Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)
Indianais the first of many novels written by George Sand, a woman whose behavior was often considered more shocking than her writing. Seen as a denouncement of marriage when it was published, the novel is the story of a naive, love-starved woman abused by her much older husband and deceived by a selfish seducer. Indiana and her husband are terribly ill-suited to each other. Indiana's husband believes that "women are made to obey, not to advise;" Indiana is submissive, but "it was the silence and submissiveness of the slave who has made of hatred a virtue and of unhappiness a merit." Her seducer is an eloquent rake; as George Sand comments, "the most honorable of men is he who thinks best and acts best, but the most powerful is he who is best able to talk and write." What takes this novel beyond a simple romance of good women and bad men, however, is George Sand's ability to draw direct analogies between personal behavior and the trends and expectations of politics and society. And when one character advises, "Do not break the chains that bind you to society, respect its laws if they protect you, accept its judgments if they are fair to you: but if some day it calumniates you and spurns you, have pride enough to do without it," the reader is reminded that George Sand knew what she was talking about.-- For great reviews of books for girls, check outLet's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. --From500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.