George Sand Books

This book was the guiding compass in my teenage years - art, music,coming of age, love, honor, mystery. It is truly remarkable, gripping, mystical, deep, full of underlying human mythology. I think it will hold its grip on anyone regardless of age, however! Man or woman, child or older being. Enjoy, especially those who will travel its path for the first time! I am surprised there is no film based on this book yet - the characters are delicious, Caliostro alone (in a sequel, Countess of Rudolstadt). Probably just a matter of time - no film can do it justice though, but our imaginations can!

I read the novel in Russian. Never read in English, but looking forward to it. I think it is one of the best George Sand's novels. It is full of mysterious and exciting moments. I hope the book in English is as fabulous as in Russian.

This is the first George Sand book I have read. I was curious about her after watching the movie "Impromptu". It was a bit of a quest to get my hands on one of her books--possibly this would not have been my first choice. Either way, I found it very interesting.

It is hard to grasp the revolutionary nature of some of the ideas she has in this book--i.e. equality of women from a modern view point. Of course much of what she is saying and observing is still quite relevant in many ways. And she has a marvelous way of saying what she does. It makes me wish I could read French well enough to read it in the original.

It was a great example of first person narrative, and Horace certainly is a character unlike any other I have encountered in a book. Eugenie is a marvelous woman as well.

This is a truly fantastic book. It is written in George Sand's fourth period of creativity and emphasizes on what it means to be a man. G. Sand stresses on the qualities of human nature, but she does not criticize them on the surface. She shows what would happen if people accept them.

It is worth reading for anyone who feels they do not know what they want to do with their lives!

... but long on rumination. This is not a love story of the type that flies off modern store shelves. It's slow reading, and for the deep thinker. But it's a MUST READ for insight into Chopin, at least through the eyes of a woman who sees herself as a saint who gave everything for the sake of a neurotic priss so seriously flawed, so unable to truly love, to give as she does. Some of her descriptions of Prince Karol/Chopin are priceless, but must be taken cum granus seltzer.

This is the prototype for Meryl Streep's book on her failed marriage with Woody Allen in "Manhattan". In some ways, it reveals much more about Sand than it does about Chopin... that such a person, who is still with her partner, a world famous genius loved by all (almost) who know him, could actually write such shabby stuff right under his nose just to "set the record straight", so his adoring public (they love him, but merely respect her) can see the treadmarked underwear beneath the bon ton charm of the soulful composer. What chutzpah! Que cajones! Quelle connasse!

Sand actually read the manuscript to Chopin and Delacroix while the ink was still wet. The private and hyper-tactful Pole pretended not to have understood that it was about him... until he cursed her as "Lucrezia" after she abandoned him! Sand never visited Chopin during the months of his final illness, breaking her promise to him that he would, as Chopin relates in a letter, "die in no one's arms but hers". As it happened, he died in the arms of Sand's daughter, whom she had also abandoned. Do we really need lessons in the art of loving from this woman?? Yet, some of Sand's insights ring true, and will occasionally repay the attentive reader.

If the book were not about Chopin, it would lose at least 3 stars of rating, unless the reader is of a certain type... thoughtful concerning morality, microscopically observant concerning human nature, not a fast reader...

But again, a must read for every Chopiniste!

This book is for anyone who loves history or a great love story! This novel is based on a love affair between Sand and the pianist Chopin. This story has a great plot. It will hold your attention.

Marianne is a heroine that is not beloved for her typical beauty, and is not a slave to the expected behavior of young wealthy women. This is somewhat of a faery tale romance, without seeming unreal or contrived. Sand presents the two main characters as real, intellegent, and passionate about nature. It is nice to read a book about a strong woman without the author feeling she needed to sway to much in the women's lib direction. George Sand's life is an inspiration, as is this romance where two kindred souls overcome the standard ideas of age, meekness, and the expected behavior of the classes. I read this at the same time as Dumas' Camille, and in only two days. I couldn't wait to see what happened to the characters in these books.

This is a novella not a novel. Don't be fooled by the page length. More than half of the book is given over to ancillary material. Sand's story runs only about 80 pages. Still, it's worth buying and reading. The story is rather slight. It's a romance that unfolds over the course of only a couple of days. But Sand sketches her characters memorably and creates genuine suspense over the outcome of the heroine's choice. Not a masterpiece, but a great way to introduce yourself to one of the world's great writers.

