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B o ok R ev iew s Naomi Schor. G e o r g e S a n d a n d Id e a lis m . New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi + 278. $29.50. All of Naomi Schor’s previous scholarly work seems to have led inexorably to her latest book, George Sand and Idealism. Schor’s studies of realism and its practitioners, her inves­ tigation of psychoanalysis and female fetishism, her consideration of the detail’s implica­ tions, all make her uniquely qualified to consider a contrario the nineteenth-century’s pre­ eminent woman novelist and avowed non-realist, George Sand. Just as Schor draws on her own past work, she builds on the substantial body of Sand scholarship that has flourished since 1976, but most especially in the past ten years. Unlike most of these critics, Schor is not, even after the years spent reading Sand and writing this book, necessarily an admirer of Sand. On the other hand, she is not hostile to Sand either. Overall, her cool, neutral stance as well as her interest in reading Sand not an undfü r sich but within a broader tradition, give Schor a singular perspective. As Schor indicates from the beginning, her book is not (or not just) a work of Sand criticism. Instead, George Sand and Idealism should be read as its title indicates, as an “ and/and” study: George Sand within the idealist tradition, with that mode subjected to intense scrutiny, as well as idealism as expressed by Sand’s works, with close readings of selected key texts. These texts, mostly novels, span Sand’s entire productive life, with focus on the mid­ part, including works whose titles will be familiar to the non-Sand specialist and lesserknown texts. Schor also devotes considerable space to Sand’s autobiography, Histoire de ma vie, and to Sand’s letters, particularly her correspondence with Flaubert. Her readings of La Petite Fadette and Histoire de ma vie are particularly rich and suggestive. She ends with a persuasive new reading of Un Cœ ur simple. Schor’s readings all play on the dual register she has chosen for herself, Sand and idealism, and that framework can lead to explosive insights that she is not always able to develop, given the parameters of the book. George Sand and Idealism is a very personal work in which Schor does not hesitate to chronicle the development of her own relation to Sand as woman, author and icon. She is also lavish in her thanks to the readers, editors, grantors and research assistants who helped make the book a reality. It is rare to see acknowledged such a plethora of adjuvants. In the critics’ acclaim excerpted on the dust jacket, Ross Chambers describes the book as “ wonderfully eccentric,” and I concur both with his choice of word and with his declara­ tion that the term is meant as praise. One eccentricity Schor could have done without is the systematic use of italics to highlight key points as she develops her argument. In a book that is so eminently readable and clearly written, such emphasis is unnecessary and borders on the condescending. Overall, George Sand and Idealism is outside of the center of liberary criticism and of Sand criticism, and is very refreshing. K a t h r y n J . C r e c e l i u s Cambridge, Massachusetts Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 127 ...

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