The Devil's Pool by George Sands

[Amie]

An idyllic look at country life in France. Germain is a widowed ploughman on his in-laws farm. His family suggest he remarry for his and his children's happiness. They recommend a widow in a nearby town, but she has many other suitors and he has fallen in love with the young shepherdess from his village. This is full of old customs and superstitions like the pool mentioned in the title of the book. A good read. 3 stars

[Celia]

Amie wrote: "An idyllic look at country life in France. Germain is a widowed ploughman on his in-laws farm. His family suggest he remarry for his and his children's happiness. They recommend a widow in a nearby..."
Amie, have you read this book? It is so romantic. I love it and I do not usually like romance. The love here is so innocent. 😍

[Celia]

I have finished this book and it is my very first completed Reading 1001 book after joining this group.

My review can be found here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

Thanks Celia! I just got a copy.

[Celia]

Kelly wrote: "Thanks Celia! I just got a copy."
Wow Kelly I did not know you belonged to this group. I am SOOO happy. This would be a good book for Reading Around the World too!!

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

This is the group that gave me the idea to start the other. They had a summer backpack Europe challenge that made me want to read more world literature.

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

When I read that Poet Charles Baudelaire had this to say about George Sand, I knew I would in all likelihood enjoy her book.

"She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women.... The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation."

I can't say that I knew the word "slut" was used in the 19th Century. But the quote proved to me that Baudelaire is not a man I would have liked, and that Sand was a woman I could admire.

Thanks to my Goodreads friend, Celia, for bringing this one into my vision. I enjoyed it very much. It was sweet and quiet and beautifully written.

[Celia]

Kelly wrote: "When I read that Poet Charles Baudelaire had this to say about George Sand, I knew I would in all likelihood enjoy her book.

"She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same..."

You are so welcome Kelly.

[Leni]

This is my second book by George Sand, the first being Indiana which I found overly melodramatic. I much preferred The Devil's Pool. It is perhaps a much romantisised account of country living, but I respect the effort - especially since Sand wrote in the preface that she was so tired of reading books, and looking at art, where poor people were always wretched and either criminals or in need of saving.

The story of a still grieving widower who is looking for a new mother for his young children was sweet and full of a quiet magic. Even so I think my favourite part was the epilogue containing the many strange wedding customs of rural France. (My Spouse has a story of attending a wedding in a small town in Dordogne some 25 years ago. It involves the newly married couple hiding and the wedding party scouring the village for them, waking people up and making them eat soup before joining in the search. Amusing as this sounds, they have nothing on the customs of the 19th Century in whatever region Sand was writing from.)

[Jenna]

When an author picks a landmark named after the devil for the title, one can anticipate a moral tale. Sand goes one better, with the whole first chapter is a bit of a dissertation on the use of art to teach moral lessons, contemplating an engraving by Holbein with death assisting a laborer to plough his field. To her mind, the idea that art can encourage people by suggesting that suffering is redeemed in death, offering punishment or reward, is limited, instead she thinks it is through the gentle persuasion of good example that art can do good:

Nous aimons mieux les figure douces et suave que les scélérats à effet dramatique. Celles-là peuvent entreprendre et amener des conversions, les autre font peur, et la peur ne guérit pas l'égoïsm, elle l'augmente.

So this is a sweet and simple love story, with a not very complicated barrier to mutual understanding that is relatively easily overcome by the gentle intervention of those around them because the two thoughtful central characters are so mutually respectful, with some obvious counter examples along the way. Interestingly the "devil's pool" location is in fact the location of insight that allows for the ultimate resolution, and so not in any way negative in its ultimate results, much more of a pagan animating spirit than any kind of Christian evil. And the interest in lost wedding rituals that occupies the last 20% of the book which reverts back to dissertation from story goes along with this sense of a general interest in folklore.

For all its simplicity, I found the story to move nicely and the scenes well evoked so I did feel like I got a sense of the rural french environment that Sand was so interested to have me love.

[Kristel]

Reason read: 1001, word challenge. This is a pastoral novel. A French author, George Sand, wrote this story about a young man on the way to another town to obtain a wife at the encouragement of his father in law. A peasant girl accompanies him and helps with out with the trip with her wisdom. They get lost and spend a night by the pool known as the haunted pool or Devil’s Pool. Then she ends the story but describing the marriage traditions of the the peasants.

[Gail]

I don't know what I was expecting exactly but this was not it.
This was my first Sand and it is a simple romantic tale set in the French provinces. The writing style is relatively modern given the era in which it was written, with easy flowing but not flowery sentences and not a great deal of tangents. The plot is rather on the melodramatic side but still quite charming.
I also enjoyed reading about the country wedding rituals at the end.