George Sand traveled with widely open eyes and saw the human face behind the scenery. She analyzes and depicts remarkably the essential characteristics of Mallorca (and Spain) in the 19th century, its economy, its social structure, the mentality and beliefs of its population and the hidden truth behind its historical monuments. She also exposes the astonishing modernity of her vision on politics, religion and mankind.

Economics
Mallorca's economy was based on almonds, oranges and pigs. The breeding of cattle was forbidden because a small clique of businessmen monopolized the import of meat into the island and blocked legally home production.

Social
The real masters were the financiers, who owned as collateral for their loans big chunks of land and businesses.

Mentality
The population killed time with their guitars and rosaries. `The Spaniard is weighed down by taxes. Suffering breeds fear, mistrust, deceit and every sort of conflict.'

The Monastery of the Inquisition
with its cells, where `men have been left to die slowly. They dared to have ideas that differed from those of the Inquisition.' But more importantly, `the Spanish people had built up the pyres of the Inquisition. They had been accomplices and informers in atrocious persecutions against entire races, whom they wished to eradicate from their midst. [Now] they suffered bent beneath the yoke of their own making.'

Vision on religion
Never has the conspiracy between the first estate (wealth, nobility) and the second estate (clergy) against the third estate (the many) better been expressed: `I am so tired of hearing these common views: that it is criminal and dangerous to attack a false and corrupt faith because there is nothing to put in its place; that only people who are not infested with poisonous philosophical debate and revolutionary frenzy are moral, hospitable and sincere.'
For her, religion is superstitious terror and brutal restriction. `It is impossible to have true faith in the Roman Church less one is completely devoid of intelligence.'

Vision on politics
For George Sand, we should `decree a law of equality to all men and of independence to all nations. Otherwise, the law of the strongest army will rule the world.'

This book with its excellent graphic material is a rare find. It is a text written by a self-assured, sharp intellect, by a superb free mind.
A must read.

The book is advertised as a non-fiction description of George Sand (Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant) and Frederick Chopin on a holiday on the island of Mallorca over the winter of 1838 and 1839. George Sand writes the account.

It is a medium length book containg a good set of photographs of some of the buildings on the island along with some photographs of a piano used by Chopin.

Perhaps I missed it, but after the promotion and book jacket cover which has pictures of Chopin, there is nothing in here on Chopin, and not much about George Sand. In compensation to that, we do see her creative writing at work and her lovely long sentences.

The book is more of state of the island description. She describes how the people live, their homes, the commerce, what crops are grown, the history of the island, famous families such as the Bonapartes, the culture, the laws, and the music. She outlines many problems on the island such as poor roads.

She does not like the people of the island and the book was very controversial in its day.

The book is not that good, and is not recommended.

The musical scene in the Sixties and the Eighties was hip-hop for all races and religions in the USA. The Seventies was devoted mostly to folk music. In the Ninties it was more rap and contemporary and also country music hit it big in the whole country and not just Nashville, Tennessee.
Who Takes The Blame?, August 13, 2006
Reviewer: Betty Burks (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

In February, 1969, a study titled "Black-White Contact in Schools: Its Social and Academic Effects" was published by Purdue University sociologist Martin Patchen. In it, he concludes "Available evidence indicates that interracial contact in schools does not have consistent positive effects on students' racial attitudes and behavior or on the academic prformance of minority students." In March, it was declared that the AIDS virus started in Africa and on the Caribbean island, Haita and spread to the United States via tourists. Get this! Susan Sontag decided in 1988 that "the virus was sent to Africa from the U.S. as an act of bacteriological warfare" as a conspiracy.

July, 1985, a survey conducted in New York City using the HIV antibody test finds that of frequent drug users, 87 percent carried the infection. The majority of the addicts were black and Hispanic. In August 1988, on Zachary's birthday, Jean-Michael Basquiat died in New York village of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 (Zach was 26 then). He was a graffiti artist whose pieces sold for $50,000 at the time of his death. There was a lot of debate about his artistic worth.

This book traverses the years 1979 to 1989 in America and is mostly about the singers and groups in the entertainment area but also writers which proliferated during that time. It is the time of affirmative action and Clarence Thomas who was married to a Causcasian woman but courted the office girls and almost lost his nomination. I watched it all on t.v. The girl took all the blame, and she was honest and above-board, blameless. The results of overcompensation has caused much turmoil for us all in America and some are deceitful by trying to pull the wool ober the eyes of political figures to the detriment of everybody.

