I wasn’t sure what to expect with Indiana.  I thought it would be another tale of romance and betrayal.  It seemed to be much more than that.  What did everyone think?

I enjoyed the book.

I haven’t read the introduction yet, but I began the book by reading George Sand’s various prefaces. Before the story even began I knew I was in for something racy by the way Sand continually defended the book. I had to laugh that Sand argues that there is a morality that emerges from the story. I would say the story ends up being more a critique of the morality of the society she wrote about.

The whole morality thing also reminded me of a scene in Swann’s Way where the grandmother gives the young narrator novels by George Sand for Christmas because, never having read them herself, she thought the were moral stories. I didn’t get the joke of it at the time, but now I keep thinking about that scene and laughing

I enjoyed it too.  I was surprised at the frankness of it—this was written only a couple decades after Jane Austen wrote, and yet what a difference!  I wonder if the culture in France was different enough to make it easier to write as Sand did, or if Sand was being quite revolutionary. 

Thanks for mentioning the Proust reference—I’d forgotten it, and you are right, Stefanie, it’s pretty funny!  I suppose she’s revising traditional notions of morality—creating a new kind.  I saw it as a critique of the false morality of society and an exploration of a new kind of morality.

What did you all think of the ending?

The ending was a big let down for me frankly. It almost would have been better if Sand had left it at the ellipsis because then we could at least wonder. But conclusion is disappointing. As you pointed out Dorothy, Indiana doesn’t get to say anything for herself, she suddenly becomes background and it’s Ralph’s story. I’m not sure if we are meant to believe that with the right husband a woman will be happy or if Sand wrote that ending because she was afraid to write something with more umph after all that had come before. Or maybe she suffered from a lack of imagination?

The ending was sort of different.  At first I thought that it ended with them jumping off into the waterfall, and that was that.  I thought the afterword was something Sand had written that wasn’t essential to the story, and I almost skipped it.  I didn’t read the prefaces--I started with the intro (then decided they were giving away too many details so stopped), then got too bogged down on the prefaces, so skipped them, too.  Indiana really doesn’t say much at the end of the book, does she?  But Ralph doesn’t seem to have a lot to say in the beginning of the book either.

I wonder if she’s possibly pregnant. Although probably not, since Ralph says they live purely as if they were still children.

It is hard to imagine Indiana and Ralph consummating their marriage by this point.  It is definitely not the sort of passionate romance you think of when you think of books like this--she didn’t even give in to Raymon, did she?

It’s odd to think of Indiana remaining virginal through the whole book and possibly/probably even afterward.  All that passion, and no sex!  No, I’m pretty sure she never had sex with Raymon, and we can only speculate about Ralph—it does seem unlikely.  Why do you think Sand decided that the Delmare marriage would be unconsummated?

Sand seems to have distanced herself from the ending by labeling it “conclusion” and setting it off from the rest of the novel, and also by naming “J. Neraud” as the one she is writing to.  The note says Neraud was a friend who taught Sand botany.  I why she dedicated the conclusion to somebody—that seems odd.  Anyway, the conclusion seems awkward and Sand’s setting it off in the way she does increases its awkwardness.

I thought it odd Indiana never had sex with anybody too. I thought for certain she and Delmare must have but as the book went on I doubt they ever did. It’s a wonder Delmare didn’t try to force her. It is curious how Sand wrote about so much love and passion but no sex was ever had. Maybe she knew Indiana and Ralph was too much of an incestuous union. Indiana and Raymon was scandalous enough but if they’d done anything more than kiss Raymon would have won. And why the Delmare marriage was never consummated baffles me.

And if it’s unconsummated couldn’t she have the marriage annulled without society’s disapproval? It seems she had an out if she’d only thought to take it.

Sand gets all idealistic at the end, I think—like she’s trying to explore what a better world for women would look like—and she doesn’t do it very well.  And it seems odd to me that part of the idealism seems to be no sex.  Why does the “ideal” marriage have to be sexless?  Or is it an ideal marriage at all?

I’m guessing she couldn’t have had the marriage annulled—at least not without her husband initiating it.  I don’t know for sure, but it strikes me that if it were to happen, it would have to be the husband’s doing because women truly had no power or status whatsoever.

Living together like brother and sister is not and ideal marriage. It’s strange that Sand couldn’t think of anything else considering her own biography.

In one of her prefaces Sand complains of the critics who say her book is dangerous. I’m trying to put myself back in her time and figure out would a book like this really be a threat? But I can’t see how Indiana would make women want to run away from their husbands or give women ideas about their inequality that they hadn’t already figured out. The only danger I can see is that it might make a few men feel guilty over the way they treat their wives and I don’t think that’s what the critics meant. What am I missing?