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skeleton_richard's review
1.0
This book is an exercise in why research and credibility are important. It is also an example of how not to write, but I'll get to that in a moment. My major complaint is the inaccuracy. I caught multiple mistakes-- blatant, how-do-you-get-something-like-that-wrong mistakes. The first was an inexplicable claim that Charles' bastard brother Jean, usually called Dunois (or the Bastard of Orleans in Shakespeare's Henry VI) was baptized "Ferdinand" but still called Jean. I can't find anything to back this up. At one point (and only once) Goodrich says that Charles d'Albret, High Constable of France at the time of Agincourt was the brother of Joan of Navarre, who was the second wife of Henry IV. This is definitely wrong, as was the claim that Henry Beaufort was Henry V's half-brother. This may be an honest mistake, since Beaufort (his uncle) was the half-brother of Henry IV. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt on that one but still, stuff like that should be caught before it goes to print. Another major mistake later on was the birth order of Charles' children being switched. Of his children with Marie of Cleves, Louis (the future Louis XII) was born between Marie and Anne, with Anne the youngest. Somehow, within the narrative Goodrich manages to confuse that.
I focus on this because accuracy is obviously of the utmost importance when writing about history. I teach how to use historical sources and how to cite things properly and this bugs me something major. While Goodrich does have a bibliography, there are never any notes of any kind. The closest to acknowledging sources is mentioning medieval chroniclers in text. Because there are no citations and because I found multiple glaring errors I was disinclined to trust it. That's why credibility is so important-- make mistakes like this and there is no reason for a reader to trust it.
There's another major issue with this book, which may have made me more angry than the inaccuracy. It's the most purple prose I have ever read in my life. It spends far too long describing useless information and digresses incessantly. I read a particularly bad page to a friend, who shouted "Get on with it!" halfway through. It has an annoying fixation on Joan of Arc. I love Joan quite a lot but there's no reason to mention her repeatedly (also it is not a strange coincidence that Charles' first child, Joan, was named the same as Joan of Arc because 1. Joan of Arc wasn't from Orleans even though she was called the Maid of Orleans and 2. Joan was a common name. Of course there will be kids named Joan. Okay, rant over).
More uncomfortable is a fixation with the relationship between Charles and Isabelle, his first wife. That relationship is a bit squicky by modern standards, as not only were they first cousins, but she was four years older than him. This, to Goodrich, is the perfect relationship and Isabelle was the great love of his life. She concludes that Charles' most beautiful poetry is about Isabelle. This touches on (but comes to a possibly faulty conclusion) a major part of studying Charles' poetry, the identity of the recipient/addressee. He may have been writing about the real ladies in his life, and perhaps he was addressing an allegorical personification of France. It can only be speculation at best. Goodrich also, for some reason, does not like Bonne d'Armagnac.
Dr. Mary-Jo Arn said it best on her site about Charles: "Norma Lorre Goodrich doesn’t exactly say whether she thinks she is writing fiction or fact, but Charles Duke of Orleans: A Literary Biography (1963) contains more of the former than the latter."
Burn.
So in short, this is a disappointing book all around. The writing is annoying, there are multiple wildly incorrect statements, and it has a very uncomfortable fixation with Isabelle, which never goes away. And I haven't even discussed the portrayal of Louis, Charles' father, which is probably a bit too positive.
At any rate, read In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella Haasse rather than this. Somehow a fiction book was more accurate than this biography.
I focus on this because accuracy is obviously of the utmost importance when writing about history. I teach how to use historical sources and how to cite things properly and this bugs me something major. While Goodrich does have a bibliography, there are never any notes of any kind. The closest to acknowledging sources is mentioning medieval chroniclers in text. Because there are no citations and because I found multiple glaring errors I was disinclined to trust it. That's why credibility is so important-- make mistakes like this and there is no reason for a reader to trust it.
There's another major issue with this book, which may have made me more angry than the inaccuracy. It's the most purple prose I have ever read in my life. It spends far too long describing useless information and digresses incessantly. I read a particularly bad page to a friend, who shouted "Get on with it!" halfway through. It has an annoying fixation on Joan of Arc. I love Joan quite a lot but there's no reason to mention her repeatedly (also it is not a strange coincidence that Charles' first child, Joan, was named the same as Joan of Arc because 1. Joan of Arc wasn't from Orleans even though she was called the Maid of Orleans and 2. Joan was a common name. Of course there will be kids named Joan. Okay, rant over).
More uncomfortable is a fixation with the relationship between Charles and Isabelle, his first wife. That relationship is a bit squicky by modern standards, as not only were they first cousins, but she was four years older than him. This, to Goodrich, is the perfect relationship and Isabelle was the great love of his life. She concludes that Charles' most beautiful poetry is about Isabelle. This touches on (but comes to a possibly faulty conclusion) a major part of studying Charles' poetry, the identity of the recipient/addressee. He may have been writing about the real ladies in his life, and perhaps he was addressing an allegorical personification of France. It can only be speculation at best. Goodrich also, for some reason, does not like Bonne d'Armagnac.
Dr. Mary-Jo Arn said it best on her site about Charles: "Norma Lorre Goodrich doesn’t exactly say whether she thinks she is writing fiction or fact, but Charles Duke of Orleans: A Literary Biography (1963) contains more of the former than the latter."
Burn.
So in short, this is a disappointing book all around. The writing is annoying, there are multiple wildly incorrect statements, and it has a very uncomfortable fixation with Isabelle, which never goes away. And I haven't even discussed the portrayal of Louis, Charles' father, which is probably a bit too positive.
At any rate, read In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella Haasse rather than this. Somehow a fiction book was more accurate than this biography.
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