Line #27 Literature/TheBookOfJoan


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/look_of_joan_9.jpg]]
2
3	->''"What if, for once in history, a woman's story could be untethered from what we need it to be in order to feel better about ourselves?"''
4
5	''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 a ''New York Times'' Notable Book of the year.
6
7	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.
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9	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. Joan of Dirt, as the enemy called her. 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.
10
11	''The Book of Joan'' transforms 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?
12	----
13	'''WARNING: This work contains several {{Walking Spoiler}}s that spoiler tags are unlikely to save you from.'''
14	!!These Tropes Are Star-Stuff:
15	* AdamAndEvePlot: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:Joan eventually realizes she can use her body not only for destruction, but for creation, [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing herself]] to give rise to a new generation on Earth.]]
16	* AffectionateNickname: Trinculo, Christine's husband, often calls her "Christ."
17	* AffectionateParody: Trinculo writes Christine a modernized and characteristically obscene take on the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. Christine laughs at how terrible it is, but it's actually something of a masterwork.
18	* {{Allegory}}: The subplot involving Jean de Men's desire to use Joan as a BabyFactory can easily be read as a pro-choice argument.
19	* AmbiguousGender: Nyx, Christine's first disciple, has NoBiologicalSex like all residents of CIEL. Christine assumes they are a young woman, but [[spoiler:Joan]] treats them as gender-neutral.
20	* AppropriatedAppellation: Joan adopts the enemy's derogatory name for her, "Joan of Dirt," since she ''is'' of the dirt, as all humanity is.
21	* BabyFactory: This is how Jean de Men sees women--especially Joan, who, unlike the rest of humanity, has not lost her reproductive capabilities.
22	* BigBad: Jean de Men, the populist artist-turned-dictator who advocated ascension into CIEL and now rules it with an inkstained fist.
23	* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Joan arrives on CIEL in a blaze of energy in the middle of the battle between Christine's and Jean de Men's forces.]]
24	-->[[spoiler:'''Joan:''' [[PreAsskickingOneLiner You should have killed me better.]]]]
25	* TheBigDamnKiss: [[spoiler:Somewhat deconstructed, in that it's deliberately not played in the stereotypical Hollywood sense (it incorporates a far broader range of feeling), but Joan and Leone do get one after escaping from CIEL.]]
26	* ABirthdayNotABreak: Christine's resistance's attack on Jean de Men occurs on [[DiedOnTheirBirthday her fiftieth birthday, the last day of her life]]. It goes unmentioned until Trinculo brings it up, as [[spoiler:they and all of CIEL are [[HurlItIntoTheSun hurtling towards the sun]].]]
27	-->'''Trinculo:''' Happy birthday, you moon-breasted star song.
28	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Most of the cast is dead, with CIEL [[HurlItIntoTheSun incinerated]] and most of humanity along with it, but Joan has given her body to rejuvinate the Earth, and [[PyrrhicVictory Jean de Men has been defeated]].]]
29	* BodyHorror: Since physicality and the human body are possibly the book's CentralTheme, this abounds.
30	** The layers of scar tissue built up from repeated and overlapping skin grafts on the wealthier CIEL residents produces grotesque deformations resembling anything from headtails to long, imperial sleeves.
31	** The sexless, colorless devolved state of the humans on CIEL itself.
32	** Jean de Men's fertility experiments, [[spoiler: which have involved the creation of artificial genitalia, among other monstrosities]].
33	** [[spoiler: Joan fully remembers the sensation of being [[BurnTheWitch burned alive]].]]
34	** In the climactic scene, Jean de Men [[spoiler: pulls out Leone's reproductive tract ''[[EatenAlive and eats it]]''.]]
35	* BurnTheWitch: As part of the JeanneDArchetype story, Joan was burned at the stake on live television. [[spoiler:It turns out she was actually rescued from the pyre, though she sustained horrible burns on her skin, which is scarred to this day.]]
36	* CentralTheme: Devolution, matter and energy, love, gender, and the cycle of creation and destruction.
37	* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:The spider Christine notices in the first chapter returns to play a vital role in communication between Christine and Trinculo.]]
38	* ChildlessDystopia: CIEL. Since sex characteristics evaporated almost two decades ago, no one has been able to conceive a child.
39	* ChildrenAreInnocent: Played with. The children of Earth have born the worst of the warfare--many being conscripted and used as cannon fodder--and are still harshly exploited by CIEL's enforcers.
40	* ChildSoldiers: Children, including Joan and Leone, were used as foot soldiers in the war.
41	* CoveredWithScars:
42	** On CIEL, the dominant form of literature is scarification--burning patterns and pictographs onto one's skin to tell stories. As a result, most residents of CIEL are covered in scar tissue--some areas burned over so many times they have grown into headtails or other grotesque shapes.
43	** [[spoiler:Joan is covered in burn scars from her [[BurnTheWitch attempted execution]].]]
44	* TheCynic: Both Christine and [[spoiler:Joan]], downplayed. They don't believe that humanity is inherently evil, but they do believe it to be beyond saving.
45	* CynicismCatalyst: [[spoiler:Joan's loss to Jean de Men and subsequent attempted execution cost her her faith in humanity.]]
