The Wife of Martin Guerre

I read this novel years ago for school, but I was clicking around Goodreads randomly and I realised that, for some bizarre reason, this book has a lot of positive reviews, so I thought I'd try to counterbalance that a little.

This book made me really angry. For a start, it's just so boring -- you'd think it'd be easy to avoid putting too much padding in a 109-page novella, but no, this book will do such things as devote an entire page to describing a tree, and honestly, I do not care about trees that much. So. That happens.

But worse, I despised the plot. Basically what happens is this: a woman in sixteenth-century France marries this man, Martin Guerre, who is abusive and generally a despicable person. At some point he up and leaves her, show more which would seem to me to be the highlight of their entire marriage, except for the part where this leaves her in a precarious position in sixteenth-century France. Eight years later, Martin Guerre finally deigns to return, only now he's much kinder and warmer, a really nice guy, someone it wouldn't be hell on earth to live with. This means Bertrande (the woman) becomes convinced that he's not really Martin Guerre at all, but an impostor. Most of the rest of the book is then about her struggle to make everyone else realise he's an impostor, even though he's clearly a vast improvement on the man she was married to before, so I personally would be very inclined to bury my doubts.

Then at the end he's proved to be an impostor because the real Martin Guerre actually returns, and promptly abuses Bertrande anew to thank her for making the impostor's life as hard as possible in spite of what a great guy he was. Oh sorry, I mean for "cheating" on him. Because he was definitely entitled to her loyalty after being abusive and abandoning her, after all.

I mean, I do hate novels where characters seem anachronistic, and my teacher at the time gave me a lecture about how I just didn't understand how deep the fear of hell ran in Bertrande's time. But quite honestly, I think this depth of fear of hell would have been equally unusual in Bertrande's time as ours. In the last millennium, Europe has been full of people who had affairs or even, god forbid, sex before marriage - and this is a guy who could quite easily have been Bertrande's true husband, just a bit more mature and with an actual conscience. So fine, Bertrande is part of that small minority of people who actually think remaining loyal to an abusive husband is better than the possibility of eternal damnation. This is not really a segment of society I care to read about. Each to their own, though. show less

True Story, Fictionalised

“A stranger… then her loved husband, then a man who might have been Martin’s ancestor but not young Martin Guerre.”

This novella was written by an American novelist and published in 1941. It is based on a startling court case in 16th century France, that has been told and adapted many times since, including the 1993 film starring Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, Sommersby, which set it in the US Civil War. A decade earlier, Gerard Depardieu starred in Le retour de Martin Guerre. It's quite fun to watch them back to back (though it's many years since I did).

Martin and Bertrande are married young. Shortly after their son, Sanxi, is born, Martin goes away to avoid a dispute with his father, telling Bertrande show more he will be back in a week or so. Years pass. Martin returns, a changed man – changed for the better. Everyone recognises him, even the animals, but he’s kinder, wiser, gentler. Everyone loves him, including Bertrande - more than ever. Another child is born, and Bertrande begins to fear he is an imposter, and thus that she is an adulteress, destined for eternal damnation. She’s not certain. She questions her sanity: “It was like the shadow of a dark wing sweeping suddenly across the room, and then departing swiftly.”

For a while, she puts her fears to one side, regarding them as delusions, “it lent a strange savour to her passion for him”. For a while.

What Would You Do?

The story is about truth, identity, and loyalty. There is courtroom drama. But the real interest is whether and why someone could get away with such a deceit, and if so, why others might go along with it. If there’s the death penalty in this life and you believe in hellfire in the next, matters are even more complex.

Even if she were certain the man is an imposter, what to do, given that she has a child by each man, has come to love the new Martin, and that the estate and all its servants and workers depend on him?

There is no right answer.

Time and Place

Lewis weaves a lush tapestry of the life, beliefs, and customs of “rich peasant families” in mid the 1500s, along with the scenery and seasonal cycles of the Pyrenees and Basque country. The language is slightly old-fashioned, without being obscure.

Quotes

• “His presence should testify for her that the beasts were safe, that the grain was safe… the family was safe… and therefore the whole world was safe and as it should be.”

• “Bertrande was aware of no other sentiment for her husband than a mild gratitude for his leaving her alone.”

• “Gradually Bertrande’s affection for her husband became a deep and joyous passion, growing slowly and naturally as her body grew.”

• “His ugliness was ancestral, and that in itself was good.”

• “He had deserted her in the full beauty of her youth, in the height of her great passion, he had shamed her and wounded her.”

• “The displeasure of Monsieur Guerre had become as necessary and inevitable part of his character as his spine was of his body. When he entered a room that displeasure entered with him.”

• “The more she strove to recollect his appearance, the vaguer grew her memory.”

• “Her sorrow and her new sense of responsibility ennobled her physical charm.”

• “He attached himself to his father’s person, like a small dog who does not mind whether he is noticed or not, provided he is permitted to be present.”

• “The very walls of the kitchen were animated and seemed to tremble in the ruddy glow from the chimney. The copper vessels winked and blazed. The glazed pottery on the dresser also gave back the quivering light, and his father’s armour… was momentarily like the sky of an autumn sunset.”

• “I see the flesh and bones of Martin Guerre, but in them I see dwelling the spirit of another man.”

• “The air alternately misted, showered, and shone in confusing variability.”

• “Bertrande awoke unrefreshed, and felt in the air, as in her mind, the sultriness which paralleled the sullen temper of the men… the evening before.”

See also

• Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier is an entirely fictional novel that also explores the consequences of a returning soldier. See my 4* review HERE.

• The Return of Martin Guerre - non-fiction that inspired Janet Lewis. show less

Janet Lewis' short novel The Wife of Martin Guerre examines this classic case of circumstantial evidence, telling the story mainly through the perspective of Guerre's wife, Bertrande de Rols. A readable and lyrical adaptation of the tale, with all its twists, turns, and surprises. Lewis delves deeply into Bertrande's frame of mind as she ultimately concludes that she must confront the man purporting to be her husband, and the powerful ending really speaks to the all-important question of truth versus justice.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-review-wife-of-martin-guerre.html

I've wanted to read this book since I saw the movie decades ago, so I immediately checked it out when it showed up on my library feed.

Based on an 1874 legal history, this short novel describes the events leading to a legal dispute in 1539. Martin Guerre is married to Bertrand, and after an argument with his father, with whom he owns and manages a prosperous farm, he takes off for a break. Bertrand expects him to be gone a few months at the most. Instead, he is gone eight years. When he returns, everyone accepts him as Martin Guerre, but after a while Bertrand begins to suspect otherwise--he is too "nice" to be Martin. Bertrand begins legal proceedings to have him declared an imposter.

The focus of the book was on Bertrand's state of show more mind. It did a good job of putting the reader into a 16th century mindset, and the characters were well-developed. Although it might seem fantastical that a woman might not recognize her husband, the story was plausible and well-told.

Recommended.

3 stars show less

revisit years read once I locate reading notes; thought of this title today due to name of husband returned from WW II in Natalie Haynes short story in MARPLE

Zie onze recensie"""

Op een ochtend in januari 1539 werd in het dorp Artigues een bruiloft gevierd.