Indiana by George Sand

 

Indiana is a novel about marriage but Sand's wide-ranging interests and intelligence inform the book, and substantially broaden and deepen the canvas.  

Indiana is 16 years old when she moves from the Ile de Bourbon in the Indian Ocean to France, and marries a much older man, who is an ex-soldier and successful factory owner -- he has money but no class or sophistication.  The match is loveless, and Indiana falls in love with a rakish, titled neighbor who, while seducing Indiana, has an affair with Noun, Indiana's Creole maid.  Noun tragically kills herself when she becomes pregnant.  The plot is operatic and melodramatic, and neither Indiana or Reynaldo, her lover, are very sympathetic or interesting.  But Sand's writing is vivid and vigorous, and the frequent philosophical asides about society and marriage are modern and engagingly expressed.

An unusual book, difficult to place in the chronology of literature, as it is many ways old-fashioned and romantic and in others quite modern and bold.