Guest post: Recreating Joan of Arc
You may remember that Joan of Arc was burned by the English in the opening chapter of Cecily. As a woman she’s always intrigued me. How to tell her story? Well, the wonderful author Katherine J Chen - whose novel Joan will publish on 6 April - has done just that. I asked her to describe how she approached Joan’s story.
The first version of Joan was titled Apostate. It was a near-200,000-word behemoth of a manuscript, and the saints, Catherine and Margaret, played quite a large role. The trial, too, that would condemn Joan to be burned appeared in this manuscript in all its repetitious and inquisitorial glory (I say sarcastically). It was, however, generally adherent to Joan’s history, and the greatest liberty I took concerned the saints, who provided comic relief and would appear, banter with Joan, grant a few wishes, and then disappear (sans poof of smoke). There were extensive scenes where the Archbishop of Rheims bribed a servant-boy to report what he had heard and witnessed of Joan, including the miracles she performed. There was, I recall, even a scene with a cherub in heaven, who scratched out demerits in a giant record-book with his quill pen whenever Catherine and Margaret returned to the realm of paradise past curfew. All in all, looking back, I have to admit the manuscript was not very good. At times, it might have verged on being downright silly.
Eventually, I threw out this version of the book and started from scratch. I learned a few lessons from doing so. That the events of history, fascinating though they may be, do not always provide a solid or ample structure for a novel. That I could not approach this work from the insights offered from research alone. That I had to have a better reason for writing a novel on Joan of Arc, who already exists as a larger-than-life character in our imagination. What did I want this work to do? What fresh perspective might it offer both myself and the reader? How could I make Joan speak? Really speak?
Historical fiction has always struck me as being at times a lofty genre because so often it seems to concern itself with the lives of heroes, monarchs, courtiers, statesmen, those noteworthy enough in the record of history to warrant being fictionalized and reimagined. But we have to remember, too, that these people, however elevated, admired, villainized, or derided are, at the end of the day, just people. People whose hair sticks up after getting out of bed. People whose breath smells, whose eyes water, whose noses leak in cold weather. People who may twitch and laugh and snort and cry. In rewriting the novel, I had to remind myself that Joan was once such a person. She, too, was a girl, who became a young woman, and who never had the chance to grow out of adolescence. She had a temper. She was proud. She had a quick tongue. She was a natural leader, a fast learner. She was afraid of the fire, and she didn’t want to die.
In rewriting the book, I learned that research will only take you so far before you have to remove the life jacket that keeps you afloat and kick off into unexplored waters on your own. Sainthood elevated Joan to a level beyond imagining. In many paintings, even in stills from famous portrayals of Joan of Arc in film, you will usually see her looking over your head, gazing heavenward at something outside your field of vision. I soon realized it was my job to make her look at me. Joan, look down at me, I thought. Look into my face—and she did.
