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    Valentine
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    Valentine
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    Valentine
    Ebook372 pages6 hours

    Valentine

    By George Sand

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    This is George Sand's second novel. Like Indiana, her first, it explores the relationship between men and women. Valentine, an aristocratic girl, falls despearately in love with Benedict, the son of a poor farmer. Again, like Indiana, this novel challenges preconceived masculine assumptions about woman's role in society. In loving Benedict, Valentine rebels against her family and her class.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChicago Review Press
    Release dateMar 15, 2000
    ISBN9781613732236
    Unavailable
    Valentine
    Author

    George Sand

    George Sand is the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, a 19th century French novelist and memoirist. Sand is best known for her novels Indiana, Lélia, and Consuelo, and for her memoir A Winter in Majorca, in which she reflects on her time on the island with Chopin in 1838-39. A champion of the poor and working classes, Sand was an early socialist who published her own newspaper using a workers’ co-operative and scorned gender conventions by wearing men’s clothing and smoking tobacco in public. George Sand died in France in 1876.

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    Reviews for Valentine

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    • 5/5
      I saved my copy of ‘Valentine’ for quite some time, because I was sure from the start that it would be special, that it was a book to save for exactly the right moment. And when I read ‘Valentine’ I realised that I had been right, that I was reading a classic work by the finest of authors.I was transported to rural France, I was captivated by the story, the romance, by everything that the author had to tell me …. I was torn between wanting to rush through the pages and wanting to linger, to in this world, in this story, for as long as I could.‘Valentine’ tells the story of the love between Valentine de Raimbault, the daughter of the chateau, and Bénédict Lhéry, the nephew of one of its tenant farmers. When they met they feel in love, swiftly and deeply. That love was tangible, the characters lived and breathed, their whole world came to life. It was wonderful, but it was impossible.“He could not take his eyes from Valentine’s; whether he leaned over the bank or ventured on to the loose stones or on to the smooth and slippery pebbles in the river-bed he inevitably met Valentine’s glance, watching him, brooding over him, so to speak, with tender solicitude. Valentine did not know how to dissemble; she did not consider on that occasion there was the slightest occasion for her to do so.”Benedict had been brought up by his aunt and uncle, and it was understood that he would marry their adored – but spoiled – only child, Athénaïs.Valentine’s sister, Louise, had been cast off by her family when a love affair produced a son out of wedlock, and that left Valentine to marry well. A marriage had been arranged with a man of high rank; but a man who was dissolute and in need of the fortune that Valentine would bring to pay his gambling debts.It was impossible, but the bond between them was unbreakable.The story rises and falls because Valentine and Benedict have different temperaments. One is reluctant to cause hurt and tries to follow the path that was planned for them, and one is ready to do anything for the two to be together.And of course their are other influences. A spouse who will not be undermined. A lover sore after rejection. A loving sister, whose own feelings and interest may conflict with sisterly love ….George Sand constructed and managed her plot beautifully, attending to every single detail;she brought the countryside to life with wonderfully rich descriptions; and she made her characters’ feelings palpable.She gave me a wonderful story, full of wonderful drama, and so many real emotions.And it was a story with much to say, about the separation of social classes, about the lack of education and opportunity for women of any class.“Every day, in the name of God and society, some clown or some dastard obtains the hand of an unfortunate girl, who is forced by her parents, her good name or her poverty to stifle in her heart a pure and sanctified love. And before the eyes of society, which approves and sanctions the outrage, the modest, trembling woman, who has been unable to resist the transports of her lover, falls dishonoured beneath the kisses of a detested master! and this must go on!”There is so much depth, so much richness in the characters, in the relationships, in the way that story plays out, but I am wary of saying too much.I have to believe that George Sand was an author who put her head her heart and her soul into her work. And now, of course, I want to read everything that she ever wrote.It’s difficult to place her ….…. imagine Thomas Hardy, transformed as Virginia Woolf transformed Orlando, sitting down to rewrite Romeo and Juliet and drawing inspiration from Shakespeare’s other works too ….I can’t quite explain.I just know that I loved this book.(Translated by George Burnham Ives)