39 and rain showers. A gloomy wet day ahead.
With all the recent bad weather, I've been reading more than usual. Two nonfiction books caught my interest. The first is a biography of the French writer, George Sand, called Naked in the Marketplace, by Benita Eisler.
I knew literally nothing about George Sand before reading this book. The only reason I picked it up was because it was at the thrift shop and the title caught my attention. Good writers know the importance of an eye-catching title. I read the cover blurb and was instantly intriqued. George Sand was a woman? Really? Yes, she was. She was also the first best-selling female author in Europe.
Born Aurore-Lucile-Amandine Dupin, she was likely not the daughter of her mother's husband. Eisler examines the painful history of Sand's relationship with her mother and her conflicted childhood, and follows Aurore' on her journey to becoming the writer George Sands. That journey includes many, many lovers, and those tormented affairs, including one with Chopin, often became the fodder for her best-selling books. Sands experienced the upheavals and revolutions of 19th century France, and saw the rise of Napoleon. The book is thoroughly engrossing, even for those, like me, with no prior knowledge of George Sands.
The second book's topic is more mundane, but still as voyeuristic in its way as the Sand biography. In If These Walls Had Ears, writer James Morgan tells us the story of his house in Little Rock, Arkansas. A lipstick stain on a coffee cup left on the back steps of the house as he toured it with a realtor inspired an intense curiosity about the people who had lived at 501 Holly Street. His book traces the house from the purchase of the land by the house's builders all the way to his own ownership of the property. Children, divorces, deaths, marriages, and all the things that happened in between are presented in chapters named for the former owners. Morgan was able to contact each family, amazingly, and dug into court records and other sources to create a book that is not just the story of one house, but an examination of homes and our relationships--good and bad--with the places we call home.
Neither of these are recent publications, but then I've never been one to buy current bestsellers--used books and used bookstores are what draw me. Maybe because I subsconsciously think that if someone else read it, the book must be good? I don't know, but I can say for sure that I enjoyed both of these books.
I thought most women authors back then used male pen names to make it easier to be published. George Elliott was a woman too.
ReplyDeleteJenny, you're right--many did use male names in order to sell their work. Sand was unusual, in that everyone in Paris--the hub of arts and literature in France at the time--knew who she was. She'd been writing articles for several publications under her own name for several years, and had a lot of notoriety. She'd already published one book with her then-lover Jules Sandeau, but wanted a name of her own on her second book. Her family did not want the family name on one of her books. Sand was an abbreviation of Sandeau, but the reason for the choice of George seems to be unclear--perhaps to honor Lord Byron, a poet she admired, and whose first name was George. Interestingly, though heterosexual Sand wore men's clothing most of the time--another reason for her notoriety in addition to the stream of lovers.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd probably enjoy both of these books. I've often enjoyed used bookstores...and we've got a couple in this area where you get credit for bringing in old books before purchasing new ones. One just gives proceeds to charities of your choice...the other just recycles your credit toward purchases. I've become enamored by audio and print books on line available through the county library system.
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