tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861486.post116222295956076243..comments2023-10-15T11:42:21.659-04:00Comments on pages turned: Indiana by George SandSFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439972994357205049noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861486.post-1162301199014622392006-10-31T08:26:00.000-05:002006-10-31T08:26:00.000-05:00I have no idea who he's placed in that category. M...I have no idea who he's placed in that category. Maybe Gaskell; I don't see her mentioned on "his" canon. I'm not an English major (obviously!) so I don't know who's in these days and who's out. :)<BR/><BR/>And yes, I agree he's an ass. And a bad influence. My daughter once tried to excuse some vague writing on her part by telling me she was writing just the way Harold Bloom did. I told her they should both try to do better.SFPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17439972994357205049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861486.post-1162299203416493862006-10-31T07:53:00.000-05:002006-10-31T07:53:00.000-05:00Harold Bloom is an ass. Sorry :) But "sadly inad...Harold Bloom is an ass. Sorry :) But "sadly inadequate women writers of the nineteenth century"???Rebecca H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10825532162727473112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861486.post-1162256123976871412006-10-30T19:55:00.000-05:002006-10-30T19:55:00.000-05:00I'd love to know what Sand's contemporaries though...I'd love to know what Sand's contemporaries thought of the book and how they reacted to the character.<BR/><BR/>I'm intending to read quite a bit of French lit next year and I'm wondering if my opinion of Indiana will change after I've done so. I know it's unfair to read a book out of context with its time and expect the characters to behave like people of our day. And yet I don't know why Sand didn't create a character a little more like herself--her experiences are MUCH more interesting to read about than those stupid love letters Indiana and Raymon kept passing.<BR/><BR/>Inconsistancies in real life are just par for the course, and I'm much more sympathetic in real life to people who find themselves in abusive relationships or who suffer from depression than I am fictional folk, who I respond to purely on the basis of what I find on the page. I expect fiction to have an inner logic, though, and for characters to be more than puppets manipulated through a plot. I didn't mind at all that Raymon was surprised that Indiana loved to hunt, but I'd like to have been subtly prepared for that. I'd assumed that Indiana hadn't witnessed the death of the spaniel but had heard about the event when her husband returned home--just a phrase or a sentence to let me know she'd been there would have been enough to let me know she did do things other than mope. <BR/><BR/>Harold Bloom has only one George Sand novel in his western canon: The Haunted Pool. The reviews at Amazon make it sound dreadful. But he didn't categorize Sand in with "sadly inadequate women writers of the nineteenth century" that he sees crusaders trying to push into the canon, so he definitely holds Sand's writing in higher regard than I do at the moment. :)SFPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17439972994357205049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861486.post-1162232867303039342006-10-30T13:27:00.000-05:002006-10-30T13:27:00.000-05:00I know I am not as critical a reader as I should b...I know I am not as critical a reader as I should be (at least in a case where we are discussing the book), and I tend to want to like what I am reading (the characters have to be really annoying to put me off). I guess I feel like life is never black and white, and I probably allow characters to have their faults (although I was less sympathetic to M. Delmare and not at all to Raymon). There are inconsistancies, but when I look at myself, I have inconsistancies in my life, too. I'm not sure if any of this makes sense? At this point, now would be the time to go back and reread after I have read more about the book and what people think--and see if I still feel the same way. If it makes any difference, I read that Indiana has gone in and out of print and it has been argued where (and if) it should be taught in the "canon"--so you are definitely not the only one with issues!! I have a feeling that if Ella and Sylvia read it, they would have had some interesting thoughts on it too! I think it is hard having grown up in the society we live in and having seen where women have come from, and to read about what we consider a "wet noodle" of a woman. I wonder how this book was received at the time?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com