I read this book when it first came out, and from the onset I realized the book was flawed by Mr. George's ego. Mr. George has great thoughts and opinions, but unfortunately, he allows personal biases to mar how presents them to his readers. Like one of the other reviewers, I didn't agree with a lot of what he wrote, but it is still useful for information about the early days of hip hop.

I am currently writing an entry about Grandmaster Flash for the forthcoming Icons of Hip-Hop (Greenwood Press). First of all, Nelson George is one of the most experienced, respected and eloquent hip-hop journalists alive, and he maintains his reputation in this book. He grew up in the middle of the birth of this artistic-come-cultural phenomenon, and tells the story as both insider and critic. Though there wasn't much specific material about Flash (which I didn't expect), George paints a genuine, if disarming or infuriating, portrait of the rise and continued influence of hip-hop through elegant and sometimes even poetic language and virtually unsurpassed insight. The latter observation comes, in part, from his willingness to explore the broader picture that this culture informs and is controlled by. He raises political and socioeconimic questions, takes on the task of discussing the record industry and how its desire for hit records over individual talent promotes a homogenous selection of 'rap artists', and is unafraid to question the roles society has played to transform hip-hop almost completely from what it was in its nascent form. Some people complain, with regard to hip-hop reference books, that the author obviously has no real authority. No one can make that claim about George. After all, he is respected enough to be able to interview GM Flash, Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa (considered the 'Holy Trinity'/founding fathers of hip-hop) in the same place at the same time. [For those of you who don't understand the significance here, no one has ever been able to get these three guys together, because of past rivalry among other things, and Kool Herc had not discussed hip-hop publicly for about thirty years prior to this interview.] So, George gives an authoritative, articulate, thoughtful and insightful account of the rise of hip-hop and the consequences of its appearance in mainstream society (which basically transformed it completely, so that the only true-to-its-roots subculture is underground hip-hop). Buy this book - but don't expect an in-depth discussion of the major players because that isn't what the book is supposed to be anyway.

Nelson George has written several books on Hip Hop and African-American popular culture, all of which are worth reading. This book is particularly good for the clarity of thought evident in the writing. It is an assessment of the overall position of Hip Hop as an American cultural phenomenon branching out to the rest of the world.
It provides a neat and insightful stock take of what Hip Hop was about in the late nineties for academic purposes, but is written in an easy to digest style that suits readers of a non academic background too. It is a good book to read to get a good idea of how Hip Hop evolved from a localised phenomena to a wider cultural movement. It is enlivened by the author explaining his viewpoint, and not just presenting a dry account of facts.

I read this book for an African-American Studies class at UNC. At first I did not like it at all. I did not connect with George's choice of language, which seemed outdated and out of touch with current hip hop lingo.

But as I got into the book, I realized that this outdated language was not George's fault. After all, as George himself points out in a section about hip hop movies, trends and lingo in hip hop change too quickly for anyone to keep up without a very detailed scorecard. So if you can get past him using somewhat outdated language, this is a great book.

George manages to discuss a wide array of topics, from graffiti to break dancing to production and distribution of records to hip hop themed movies to hip hop lingo to the proliferation of hip hop around the world. Despite the very diverse topics, George manages to tie everything to a common theme, the impact of hip hop on American culture.

If I had to pick one aspect of the book that was especially good, I would have to choose his discussion of the roots of hip hop and its early days. As a native of New York during hip hop's formative years, George is very well informed on the topic and indeed was a witness to many key events in the early days of hip hop. He also has connections with many key figures, throughout the time period covered in the book, and he is able to recall these connections to tell unique stories you cannot find anywhere else.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of hip hop. It is a quick, enjoyable, and informative read.

Owing to the relative shortness of this book, it offers a glimpse into the life of Chopin. It focuses much of its attention on the private lives of Chopin and his partner George Sand.

Any biography of Chopin has to include the period of his involvement with Sand, for it was the most important relationship of his adult life. The book tells of how the two lover's relationship finally turned into a parent/offspring situation, with Sand regarding Chopin as just another of her children.

