History Literature / TheBookOfJoan

* ABirthdayNotABreak: Christine's resistance's attack on Jean de Men is scheduled for [[DiedOnTheirBirthday her fiftieth birthday--her last day of life]]. It goes unmentioned until Trinculo brings it up, as [[spoiler:they and all of CIEL are [[HurlItIntoTheSun hurtling towards the sun]].]]

* ABirthdayNotABreak: Christine's resistance's attack on Jean de Men is scheduled for her fiftieth birthday--her last day of life. It goes unmentioned until Trinculo brings it up, as [[spoiler:they and all of CIEL are [[HurlItIntoTheSun hurtling towards the sun]].]]

* RecycledInSpace: JeanneDArchetype [[AC:InSpace]]

* KnifeNut: Leone prefers to do her fighting with her favorite knife, [[ICallItVera Little Bee]].

''The Book of Joan'' recreates the {{dystopia}} genre, reimagining the Joan of Arc story and the story of life everywhere in a paradigm undefined by masculine-dominated narratives. It asks, what if we are not creatures of light and air, driven ever upwards by our manifest destinies? What if, instead, we are matter--by and of the Earth? And what happens when that connection is restored to us?

* {{Allusion}}: The book is filled with references, both explicit and in undertones, to Myth/ClassicalMythology, Literature/TheBible, and [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]].

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: Played with. No children have been born on CIEL for two decades, so Jean de Men has begun resorting to [[spoiler:twisted reproductive experiments to try to produce one. When he learns that Joan is alive, he plots to kidnap her and use her body to propagate the species.]]

* MedicalHorror: There's a decent bit of this on CIEL, between Jean de Men's demented punishments and experiments and the skin grafts themselves.

''The Book of Joan'' is a poetic, philosophical {{dystopia}}n novel by acclaimed author Lidia Yuknavitch, published in 2017. It was a National Bestseller and one a ''New York Times'' Notable Book of the year.

* AffectionateParody: Trinculo writes Christine a modernized and characteristically obscene take on the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.

* GreenAesop: Humanity's ruthless exploitation of the Earth and the environment has led to its downfall.
* GuyOnGuyIsHot: When pretending to masturbate for the cameras in her cell, Christine imagines Trinculo with another man.

* LoveableSexManiac: Trinculo is bawdy and blasphemous and obsessed with the fleshy pleasure, but in a meditation on the importance of the physical, this is hardly presented as a bad thing.

** Nyx is the Greek goddess of the night.

* WeWillHaveEuthenasiaInTheFuture: To conserve resources, CIEL residents are executed on their 50th birthdays.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Most of the cast is dead, but the Earth and humanity are not.]]

* HappilyMarried: Christine and Trinculo, though they are frustrated by their inability to have sex.

* RecycledInSpace: JeanneDArchetype [[AC:InSpace]]!!

* TheCynic: Christine, downplayed. She doesn't believe that humanity is inherently evil, but she does believe it to be beyond saving.

* FalseUtopia: Most residents of CIEL don't realize they are in a TotalitarianUtilitarian autocracy where horrors are perpetrated under their noses, engrossed as they are in shallow comforts and fantasies.

** Starting with Part 2, this archetype is deconstructed. [[spoiler:It turns out that Joan escaped her execution and is still alive, WalkingTheEarth with her companion Leone and sabotaging CIEL supply lines where she can. But she also was not the force for unambiguous good she is believed to have been: her capture was preceded by a failed attempt at global genocide--seemingly what redecuced the Earth to its current nearly lifeless condition--to wipe out human life and allow the planet to start anew, which she believed was why she had been given her powers.]]

* TrueCompanions: Joan and Leone.

But years ago, before the ascension, there was a girl. This girl became a warrior, and the warrior became a woman, and the woman became the final beacon of hope to a desperate resistance, and her name was Joan of Dirt. She was captured, of course, branded an eco-terrorist and publicly executed by the arcane method of burning at the stake, and with her, it was thought, died her story. But now Christine, a scholar and dissident artist nearing her fiftieth birthday--the limit of life for [=CIELers=]--has a song stuck in her head. And that song is only the beginning.

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Jean de Men believes a clean, heavenly existence among the stars is the ultimate apotheosis of humanity . . . and is willing to use propaganda, torture, and global genocide to achieve that goal.

''The Book of Joan'' recreates the {{dystopia}} genre, reimagining the Joan of Arc story and the story of life everywhere in a paradigm undefined by masculine-dominated narratives. It asks, what if we are not creatures of light and air, driven ever upwards by our manifest destinies? What if, instead, we are matter--by and of the Earth? And what happens when that connection is restored to us?

In the near future, the Earth is a barren battleground, ravaged by global warfare, and what is left of humanity has fled to CIEL, an orbiting satellite controlled by the [[TotalitarianUtilitarian totalitarian]] leader Jean de Men. Life among the stars has not proved to be the heavenly ascension that was promised, however, and isolated from the Earth's energy, evolution has inverted itself on humanity, who have become colorless, sexless, nearly lifeless shells, inscribing scar-pattern stories onto their skin.\\
%%keepin' weird things from happenin'

In the near future, the Earth is a barren battleground, ravaged by global warfare, and what is left of humanity has fled to CIEL, an orbiting satellite controlled by the [[TotalitarianUtilitarian totalitarian]] leader Jean de Men. Life among the stars has not proved to be the heavenly ascension that was promised, however, and isolated from the Earth's energy, evolution has inverted itself on humanity, who have become colorless, sexless, nearly lifeless shells, inscribing scar-pattern stories onto their skin.

But years ago, before the ascension, there was a girl. This girl became a warrior, and the warrior became a woman, and the woman became the final beacon of hope to a desperate resistance, and her name was Joan of Dirt. She was captured, of course, branded an eco-terrorist and publicly executed by the arcane method of burning at the stake, and with her, it was thought, died her story. But now Christine, a scholar and dissident artist nearing her fiftieth birthday--the limit of life for CIELers--has a song stuck in her head. And that song is only the beginning.

''The Book of Joan'' is a poetic, philosophical {{dystopia}}n novel by acclaimed author Lidia Yuknavitch, published in 2017. It was a National Bestseller and one a New York Times Notable Book of 2017.

In the near future, the Earth is a barren battleground, ravaged by global warfare,