The Devil's Pool (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press) - Softcover

Sand Pse, Title George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1406538531 ISBN 13: 9781406538533

Publisher: Dodo Press, 2007

Synopsis

George Sand was the pseudonym of the French novelist and feminist Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant (1804 -1876). She was known well in far reaches of the world, and her social practices, her writings and her beliefs prompted much commentary, often by other luminaries in the world of arts and letters. Her first published novel, Rose et Blanche (1831) was written in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, from whom she allegedly took her pen name, Sand. Her novels include Indiana (1832), Lélia (1833), Mauprat (1837), Le Compagnon du Tour de France (1842) and Le Meunier d'Angibault (1845). Drawing from her childhood experiences of the countryside, she wrote the rural novels La Mare au Diable (1846), La Petite Fadette (1849), and Les Beaux Messieurs Bois-Doré (1857). Further theatre pieces and autobiographical pieces include Histoire de ma Vie (1855) and Elle et Lui (1859). In addition, Sand authored literary criticism and political texts. Her most widely used quote being, "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."

About this title

Review

'Early deaths and endemic poverty are treated here as part of natural life; and natural life, with its indomitable, instinctive force for continuity, is what she is celebrating...it seems to me a book...worth reading more than once. --Victoria Glendinning

From the Author

To an extent, Sand is writing a fable or parable, to convey the essential goodness and fulfilment that can illuminate such apparently narrow lives, in contract to the ‘fake enlightenment’ of her sophisticated readers. Though she does underline the ugly side of customs such as the arranged marriage, with its potential for exploitation and humiliation, she deliberately highlights the poetic and pure side of rural life, as opposed to squalor and suffering. Early deaths and endemic poverty are treated here as part of natural life; and natural life, with its indomitable, instinctive force for continuity, is what she is celebrating. There is a powerful undercurrent of regret for the disappearance of age-old country customs in her native region; what we would now call the social anthropologist in here is well to the fore in the account of traditional marriage games, tacked on as a coda. She wants rural life to go on in the old predestined way, but with some better understanding of the value of that life.
These seem conservative, even sentimental attitudes for a liberated free-thinking, free-loving, progressive woman like Sand. But the story must also be read as she intended, as an act if empathy with her characters, and a riposte to intellectual arrogance. In any case, we all perversely love what we have chosen to lose – in her case, the simple life. The story was written, originally for magazine publication, at top speed. The unresolved ambivalences and contradictions make The Devil’s pool, as its author knew, an imperfect work of art. It is all the more intriguing for being so. For all its simple charm, it seems to me a book for grown-ups, and worth reading more than once.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dodo Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1406538531
• ISBN 13: 9781406538533
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Rudaux Edmond
• Number of pages: 132