It seems that Chopin was, because of his illness or personality or probably both, needed someone to take care of him. Even negotiations with music publishers werer entrusted to friends. Before the break-up came to Chopin and Sand, Chopin's health was already getting worse, and when he was out on his own again it wasn't long before tuberculosis took its toll.

Chopin was a man that constantly lived beyond his means, was forever in debt, had no qualms about borrowing money from family and friends knowing full well he would never be able to repay them. He was a man of rather common background, but moved into the world of aristocracy and artists. Along the way he picked up aspects of noble snobbery and prejudice, and it is revealing to know that of all his piano students (of which there were many), most were persons of the nobility and aristocracy. It was a subject of braggadocio to have studied piano with Chopin, and he was one of the most expensive piano teachers in Paris. There was no piano progeny of Chopin, no great student that ever became a leading pianist or musician.

But these are but human facts. All humans by nature are full of good and bad traits. It is Chopin's music that is the important thing, and the author touches on some of it in this book.

A good introduction to the life of Chopin, his music, and the times it was written. Recommended!

This book is an amazing account of Chopin's life story. It has a great deal of information about his compositions and the inspiration behind them. Beautifully written and an interesting story. I would highly recommend it.

As a Chopin fanatic, I have done a lot of reading about his life. "Chopin's Funeral" is a terrible portrayal of this composer's personality and life. Ms. Eisler turned Chopin into a whining fruitcake, when in reality he was quite the opposite. Also, Ms. Eisler credited several myths about Chopin as fact (such as his homosexuality, when there is no proof whatsoever that Chopin was gay). On top of all this, the book was incredibly dull and slow. I got 2/3 of the way through this book before I slammed it shut in disgust. If you want to read an interesting biography of Chopin that let's his true personality come through, read "Chopin" by George Richard Marek.

I found this book to be very revealing about Chopin, the way he wrote, his torment and selfishness behind his writing.

Most Chopinophiles who read "Chopin's Funeral" will have already read works on the composer, and will find little that is new here. As has been noted by others, the title is misleading (unless the author is telling us that Chopin's life was in fact a long pre-mortem funeral), but the few introductory pages describing Chopin's funeral at the Madeleine are thoroughly engaging.

Eisler does present some more or less newish, but not original, material. Among the more interesting relate to 2 of the 4 illustrations. For example, she suggests that the famous unique photo of Chopin was taken in 1846, and not mere months before his death in 1849. I suppose it is possible. The chronically ill Chopin certainly must have appeared to be on the verge of death many times, before the year of his actual demise.

She also publishes a photo of a hideous "original" death mask that will shock most readers who have only seen the apparently "sanitized" mask sculpted after Chopin's sister supposedly complained about the agonized and gruesome appearance of the first version, which bears no resemblance to Chopin aside from the pouty lower lip of a painfully grimacing mouth; in addition, Chopin appears to be bald! But who knows what the ravages of his final illness did to his appearance? In any case, readers who see this shocking photo for the first time, which will be most readers, are sure to be stricken with disbelief that it is actually their dear Chip-Chip at all. This death mask is nowhere to be found among "Google Images"; only the famous, oft-published "elegant" mask is widely available. For admirers of that well-known "life-like" death mask, this one will be a nightmare.

Eisler is solidly sympathetic with Chopin re: the breakup with Sand, while admitting that Chopin was not the easiest partner to deal with... no new ground here. Her synopsis of Sand's roman a clef about Chopin, "Lucrezia Floriani", is very clear and detailed; not all Chopin bios give such a good description of the plot. (Sand's book itself is rather boring, and would be excruciatingly so were it not about Chopin, dwelling on minute character descriptions page after page... it could use a few throbbing members, or car crashes! In fact, Eisler herself seems to take her cue from Sand, focusing on the character and motivation of those in Chopin's world.)

The language will be a tad flowery for many tastes, often written in a Harlequin romance style. The book also happens to include a factual error or two, stating on page 115:

"Returning from New York in 1852, Julian Fontana [Chopin's amanuensis] committed suicide in Paris, three years after Chopin's death."

Yet Fontana published most of Chopin's posthumous works in 1855. He did commit suicide, but in 1869, TWENTY years after Chopin's death. This kind of error could only be made by an author who took on Chopin as a "project", with little or no previous familiarity with standard sources. Of course this blunder brings suspicion on other material... we don't like to feel we must do an author's editing and fact-checking. ARE YOU LISTENING, KNOPF?

