The Inception of G.S. - Part One

It's all the fault of "Masterpiece Theatre" and the Oberlin College Co-op Book Store.

In 1976, when I was 15 years old, "Masterpiece Theatre" presented a seven-part mini-series entitled "Notorious Woman" starring Rosemary Harris as George Sand. (Harris won an Emmy award for her performance.) A very young Jeremy Irons portrayed Alfred de Musset.

"Masterpiece Theatre" was broadcast locally on Sunday nights. I remember distinctly being addicted to the show and being forced to watch episodes on the black and white television in the kitchen because the rest of my family was glued to "The Six Million Dollar Man" in the living room.

But I was far more fascinated in the life of this French authoress who lived a scandalous life in the 1800's than I was in a half-cyborg former astronaut who had super-human powers. (Besides the quality of the costumes and the acting being far superior.)

I have never seen "Notorious Woman" since that time, it's not available on DVD and I don't think it was ever re-broadcast, but it remained indelibly imprinted on my psyche.

Perhaps it was because George Sand was a writer, something I wanted be. People were always saying to me, "Write what you know." That's all George Sand did: she wrote what she knew, her life and her art inseparably intertwined.

"Write what you know" is great advice for someone like George, whose life was one great big soap opera. For me, it was a terrible misdirective. Who would want to read about the miserable life of a sexually-confused, acne-faced, skinny, long-haired teenager who was obssessed with odd things like "Masterpiece Theatre" and Broadway shows?

Perhaps the show affected me so deeply because George Sand played against sexual stereotypes. She dressed in men's clothing and smoked cigars. There was even the suggestion in the mini-series that she had a fleeting affair with a woman (the actress Marie Dorval)! She didn't behave the way society expected her to behave. She didn't follow the rules. And though society castigated her....in turn, it was fascinated by her. Her books were read voraciously and, in her later years, she was venerated as one of France's great authors.

And what about those books? While watching the mini-series, I wanted to read Sand's books that were discussed in the show. They didn't seem to be available on the local library shelves.
That's where the Oberlin Co-op Book Store enters the picture. There was a small publisher called "Shameless Hussy Press" that was re-issuing public domain translations of Sand's work (who knows when these translations were done, but they were clunky and stilted - even a 15 year old could tell that.) I found several of these at the Oberlin Co-op and scooped them right up with money I'd earned from my paper route.

The first book of Sand's I read was "The Devil's Pool", a pastoral novel she wrote in her later years. All about peasant life in rural France. Infinitely boring and blessedly short. I couldn't make the connection between the liberated, adventurous character on television who laughed in the face of convention and these plodding, gentle-hearted farming folk. Although I have read many other translations of Sand's work, this was what I came away with at the time: a sense of disconnection.

The disconnection between life and art. Sand's life was her art...and yet, in some ways, her life superceded her art. She is a cultural figure known today (if at all) - not for her work - but for what she represented. A proto-feminist. Frederick Chopin's lover. A man-eater. A cross-dresser. She was all of these things, but not only these things. Was she famous for being a writer...or famous for the life she lived?

I started (in 1976!) to write a play about George. It was called "The George Sand Play", not very inventive, I'll grant you that, but it's far more interesting subtitle was "A Comedy of Negotiations". In this piece of juvenalia, George just wants to write, but is constantly being interrupted by visitors: her publisher, her creditors, her children, her lovers! The poor thing just can't get any work done! Looking back on it now, it seems to me to be about how one tries to shoehorn one's artistic compulsion into the minutae of one's daily existence. (I'm sure I wasn't thinking about it in those complex terms at the time. I was also fascinated by the French playwright Feydeau - a local community theatre had just performed "A Flea in Her Ear" - and I think I was attempting to place the form of a farce onto Sand's life.)

Needless to say, that play was never completed. But my fascination with Sand continued and the seeds for "G.S." had been sown.