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Title: Pope Joan (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Donna Woolfolk Cross ISBN: 0-345-41626-0 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.34 (180 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Very good historical fiction
Comment: An all-time favorite here, this is great historical fiction built on fact. Keep in mind that it is historical fiction and therefore some small parts of the story that may seem questionable must be pardoned. The story is strong and well written and the author's chapter at the end that presents the facts provides and nice closing to an extremely enjoyable book. A great book!
Rating: 4
Summary: Deeper than I expected; a Medieval feminist tale.
Comment: I picked up this book hoping for a tale of a powerful and wily woman ruling the Medieval Christian church...I got something different than I expected, but enjoyed it nonetheless. The book focuses on the early life of the woman who would one day be Pope Joan, rather than exploring her (possible) reign as Pope. It is the story of her many struggles as a woman in Medieval England.
Joan is the exceptionally bright daughter of an English priest and his Saxon wife. From an early age, Joan desires little more than to gain a formal education, and to be treated as equal to her brothers. She stubbornly refuses to accept her place as a subservient woman, instead coaxing her eldest brother into teaching her to read and write. Eventually, she overcomes numerous obstacles, chief among these being her overbearing and abusive father, to learn languages and philosophy, and later medicine.
Joan's story is one of survival. She survives her father's wrath and beatings, then later a brutal Norse raid of her village, and still later the black plague. Her life is full of conflicting emotions and desires, and she is forced to live a man's life in order to continue her work. But Joan is still a woman, and she falls in love. This, ultimately, is both her triumph and her downfall.
Well written, intricately woven, and wholly believable, with a good mixture of action and emotion. This book will probably appeal to women, and perhaps some men more "in touch with their feminine side."
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good depictions of Medieval Europe & decent scholarship
Comment: Unlike one of the previous reviewers, I do find this book to be plausible, given the context. We're not talking about some random village girl who goes and does nothing with her life but get married and have a passel of babies. An extraordinary life is filled with extraordinary events. Equally fantastic, to my mind, is the life of Princess Clotild, who took over her convent with the aid of her sister nuns, recruited bandits and waged open warfare on the bishopric, and essentially made havoc of the clerical system at the end of the 6th century. Her tale seems outrageous, but is documented. Alas the poor fictional heroine, who does not conform to modern American standards of realism and self-help platitudes.... she will be despised!
Ms. Cross got most of her history down - and where she miffed it, she usually realizes it. That alone makes this a valuable book for the average reader. There are no Victorian carriages or Renaissance barges intruding their way into the story. She crafted a world that most people have no clue about. Her scholarship is reasonably good; she is dealing with an era with little or no documentation. She might have looked into the papstfabeln a bit more, but otherwise, did a good job for a non-historian.
Finally, I like the love story. Most of us will never have to face the choice between career and love; that has been one of the benefits of the feminist movement we forget to count. But until less than a century ago, that was the only option for women who did not want the standard path.... and so it is a glimpse for us to remind us how much we have gained.
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Title: One Thousand White Women : The Journals of May Dodd: A Novel by Jim Fergus ISBN: 0312199430 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 15 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory ISBN: 0743227441 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Myth of Pope Joan by Alain Boureau ISBN: 0226067459 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: Pope Joan by Emmanual Royidis, Lawrence Durrell ISBN: 0879517867 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Legend of Pope Joan: In Search of the Truth by Peter Stanford ISBN: 042517347X Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 10 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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