George Sand
Auteure française très prolifique
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George Sand was one of the most famous and successful novelists of the 19th Century.1 She wrote more than 70 novels, the most popular being her "rustic" novels. That is, the stories were set in the countryside with the small towns and villages and where the plots strove to depict life as it really was.
Footnote
The official French word for author - as stated by the Académie Française - is auteur and is pronounced something like oh-TUR but not exactly. Differentiation of the genders is determined by the definite or indefinite article. So a male author is le auteur or un auteur and a female author is la auteur or une auteur.
More recently and unofficially the word auteure - pronounced about like auteur - is sometimes used for a female author. Ironically, in English the older and common word "authoress" which distinguishes the female from the male writers has fallen from favor and instead an author is simply an author regardless of gender.
Of course, George was actually a woman and was born Amantine Aurore Lucille Dupin.2 She was born in Paris in 1804 but her grandmother owned a fancy estate at Nohant about 150 miles south of Paris. After her folks died, George (as we'll continue to call her3) ended up running the estate and at age nineteen she married Casimir Dudevant. They had two kids - a daughter Solange and a son Maurice. Not really content with her husband's rather earthy philosophy of life, after eight years of marriage she up and moved out. She headed to Paris, and for the nonce, Casimir, Maurice, and Solange stayed at home. George later managed a legal separation and got custody of Solange.
Footnote
Pronounced (somewhat) like ah-mahn-TEEN oh-ROAR loo-SEEL deu-PAN.
Of course, French pronunciation can't actually be written. The superscript n ([]n) is a "nasalized" n and the closest we have in English is as in "honk". So say "honk" with out the k and replace the initial h with m and you've pretty much got the second syllable of "Amantine".
The French r is even more problematical. The tip of tongue is placed behind the lower teeth and the back of the tongue raised until you can feel the uvula - that is the little flappy thing that hangs down.
Next you try to say "r" in the back of the throat but making sure you vibrate the uvula. Some French teachers say try to gargle quietly. Some teachers also say the student should try to sound a gargling g rather than an r and you'll get the sound.
The n in Dupin is also nasalized as the first n in "Amantine" but the i is sounded more like a short American a. Saying doo-PAN with the "honk" n is not too far off although deu-PAN where the eu is pronounced kind of like in Zeus is closer.
Footnote
Note that the name is not only a masculine pseudonym for a French woman but is an ENGLISH pseudonym for a French woman. So it is NOT spelled Georges (with an s) as in French and should be pronounced JORGE as in English and not the French ZHORZH.
After she got to Paris George began to write and her output provided her enough of an income to get by. She had a regimen of twenty pages a day with minimal correction or emendation. Soon she became well known not just as an author but also for her unconventional lifestyle.
In fact, given that the 1974 mini-series of George's life starring Rosemary Harris was titled Notorious Woman, that pretty much establishes contemporary opinion. She made no attempt to hide her many boyfriends and much has been made of George dressing in men's clothes and hanging out with the guys at the cabarets and cafes. Actually her sporting masculine duds was not really that much of a deal since she had begun wearing men's clothes back in Nohant when she was learning to ride. Certainly the more utilitarian and convenient attire of the fellows had advantages over the voluminous crinoline-supported dresses and gowns dictated by custom for the ladies.
With her reputation established, George moved back to Nohant which removed her from the distractions of Paris and gave her more time to write. Just how many novels George wrote seems hard to pin down. Some sources say it's over 90 but others say it's more like 70 or maybe even 40. A popular informational website lists 59 novels, 13 plays, and three autobiographical works.
As a literary figure George rubbed elbows with some of the most famous writers, musicians, and artists of 19th Century France. These included Gustave Flaubert, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas (father and son), Jules Verne, Heinrich Heine, Hector Berlioz, Ivan Turgenev, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Rousseau, and Franz Liszt.
But her most famous friend - and we mean friend - was the pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin.4 The two began - ah - "keeping company" around 1837. In the mini-series they parted company due to political differences between Maurice and Frédéric, and Frédéric always maintained his affection for George. However, the split was really due to some friction between George and her daughter Solange. Frédéric sided with Solange as we know from some rather testy correspondence.
Footnote
Most people pronounce Frédéric's name as fred-er-EEK show-PAN. This is, of course, the French pronunciation and the way Frederick - to use the Anglophonic rendering - would have heard it said while he lived in France.
However, Frederick was Polish and his correct name is Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin. In his native tongue this is rendered more like fred-ER-ick fran-TCHEE-shek SHOW-pin.
Russian and Polish are similar languages but are not simply dialects of the same language where one - Russian - is written in the Cyrillic alphabet and the other - Polish - is rendered in Latin letters. They are in fact distinct languages much as are Spanish and Portuguese. There are important differences in grammar, pronoun use, and verb conjugation.