Eisler also mistakenly states that Chopin's cellist friend Franchomme was "the inspiration for the only music Chopin would ever write for an instrument other than the piano", meaning the cello. Those who have an actual rather than a commercial interest in Chopin know that he wrote also for the violin (Piano Trio) and flute (Rossini Variations), both pieces completed before Chopin's arrival in Paris and subsequent friendship with Franchomme, though the Trio was PUBLISHED, and no doubt finally edited, in Paris after his arrival. One of his cello works, the Polonaise, was written before his Paris period. We don't mention Chopin's writing for voice and, technically, orchestra.

The book's rough-edged,"faux-deckled" pages look nice enough, but are a major pain when the reader wishes to riffle-search for a specific page. The dust jacket is well done, imitating a quarter-calf 19th century binding.

"Chopin's Funeral" appears to be a limited gleaning of Chopin scholarship by an author who wished to make the material "romantically readable". The serious student would do better to go to the sources. If you just want a beach read, "Chopin's Funeral" will do; we gather that the author aimed no higher.

Philippe Sands book is a sort-of introduction to International Law. He definitely has a bias and an agenda, namely to point out America's, particularly the Bush administration's, arbitrary use of International law and its vitriolic disdain for International law. This is shown as especially ironic in light of the fact that America, together with the UK, brought about the modern International legal order, including human rights, trade, environmental, and other stuff that's hated by many in the USA. This book will prove stimulating to both lawyers and non-lawyers. It will make most feel a deep distress over America's current attitute towards international law and international institutions.

I found Sands' book to be a very readable and enlightening work. I do not have any experience with law and knew almost nothing of international law but still found the information in this book to be very accessible and easy to understand. Usually whenever I read anything on law my biggest battle is trying to stay conscious.

The main thing I took away from this work is just how tenuous the rule of international law is in today's volatile world. The amount of influence that the United States wields as the world's only remaining super power is out of proportion with the needs of the world. International laws unsupported by the U.S. are useless, and if the UN and the other mechanisms (such as the ICC) created to impose law, order, human rights and protect the environment continue to be opposed or actively obstructed by the U.S. there will never be any peace based on world consensus. The U.S. must stop seeking to extend its hegemony into further areas and allow its power and influence to recede so that there can be more equality.

The opposition to international law in the U.S. is not confined to one political party or the other because both parties have attempted to extend the U.S. dominance in the world. One nation cannot be above all others if any type of international system is to be affective.

This book is an easy to read eye opener. If you are looking for an accessible guide to what is happening in international law then this is the book for you.

The 'war on terror' is misconceived and bound to fail, says lawyer Philippe Sands in LAWLESS WORLD: AMERICA AND THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF GLOBAL RULES FROM FDR'S ATLANTIC CHARTER TO GEORGE BUSH'S ILLEGAL WAR. He describes how in the process of conducting its war the Bush administration ignored or broke the rules on many international agreements governing basic human rights, war, and free trade; and he provides a survey of similar international events and international rules governing trade, finances, human rights and the use of force. Especially recommended for college-level collections strong in human rights issues and global politics.

This in-depth analysis of today's new world order through the lens of international law provides great information and research especially on international trade--with really interesting implications related to global warming--and the Iraq war and its 'torturous' aftermath. International law is being thoroughly abused, which is concerning considering it represents a minimum standards of acceptable behavior.

Why should George Bush be impeached? Read this book. If President Bush or Vice President Cheney are complicit or participate in torture, which they are, they could be tried as a criminal under a plethora of international and domestic laws. Why is international law important? Read the global warming chapter.

This is a great book for anyone regardless of ones familiarity or professional interest in law. It would be a great addition to a university's introductory international law course.

Regarding the reviewer that bemoaned AMAZOM's failure to send him the latest edition, please note that I saw Philippe Sands being interviewed a couple of weeks ago, and he'd mentioned that the latest revision (with latest revelations and insights) was indeed already available in the United Kingdom, but _not_ yet in the USA. If you check Barnes & Noble and Buy.com, they are also still carrying the October 2005 edition. You will want the February 3, 2006 edition (ISBN: 0141017996), which you can order now from the AMAZON.UK website, or wait until it comes out in the USA (which will have therefore a later publication date than Feb. 3rd). Note, if you contact any of the sustomer service reps at these online booksellers, they can promise you the latest edition, but only to the best of their knowledge, and since they rarely have info on future release dates of many books (high-anticipation books like Harry Potter and the latest Stephen King being the exception) they are going to send you the latest edition that they actually have, which in this instance is the October 2005 edition. I face this regularly with one of my favorite authors (Paul Watkins), whose works come out in the U.K. many months prior to their USA releases.

