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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
a scandalous peasant story from the 16th century. i loved the writing of this small history.
informative
medium-paced
a lot of caveats were offered for this book: that it was based on specific medieval research that was done for a movie, and that it was fiction but rooted on aforementioned historical research (at the end of the introduction the author says, “what i offer you is in part my invention, but held tightly in check by the voices of the past.”). honestly the author should not have offered that caveat because holy hell, this was some arid piece of writing that i would have more or less accepted if it was offered as research. but that it was supposedly “fictionalized” one would expect a degree of embellishment akin to historical fiction. but - not even close.
Required reading for a sophomore history course. What even is this? Hated it.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Huuuuuuhhh, read this for a renaissance class. It kept me engaged and it was interesting. I like these little side stories of what life was really like.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
I read this for the (somewhat controversial) microhistory prompt in the 2021 Reading Glasses challenge. While it's unlikely that I would have sought this book out on my own, I found it much more interesting than I expected to. On the one hand, there's something timeless about the appeal of scandal, and there's a good deal of scandal here. On the other, there's some intellectual pleasure in seeing Davis take the sources available to her, speculate about what might fill in the blanks, and examine tensions and contradictions among versions of events. Somewhere between a 3- and 4-star read for me.
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Very quick read, I think it took me half a day to read it. A fascinating look at 16th century customs, laws, history. While the book might be about Martin Guerre and Arnaud du Tilh, I really feel like the focus should be Martin's wife, Bertrande de Rols. She was, essentially, abandoned by her first husband for no discernable reason, left to depend on the kindness of others, pitied by the townsfolk and then duped (or not) by an imposter and then nearly ends up in prison because she believed him. But down through history it's all about Martin. :-)