46	* DefiantToTheEnd: Trinculo continues admonishing and VolleyingInsults at Jean de Men, even after [[spoiler:he has been [[FlayingAlive flayed alive]]]].
47	* {{Dystopia}}: CIEL, the FalseUtopia where only the rich could afford to retreat from the dying world below, ruled by an autocrat and strictly forbidding of unorthodox expression.
48	* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: Decades of warfare and a vaguely defined eco-apocalypse have left the planet barren and lifeless, save for its deepest caves.
49	* EmotionlessGirl: Leone is a {{deconstruction}}. She is an extreme [[TheStoic stoic]], but [[spoiler:Joan]] comes to realize that the two could easily had a deeper, more conversational relationship with her if Leone had not been afraid of her.
50	* EveryoneIsBi: The disappearance of sex and gender characteristics has muddied the line of sexual attraction for everyone, and Christine, Trinculo, and [[spoiler:Joan]] all show attraction to both men and women.
51	* EveryScarHasAStory: Literally. Scarification is the main form of literature on CIEL, and master burn artists like Christine are novelists.
52	* 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 inane fantasies.
53	* FingerInTheMail: Played with. [[spoiler:Joan sends her pinky finger, along with a lock of her hair, to the colony she learns of on Earth as proof of her identity.]]
54	* FirstPersonPerspective: For the first half of the book Christine's parts are first-person and [[spoiler:Joan]]'s are third-person. Halfway through, it switches.
55	* FlayingAlive: This is done to [[spoiler:Trinculo]] as punishment for his repeated infractions. [[spoiler:He somehow stays alive through and after the procedure, until the end of the book]].
56	* FreeLoveFuture: Deconstructed. CIEL pretends to offer this, but Jean de Men's grafts are decidedly heteronormative, and since sex characteristics are a thing of the past, all anyone can do is fantasize.
57	* GenreDeconstruction: Of ScienceFiction and {{Dystopia}}. It hits most of the same points, but almost always from an entirely new angle.
58	* GreatOffscreenWar: Earth has been ravaged by catastrophic global warfare, which Joan and Leone both fought in as ChildSoldiers.
59	* GreenAesop: Humanity's ruthless exploitation of the Earth and the environment--hijacking biological systems to further its own designs--has led to its downfall.
60	* GuyOnGuyIsHot: When pretending to masturbate for the cameras in her cell, Christine imagines Trinculo with another man. In great detail.
61	* HappilyMarried: Christine and Trinculo, though they are frustrated by their [[NoBiologicalSex inability to have sex]].
62	* HurlItIntoTheSun: [[spoiler:In the end, Christine sets CIEL on a course that will send it and all the dregs of humanity it contains into the sun.]]
63	* ICallItVera: Leone calls her special [[NothingUpMySleeve boot-knife]] "Little Bee."
64	* InsultOfEndearment: Trinculo loves [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean]]-sounding insults, which he volleys at Jean de Men in defiance but uses on Christine with affection.
65	* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: On CIEL, human skin has lost its pigment, and everyone is ''literally'' white--almost translucent. Subverted by [[spoiler:Joan]] and Leone, who have retained their French and Korean heritage, respectively.
66	* JeanneDArchetype: In this version, Joan was a girl living in the French countryside, who, at ten years old, touched a tree and found her skull suddenly filled with a euphonious, rippling song manifesting in a blue light just above her temple. It was the song of the Earth, of nature, and after that Joan found that she could communicate with and control matter in a way that gave her powers that were not ''super''human--but deeply and profoundly ''human''. When the global wars began, she was conscripted as a child soldier, where she quickly rose to prominence due to her extraordinary abilities. She eventually became a rebel leader, seeking to end the wars and prevent the ascension to CIEL. She was eventually captured and burned at the stake on public television--any public display of sympathy toward her strictly outlawed. [[spoiler:Her memory inspires Christine and her band of resistance fighters on CIEL, who plan to go out in a blaze of glory by suddenly attacking the complacent crowd--including Jean de Men--during a reenactment of Joan's story.]]
67	** 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 reduced 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.]]
68	* KillSat: CIEL can function as one, zapping those on the ground with bolts of energy.
69	* LaResistance: Joan became a rebel leader, fighting against Jean de Men.
70	* {{Leitmotif}}: In-universe. The song of the universe Joan hears constantly, which Christine and Joan's other followers learn to sing. In the novel's first chapter, it gets stuck in Christine's head, {{foreshadowing}} [[spoiler:Joan's return]].
71	* LitFic: It's a SciFI {{Dystopia}}n thriller, yes, but it's also an introspective, obsessively linguistic PhilosophicalNovel.
72	* LoveableSexManiac: Trinculo is bawdy and blasphemous and obsessed with the fleshy pleasures, but in a meditation on the importance of the physical, this hardly comes across as a bad thing. The first time we meet him, he has just designed a ridiculous belt covered with metal phalluses in imitation of the genitalia he has lost.
73	* MandatoryMotherhood: [[spoiler:Joan]] is the last woman alive who has not lost her sex characteristics and reproductive capabilities. Jean de Men intends to kidnap her and use her as a BabyFactory.
