I’ve let books stack up, so I’m enjoying a bit of a blogging blitz today.

This one, by Pauline Chandler, is the story of Joan of Arc. So, while it’s probably more historical fiction than folklore, I’m still going to count it for my Once Upon a Time Challenge.

This telling of the story is an interesting one. The narrator is Mariane, Jehanne’s (or Joan’s, everything’s done from the French perspective) cousin and companion. Mariane is an interesting choice for a narrator since she was struck dumb with the shock of her mother’s murder. It makes for a quiet book, as much of the action is taking place within Mariane. She interacts with Jehanne, but she doesn’t really contribute. After I got over the unusual narrator, and actually got into the story, I quite enjoyed it.

Well, I should say that I quite enjoyed Mariane’s story. While Jehanne was an interesting character, and I could see the pull of her faith, I didn’t get into it quite as much. And maybe it was supposed to be that way. Jehanne is such an elevated person — a saint and all — that she’s almost inaccessable. It’s probably better to see the events from someone more down to earth. Since we’re following Mariane, we take a detour with her while she tries to claim the estate of her deceased father (she didn’t know him, and it came as a surprise to her that she was supposed to be the heir to her father’s estate), and lives there for a while. So, we follow Jehanne and her doings from afar after the battle of Orleans. Mariane goes back to Jehanne’s side for her death, staying through the whole grisly thing. It’s quite moving.

And the ending turns out to be exactly what we expect (since M guessed it…) from something like that. But, I’ll forgive that. It was a good read.