Customer Reviews

Lucrezia Floriani

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... but long on rumination. This is not a love story of the type that flies off modern store shelves. It's slow reading, and for the deep thinker. But it's a MUST READ for insight into Chopin, at least through the eyes of a woman who sees herself as a saint who gave everything for the sake of a neurotic priss so seriously flawed, so unable to truly love, to give as she does. Some of her descriptions of Prince Karol/Chopin are priceless, but must be taken cum granus seltzer.

This is the prototype for Meryl Streep's book on her failed marriage with Woody Allen in "Manhattan". In some ways, it reveals much more about Sand than it does about Chopin... that such a person, who is still with her partner, a world famous genius loved by all (almost) who know him, could actually write such shabby stuff right under his nose just to "set the record straight", so his adoring public (they love him, but merely respect her) can see the treadmarked underwear beneath the bon ton charm of the soulful composer. What chutzpah! Que cajones! Quelle connasse!

Sand actually read the manuscript to Chopin and Delacroix while the ink was still wet. The private and hyper-tactful Pole pretended not to have understood that it was about him... until he cursed her as "Lucrezia" after she abandoned him! Sand never visited Chopin during the months of his final illness, breaking her promise to him that he would, as Chopin relates in a letter, "die in no one's arms but hers". As it happened, he died in the arms of Sand's daughter, whom she had also abandoned. Do we really need lessons in the art of loving from this woman?? Yet, some of Sand's insights ring true, and will occasionally repay the attentive reader.

If the book were not about Chopin, it would lose at least 3 stars of rating, unless the reader is of a certain type... thoughtful concerning morality, microscopically observant concerning human nature, not a fast reader...

But again, a must read for every Chopiniste!

This book is for anyone who loves history or a great love story! This novel is based on a love affair between Sand and the pianist Chopin. This story has a great plot. It will hold your attention.