74	* MeaningfulName:
75	** Trinculo's sarcastic AffectionateNickname for Christine, "Christ", isn't entirely inappropriate.
76	** Joan, of course, is a JeanneDArchetype.
77	** "Trinculo" is [[ShoutOut the name of the fool in]] ''Theatre/TheTempest''.
78	** Nyx is the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek goddess]] of the night.
79	** ''Leone'' means ''lion''.
80	** Christine disgustedly lampshades the appropriateness of "Jean de ''Men''".
81	* MedicalRapeAndImpregnate: [[spoiler:Jean de Men has attempted this on numerous women in an attempt to undermine the SterilityPlague, even growing false uteruses and implanting them into people. It hasn't worked.]]
82	* MessianicArchetype: Joan is a {{deconstruction}}, though many of her followers believed her to be this.
83	* MistakenIdentity: PlayedForDrama. [[spoiler:Jean de Men kidnaps Leone, initially believing her to be Joan herself.]]
84	* MoralityChain: Leone to Joan, especially after [[spoiler:Joan's failed genocide, when Leone becomes the only human Joan still cares for]].
85	-->Leone became Joan's defenition of love.
86	* MostWritersAreWriters: Christine is a literary critic and author.
87	* MoustacheDePlume: [[spoiler:Jean de Men has been masquerading as a man for decades, perhaps so that his works of "literature" would be taken more seriously.]]
88	* {{Mutants}}: Some members of the youngest generation on CIEL, including Nyx, have developed vaguely defined [[SuperHero superhuman powers]] like walking through walls. Nyx is also able to [[{{Teleportation}} teleport]] by harnessing the Earth's energetic frequencies.
89	* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: It's not until after Leone is captured by Jean de Men that [[spoiler:Joan]] realizes she loves her.
90	* NoBiologicalSex: All humans except Joan have devolved to this point.
91	* NumberTwo: Leone has always been Joan's second in command. They've been friends since they were children.
92	* OrganicTechnology: Before the war, humanity learned to harness biological systems and use them to create new structures, hijacking evolution and merging technology and nature--in a move that turned out to be disastrous. Many pieces of organic tech come into play in the story, including the olms which are used to convert energy and the [[ChekhovsGun spider]] which is used to transfer information.
93	* PlatonicLifePartners: Joan and Leone--[[spoiler:until Leone is captured, and Joan realizes they were (or could have been) [[RelationshipUpgrade so much more than that]].]]
94	* 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.]]
95	* RelationshipUpgrade: Joan and Leone's [[TheBigDamnKiss Big Damn Kiss]].
96	* RomanceNovel: Jean de Men's renowned skin grafts are ultimately this, providing a false sense of love and intimacy that is in fact as isolating as the internalized misogyny they are born from.
97	* RuleOfSymbolism: Much of the story functions on this logic as it overlaps with RuleOfCool. See [[spoiler:Joan's brother]] [[ContrivedCoincidence showing up at the cave]].
98	* SecondComing: Played with. [[spoiler:Joan is not dead as she is purported to be, but she has no desire to take up the mantle again and destroy CIEL--until [[MoralityChain Leone]] is captured by Jean de Men.]]
99	* ShellShockedVeteran: Both [[spoiler:Joan]] and Leone, after the horrors they witnessed as child soldiers in the war.
100	* ShoutOut: The book is filled with references, both explicit and in undertones, to Myth/ClassicalMythology, ''Literature/TheBible'', and [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]].
101	* SlidingScaleOfPlotVersusCharacters: Definitely more focused on the characters and the concepts they embody than on the plot. Not much actually happens.
102	* SpaceStation: CIEL, a satellite orbiting Earth and connected to it by supply lines, where the remains of humanity live their stunted lives.
103	* SterilityPlague: Humans have devolved and no longer possess the reproductive systems necessary to produce children.
104	* TheStoic: [[spoiler:Joan]] admires Leone for her extreme stoicism.
105	* {{Teleportation}}: Nyx teaches [[spoiler:Joan]] how to teleport by harnessing the Earth's energetic frequencies and [[HeroicWillpower concentrating]].
106	* TrueCompanions: Joan and Leone, who [[spoiler:have spent years WalkingTheEarth together and are fiercely protective of each other to the last breath]].
107	* UnsettlingGenderReveal: Exaggerated.
108	** [[spoiler:Nyx undoes their skirt for Joan, revealing the hideous attempts at genital recreation wrought there by Jean de Men. This serves as the turning point for Joan in convincing her to rejoin the fight.]]
109	** In the climactic scene, [[spoiler:Jean de Men's robe is torn away, revealing that he has actually been a woman all along.]]
110	* 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.
111	* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler:Joan, who we don't learn is still alive until the end of Part 1]].
112	* WalkingTheEarth: [[spoiler:Joan and Leone have spent the decades after the ascension traveling the ravaged Earth, moving between the caves that house the last remaining life on the planet.]]
113	* WeWillHaveEuthanasiaInTheFuture: To conserve resources, CIEL residents are executed on their 50th birthdays.

Context Literature / TheBookOfJoan