The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand

Summary (from the publisher): A passionate and powerful novel based on the scandalous life of the French novelist George Sand, her famous lovers, untraditional Parisian lifestyle, and bestselling novels in Paris during the 1830s and 40s. This major departure for bestseller Berg is for readers of Nancy Horan and Elizabeth Gilbert.

George Sand was a 19th century French novelist known not only for her novels but even more for her scandalous behavior. After leaving her estranged husband, Sand moved to Paris where she wrote, wore men’s clothing, smoked cigars, and had love affairs with famous men and an actress named Marie. In an era of incredible artistic talent, Sand was the most famous female writer of her time. Her lovers and friends included Frederic Chopin, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Liszt, Eugene Delacroix, Victor Hugo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and more. In a major departure, Elizabeth Berg has created a gorgeous novel about the life of George Sand, written in luminous prose, with exquisite insight into the heart and mind of a woman who was considered the most passionate and gifted genius of her time.

 

Review: I received an advance copy of this novel from NetGalley.

 

This novel retells the story of author George Sand's life, from her perspective. Born in France in 1804  and christened Amantine-Lucile-Aurore, Aurore had a largely unhappy childhood. Her father died young and she was left in the hands of her unyielding grandmother, who threatened to reduce Aurore's mother's income unless the child was left in her care. Aurore makes an unhappy marriage, has two children, before leaving to pursue her career as a writer. She publishes under the name of George Sand, and gradually assumes that identity, dressing like a man first in order to observe plays as a man in order to write reviews, but later for the freedom men's dress allowed her. George takes many lovers, both male and female, and lives a liberated life of a prominent male writer. She fulfills her wish "to be a woman with a man's privileges."

 

This novel is told in dual narratives, one where George goes back in time to describe his life from birth onwards, and one from the perspective of her life once she pursues a writing career. It's almost as if this is a dual biography - one telling the story of Aurore and one telling the story of George. However, while I like this dual narrative in principle, I think the arc of the book was really George's transformation and claiming of her own identity. Splitting the narrative in two effectively eliminated the gravity of this immense character development. Rather than see George grow and evolve over time, the reader instead gets two largely separate stories.

 

My greatest frustration with this novel was that it seemed as if the author really would rather have been writing a non-fiction biography. Time and again, George tells the reader some historical fact about herself, rather than showing emotion or simply living the experience as a true fictional character should. For example, rather than describing her affection for her lover Frederic, George says, "Delacroix had recently done a painting of the two of us, where I was listening to Frederic play and in my face was a rich content." Another example of the telling versus showing that occurred throughout the novel: "I was called 'the mind and the pen of the new regime" rather than simply describing her work as a writer.

 

Another frustration with this book is admittedly one that has to deal with the author attempting to accurately portray a historical figure. I know that the real life George Sand had many lovers, but it was exasperating to have the main character suddenly announce "I realized I had fallen in love with him" every few chapters. George comes across as flighty and falls in love an awful lot for one lifetime.

I know very little about George Sand, which is one of the main reasons I sought out this book. Although I found the details her of her life interesting, I was not impressed with the narrative style of this novel.

Stars: 2