What makes things more complicated is sometimes a word in Russian is the same as in Polish but the meanings are different. Sometimes they are the opposite. The Russian word запоминать means "to memorize" or "to remember" but zapomniec in Polish means "to forget."
вот те на! Ale niesamowite!
Also in the mini-series George - despite her wealth and landholdings - was a committed socialist which at the time was a hip-cool thing to be. The real George did indeed spouse the one-for-all/all-for-one politics. But like many rich socialists she didn't push her beliefs too far and in her later years George was opposed to the formation of the Paris Commune. The Commune was a group of activists who took over Paris in March 1871 and George advocated Commune's suppression by the French government.
The Commune was established after France declared War against Prussia in July, 1870, and lost the war three months later at the Battle of Sedan. The Germans even took as prisoner the French Emperor, Napoleon III, who was, yes, the nephew of THE Napoleon. Having the King of France in their custody gave the Prussians considerable leverage in later negotiations.
The actual cause of the war is a matter of scholarly debate but this was the time that Germany didn't really exist. Instead, there was a hodge-podge of German speaking principalities each being ruled by its own prince, and each could do as it wanted without involving the others. So around 1870, the Prussian ruler, Otto von Bismark, remembered that England had once been happy to have a German king in the guise of George I. So why shouldn't he help install a German King in Spain? Nappy III objected and so Otto went to war against France.
Officially the War didn't end until January, 1871 and among the terms was that Napoleon III had to step down. In the ensuing confusion that followed, Paris was taken over by the Communards. They made such radical demands like freedom of speech, separation of church and state, votes for all citizens, and public education. Ultimately they lost the fight to the new (and Third) French Republic.
George lived another five years and she died on July 8, 1876, at her estate in Nohant. Later generations began to find her novels rather hard going, and toward the Millennium a biographer mentioned that people remained captivated by her life and times, but few people, even in France, were reading her novels.
But recently George's writings have seen something of a revival and most of her books are available in the original French or in translation. Of course, she is also remembered as one of the first women to hold for gender equality and that women should have all the rights of men.
So it's all the more ironic that George Sand is often remembered as the lady writer who adopted a masculine pen name. But even today this isn't that unusual. Currently one of the most popular science fiction writers - writing under with a masculine pen name - is a woman. It also works the other way, of course, and it is de rigueur that male authors of romance novels will write with distaff nom-de-plumes.
George's books were generally on serious topics. But of course the people of her time found much to laugh about even in literary matters. And they liked to tell jokes. Among the bon mots that were circulated before the fin de siécle were:
| Novelist: | What do you think of my new book? Did I kill too many characters at the end? | Critic: | No, but it would have been better if you had killed them all off at the beginning. |
| A Gentlemen called at the home of a famous writer and finding him in his desk remarked at the extreme warmth in the chamber. "How can you write, sir?" he asked. "It is as warm as an oven in here." "So it ought to be", replied the other, "For this is where I make my bread." |
| A most excellent novelist had submitted his manuscript to a publisher who after reading the first chapter called in his secretary. "This is an excellent tale", he said, "Send the author twenty pounds on account." After the secretary left, the publisher continued reading. After he finished the second chapter, again he called his secretary. "I have read nothing like this!" he stated. "Send the gentlemen another twenty pounds." He continued reading the novel and after he had finished with the third chapter he again summoned the secretary. "Return this manuscript at once!" he exclaimed. "If I read any more I shall be ruined!" |
And finally there is what would give everyone a gigglemug:
| Playwright #1: | Why, Mr. S--------k, I saw your comedy performed on stage last night. But I must say I never laughed once. | Playwright #2:: | Indeed, Mr. M------d? I went to see your tragedy as well. But I could do nothing but laugh from beginning to end! |
References and Further Reading
George Sand, Curtis Cate, Houghton-Mifflin, 1975.
"George Sand", Gerry Callahan, Encyclopedia of World Biography.
"George Sand", Who Knew Whom.
Joe Miller's Complete Jest Book : Being a Collection of the Most Excellent Bon Mots, Brilliant Jests, and Striking Anecdotes, in the English Language, Joe Miller, John Mottley, H.G. Bohn (Publisher), 1859.
"77 Delightful Victorian Slang Terms You Should Be Using", Erin McCarthy, Mental Floss, August 30, 2023.
"How Different or Similar are Polish and Russian?", Michael, Langauge Tsar.
Notorious Woman, Rosemary Harris (George Sand), George Chakiris (Casimir Dudevant), Jeremy Irons (Franz Listz), Tim Desmond (Maurice Dudevant), Georgina Hale (Solange Dudevant), Peter Woodthorpe (Honoré de Balzac), Waris Hussein (writer), Harry W. Junkin (director), BBC, 1974.