actions of the English invaders.
The author mentioned something interesting somewhere in the middle of the story. It is in the nature of invasion, conquest, and resistance. Once conquered, one can forget the original language of the land and assume the language of the invaders as one’s own. One can forget old tribal loyalties and identities and take on new ones provided by the invader’s culture, religion, and language. Joan was talking about a time when descendants would name their children with English names. Can an illiterate girl have this vast scope of the sweep of history and some of its patterns? Where did she get this idea? Do literate people today in our societies think of these things? Does war with people who are different bring these thoughts to mind more easily?
It is a good story and well-written. I listened to the audiobook and finished it in a few days. I wanted to read this novel because I have a character in one of my novellas who hears the voices of gods and spirits directing her to take action against oppressors. Joan of Arc seemed like a famous example of an individual who experienced something like hearing the voice of a god. The character I created that spoke with the gods and spirits was placed in my novelette Uranium Fairies.