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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
informative
slow-paced
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Disclaimer: I listened to the audio so I am not sure what sources look like in this book.
This book was a wild ride, I love history like this... such an odd situation that we will never have any real answers to. The narrator for this book was really well spoken & the French was done really well too! I think she also had a lot of information to the story as well!
This book was a wild ride, I love history like this... such an odd situation that we will never have any real answers to. The narrator for this book was really well spoken & the French was done really well too! I think she also had a lot of information to the story as well!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, War
medium-paced
Zemon Davis's subject matter is fascinating but her analysis is cautious and doesn't truly address her questions. I'll sound like the worst history nerd ever, but skip the book and watch the movie. She was a consultant on the film and it's well done and in many ways more rigorous than the book.
davis makes a lot of claims in the book—particularly regarding the characterization of bertrande and her motives—that are unsupported. she fills in a lot of gaps in the story with her own ideas, which makes calling the return of martin guerre a historical reconstruction difficult. much of the book is speculation or invention of the author
adventurous
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
While slow at points that felt unnecessary, The Return of Martin Guerre gives insight into a lifestyle that is overwhelmingly unknown during a period that is overwhelmingly distant. Told in a historical-novel hybrid, Natalie Zemon Davis does a great job of incorporating dense historical evidence into a well-told story, using overlying themes such as the Reformation and the Renaissance to display historical connections. Even as unknown peasant life was during the early-modern age in Europe, the reader is given a small window into a life with little record left behind.
An impressive, accurate, and surprisingly entertaining (for micro-history) account of the story of Martin Guerre.