This is the first I have novel I have read from Sand and I really liked it. Indiana is told from a narrator who we don't find out who it is until later on in the novel. Which makes for an interesting read because as the narrator tells the story and gets into the characters there is a distance and yet the character's give their thoughts too. It is unlike anything I have ever read.

Indiana will keep you guessing as it has lots of twist and turns in the novel and the ending will come as a complete surprise. It is pretty much a quick read and you will find yourself loving and hating all of the characters. Except Raymon he is just no good.

If you have never read Sand before this is a good book to start with seeing as it is the first novel she wrote on her own.

This is not my favorite of Sand's that I have read to date, I would suggest the Devil's Pool or the Black City first, they are both shorter and much stronger. Not to say this is a bad bit of writing. Considering this is her first solo publishing venture it is very impressive. She still shows flashes of great insight, there are wonderful very quotable lines throughout the work. There are some very stricking scenes, actually the last quarter of the book is pretty riveting.

Which is good because the rest of the book is alot of very careful build up and is sort of slow in places. The book is not filled with alot of dialogue, rather we have a third person omniscient narrator who lets us know what the main characters are thinking and feeling (even if they aren't quite sure of it themselves).

Indiana is a young bride to an old man who selfishly married her because he wanted someone to take care of him in his old age. She is wasting away from a lack of love, not that Delmare is any sort of ogre really, he seems to devolve slowly into a brute but one Sand never looses complete sympathy for. Sir Ralph is Indiana's cousin and protector, as he has nothing else in the world to live for. Noun is Indiana's Creole servant that essentially is like a sister to Indiana.

Noun though is sacraficed to passion as her lover moves onto another target, Indiana. Raymon has taken seducing women very seriously for his adult life, its essentially a game to him. He is very invested in the woman he loves while he loves her but he fully expects his love to end at some point. Which of course it does because he is a cad.

There are a few other characters but these are the core of the drama, it is a much smaller cast than in the other full length novel of Sand's that I have read "Horace".

I agree with one of the other reviewers that it is very interesting to see that the events of the book are indeed shaped by the events that are happening in France as well. It takes place when there is still a king in power, but the revolution is stirring very vigorously by the end of the novel and informs the actions of a few of the characters.

I'm not sure what I thought about the conclusion, it was a little odd as it is told by an unnamed first person character--seemed a little weird, almost as if Sand was trying to make her story have a sort of mythic or legendary tone to it.

A good read and not too hard to get into or to follow, possibly good for someone who likes Dickens or Eliot.

George Sand's Indiana dramatizes and explores a wide variety of concerns in the nineteenth century with a brilliance one rarely finds in a first novel: Arranged marriages, what it means to be a Creole, colonialism and plantation profiteering, slavery, the beginnings of the deterioration of Old Europe, and the rise of the businessman. In terms of narrative style, this may be one of the most unique novels I have read. The use of narrator to facilitate multiple endings is ingenious as well as baffling. Once you get to the end and discover who the narrator is or could be, you will likely want to re-read the novel, and voila! It's like experiencing the novel for the first time. It is a very rare talent indeed to create one novel for a first reading and a second novel for a second reading. It's a mystery to me how Sand has lost much of her notoriety. This novel is far superior than most you will find anywhere and in any language.

Remembered mostly as the lover of Chopin and other celebrities of the nineteenth-century art world, Sand seems to be little-read these days. Yet in her day, she was the most respected woman writer in the world.

This was her first solo effort. She collaborated on a previous novel, but referred to Indiana as her first. Some of the dialogue is decidedly overheated; real Harlequin Romance, bodice-ripper stuff. The story however, is very strong, with constant surprising twists, right to the end. As usual in melodrama, the villains are more interesting than the heroes, who at times make you want to shake some sense into them.

The theme has obvious parallels with Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" and Kate Chopin's "The Awakening". Ironically, the latter author, sharing the name of Sand's most famous lover, is more widely read today.

