The Return of Martin Guerre Audiobook By Natalie Zemon Davis cover art

The Return of Martin Guerre

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The Return of Martin Guerre

By: Natalie Zemon Davis
Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
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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 Tantor 16th Century Europe France Historical Modern True Crime Crime Law

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highly recommend. the reader has a very nice voice. the storytelling style was easily digestible. the story itself is absolutely bonkers. made even more bonkers by the fact that it's based in reality and was a real court case.

Very Very Good

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Narration was perfect. Natalie Zemon Davis is a master storyteller and historian of 16th century France!!!

A must listen! Incredible account of peasant life

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In the 16th century Arnaud du Tilh posed as a lost teenage groom, Martin Guerre (Guerre went to war & disappeared) and took up with Guerre's wife--who fell in love with du Tilh.
Fascinating.

Interesting account of a famous impostureship

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a great story written by a historian, that brings in new historicism to the story of Martin Guerre.

Intriguing court documents

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The author, a celebrated historian who died in 2023, at 94, appropriately hedges her narrative, due to gaps in records (e.g., including “she must have . . .”), But this is, nonetheless, an enthralling work. Highly recommended.

Enthralling

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The premise is intriguing and the chronology of events is fascinating. It's a real life story which would have worked almost as well as fiction (hence the various adaptions).

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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