The Haunted Pool

This book has been stopping up the works around here. I read it, I digested it, I had thoughts about it, but for some reason I haven't felt quite prepared or qualified or informed enough to just comment on it and get on with life.

I think it's because I have this image of George Sand, this just ass-kicking supergenius female from the intimidating past, leaning over my shoulder, saying, "Don't you GET IT you moron? It wasn't just about cabbages and true love. It was about so! much! more!" The truth is, unfortunately, that unless the imaginary spectre of George Sand wants to clue me in, I'm not sure what else is here besides the cabbages. And the true love.

Well, there's the prologue. The prologue, which addresses the reader directly, is about how noble and wise the peasants of rural France are (were) and how their lack of intellect or ability to understand their circumstances doesn't interfere with their feeling of important feelings, and experiencing of deep emotion. Isn't that nice? Those sweet, precious peasants and their silly dumb heads.

Sand takes the prologue to rhapsodize about them and how cute they are, with their toil and whatnot, and then tells a pretty story about them falling (without consciousness) in love with each other. Finally, she takes a few more pages (a lot more pages) to just unapologetically savor the peasants' cute rituals. Marriage rituals.

The truth is, I really liked the book, up until the plot quit and the "I miss the cute peasants I used to look down on in my youth" themes came to the fore. I expected something raunchy, loud, scathing, or at least edgy. This is not that. It's a sweet love story, flavored with a lot of local color. So George Sand was a surprise, for this postfeminist. I'm not sure I'd love to read another of her books, but I'm glad I finally found out what she was really writing, under all that scandal and wild living.

George Sand

George Sand is the most famous female writer in the whole world. OR the most famous female writer in France in the 19th century. Whatever. She was born aristocracy in Paris, went to live with her grandmother, went to a convent, married a rich dude and had his babies, and then GOT A DIVORCE and moved back to Paris, to support herself and her children by writing 80 popular novels. After her big spectacular divorce, she started wearing men's clothing and having overt trysts with famous people like Chopin and whatnot. You can see one rendition of that stylish lifestyle in the movie "Impromptu." Starring Hugh Grant as a sort of mild Chopin. And Julian Sands as... Lizcstsztz.

Everyone in 19th century France loved these books, but no one today likes them much. It's pretty hard to find one -- I found my copy of The Haunted Pool in a used bookstore. The publisher is Shameless Hussy Press.

Here's a picture of rural France, just like you might imagine George Sand looking at, when she wrote the book, The Haunted Pool. See the mist? Totally haunting. Someday, I am finally going to write about that book. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great either. It wasn't what I expected.