The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand by Elizabeth Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is biographical fiction about Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, best known by her nom de plume George Sand, history's first successful female novelist. Told in first person narrative, the story documents a woman who was perhaps the most unconventional person of her day. Born in 1797 in Paris, her parents were a French lieutenant from the aristocracy and his courtesan lover whom he married. This unusual beginning for the young Aurore, as she was called, was to set the tone for her entire life.
She married at the age of 17 and had children, but unsatisfied with her role, she left her husband, built a successful career as a writer, and sued her husband to get her fortune back. She changed her name to George Sand and was known as a sensational novelist (she wrote 80 of them), memoirist, and socialist. In the 1830's and 1840's she was considered the most popular writer in Europe, being more popular than both Victor Hugo and Honore de Balzac! Known now as the woman who was Frederic Chopin’s lover, she wore men’s clothing, smoked cigars in public and took multiple lovers without apology. She actually started wearing pants when she was hired to review the theater and could get cheaper seats if she sat in the men’s section.

I have read several novels by the author, Elizabeth Berg, and historical fiction is a different venture for her. The amount of research that must have gone into this book is staggering. Using Sand's own words (taken from the author's memoirs) in writing this first-person narrative Berg authentically and aptly portrays the passion, despair, hopes, ambitions and other emotions Sand faced as a world-class author and social star. Born in an age where women were to be largely ignored, she pushed back at every type of constraint and was centuries ahead of her time in advocating suffrage and equality between the sexes. The underlying theme of the novel is of a woman in 19th century France attempting to live HER life on HER terms. She rejected the role that society set out for her:

"Tell me, George. Do you wish you'd been born a man?" ...
"In my youth, I wished that. ... But now I find I don't wish to be either man or woman. I wish to be myself. Why should men serve as judge and jury, deciding for us what can and cannot be done, what is our due? Why should they decide in advance of our deciding for ourselves what is best for us; why should they decide what IS us?"
"But then you do wish to be a man!"
"Perhaps I wish to be a woman with a man's privileges." pg 151

It seemed that most of her life Aurore/George was trying to find an elusive meaningful "one love." She kept on going from relationship to relationship, and one love affair after another with famous men and possibly a one-night lesbian affair, with an actress. I think anyone who loves anything to do with France and the Parisian artistic elite, especially during the 19th century, will enjoy the fascinating account of those relationships, with contemporaries such as Jules Sandeau, Franz Liszt, Gustav Flaubert, Honore de Balzac, Turgenev, Dumas, Delacroix, Musset, Didier, Marie Dorval, and of course with Frederic Chopin. But it wasn't until her later years that she finally found the peace she had searched for throughout her life. In the novel she becomes her own self at last, through sheer courage and determination.

I found this a fascinating book to read but also difficult because of the alternating timelines, 1831–1876 and 1804–1831. The frequent back-and-forth between the two periods was disruptive and disjointed. Eventually the periods connect and it becomes a more cohesive story, but I did not enjoy this format, thus 4 instead of 5 stars. Also, I found the judgmental relationship with Sand's daughter, Solange, as problematic. Oh, and I really don't like the title. But I really like this work, am glad I read it, and would love to discuss it with like-minded persons. The audio version is read by Emily Sutton-Smith and is absolutely wonderful.

Victor Hugo said this about George Sands upon her death: “George Sand was an 'idea.' She has been released from the flesh, and now is free. She is dead, and now is living.”

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