
The Return of Martin Guerre
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Narrated by:
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Sarah Mollo-Christensen
The Inventive Peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse, when on a summer's day in 1560 a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre.
The astonishing case captured the imagination of the Continent. Natalie Zemon Davis reconstructs the lives of ordinary people, in a sparkling way that reveals the hidden attachments and sensibilities of nonliterate 16th-century villagers.
We learn what happens when common people get involved in the workings of the criminal courts in the ancient regime, and how judges struggle to decide who a man was in the days before fingerprints and photographs. We sense the secret affinity between the eloquent men of law and the honey-tongued village impostor, a rare identification across class lines.
Deftly written to please both the general public and specialists, The Return of Martin Guerre will interest those who want to know more about ordinary families and especially women of the past, and about the creation of literary legends. It is a remarkable psychological narrative about where self-fashioning stops and lying begins.
©1983 The President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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Very Very Good
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A must listen! Incredible account of peasant life
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Fascinating.
Interesting account of a famous impostureship
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Intriguing court documents
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Enthralling
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However, I did not feel that the author made the most of it in terms of prose and structure. She does not play with the uncertainty inherent in a testomonies and the story. She is probably right in her various assessments on motives etc., but I feel that it came off as boring. Good history, but it did not make be laugh, cheer or reflect very deeply. I recently read "The Worms and the Cheese" and it made me do all those things. Perhaps that is a unfair comparison, but it is what it is.
Interesting but not captivating
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