The novel has many references to French social and political life, and more than a few pages which are pure polemic. We learn more about Sand's views on French society than about Indiana's. Some readers will welcome these as fascinating historical insights; others will regard them as annoying distractions. The timeline of the story includes the revolution of 1830 and although this action provides a background rather than taking center stage, it neatly meshes with the mental turmoil of the heroine.

The Signet Classic edition has an excellent introduction by Marylon Yalom.

My first experience with Gerge Sand was her Fadette in Japanese translation. The translation was poor, but the story was quite interesting and what she was trying to get at was very fresh and different. I enjoyed it very much.
This one, Indiana, however, was a real sentimental melodrama. Or, perhaps Danielle Steele 19th century edition. The hero and the heroine are bathed in ill-fortunes from their births, pounded by miseries and heartbreaks, starving for love, but exhibit great courage and virtue under the grip of uncontrollable fate. In the end, the heaven will smile at them.
The characters are rather flat, very predictable and uninteresting. I had a very difficult time sympathizing any of the characters. The narrator pities them too much and doesn't give you room to sympathyze them.
Speaking of the narrator, I thought for sure it was a woman, because of the way Indiana's sufferings were narrated, but in the end I found out that it was a young man! Perhaps young men back in those days were as melodramatic and emotional as this narrator. I don't know.

Yet, there was something to this story. Sand seemed to have a lot to tell, she had a point of views, some messages to tell. And there was enough depths and intellect to what she was trying to deliver. And that's what kept me going, and that's what kept this story from falling vulgar and becoming Harlequinn romance.

I contemplated on selling this book after reading it, but I'm having a second thought. Maybe I'll keep it after all.

This book was written establishing relationships between a curious girl and a family friend. They set off on a day trip that becomes a journey of good and evil. There are surprises of all types. New friends are made throughout the ocean and some lost contacts are found. I do recommend this book. I do see an element of the Wizard of the underwater OZ.

This was a great book! I love the Oz books, and this was just as good, if not better than some. It is about a girl named Trot and her wise old friend Cap'n Bill, a sailor who lost his leg and has lived with Trot's family ever since. They go deep into the ocean to see a beautiful mermaids palace, meet the sweet and lovely mermaids, and explore the ocean. One of Baum's best books, the descriptions are fabulous and humorous. Then the mermaids and their comrades ghet captured by the evil wizard, Zog, and they have to fight to stay alive, outwitting Zog's clever plans. I have always been fascinated with mermaids, and I have never been able to find a great book that really got into the lives of mermaids until now. GET THIS BOOK! END

Frank took a break from the world of OZ and wrote this book, It's the same sort of fomula but set in a coastal town. The kids and I liked it, but just not as much as the regular OZ series. It is however mentioned in the later Oz books as Frank liked to keep everyone happy and what better way than to have all his characters live in Oz?

It's Not Oz

L Frank Baum is perhaps one of the finest children's authors ever to have lived with his WIZARD OF OZ series occupying an honored place in the canon of juvenile literature. He wrote other books as well, though, and THE SEA FAIRIES is one of these. It has no connection at all to the OZ stories in its original issue. Oz fans will recognize, however, the two main characters of Trot and Capt. Bill. This book was their fist literary appearance. Later on, they were integrated into the Oz milieu.

This story, I am sorry to say, is not one of Baum's best efforts. That being said, he sets such a high standard that this one is still pretty good. It is just not as good as his Oz books. The story seems a bit more simplistic but it still shows his love of wordplay and vivid imagination.

The plot is a simple one. Trot and Capt. Bill are taken by mermaids for a visit to their magical, undersea kingdom. They go not as prisoners but as honored guests. While there, they are temporarily given the tails of mer-beings to allow them to get around easier. They tour the realms of the Mermaid Queen and see some of the queer inhabitants of her domain. While on the way to visit her overlord, however, they are abducted by an evil wizard and must devote their energies to staying alive until they are either rescued or find a way to escape.

It is a good and uplifting story. It suffers only in comparison to Oz.

I too was thrilled to discover that the Magical Land of Noom has been republished. I was searching rare book sites hoping to find a copy, and lo and behold discovered the listing at Amazon.com. I've ordered three copies, two as surprise gifts for siblings. I cannot wait to see the illustrations of the Soft-Voiced Cow and other characters again. I will probably purchase another to donate to our public library, as today's children should have the chance to discover this gem.