Plot Summary
The Dream Lover
Elizabeth Berg
The Dream Lover
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015
Plot Summary
In her work of historical fiction The Dream Lover (2015), American author Elizabeth Berg fictionalizes the biography of Aurore Dupin, better known to history as the French Romantic novelist George Sand. The Dream Lover was a New York Times bestseller and generally well-received by critics, although some reviewers expressed disappointment at the novel’s relative lightweight treatment of a major literary icon and significant political thinker. Kirkus Reviews summarized the book as a “thoroughly pleasant escape, if not a particularly deep one.”
The novel opens in 1831. Aurore feels stuck. Living in Nohant, deep in the French countryside, she is immured in a loveless marriage to Casimir Dudevant, the illegitimate son of a local aristocrat. She loves writing and longs to make a career as a writer in the literary salons of Paris, but there are several obstacles. First, although her mother obtained a pre-nuptial agreement on her behalf that her inheritance would remain her own, the agreement will be invalidated if she leaves Casimir—meaning that she will be penniless. Second, she has a young son and an even younger daughter. Her own mother left her to be raised by her grandmother and she resents it: she doesn’t want her own daughter to resent her in the same way.
After much thought, Aurore proposes a trial separation to Casimir: she will live in Paris for three months at a time, returning in the intervals to live with her children and husband. Reluctantly, Casimir agrees, and Aurore sets off for Paris.
Here the novel jumps back in time to Aurore’s own birth, in 1804. Her mother is a beautiful, passionate young woman—once a courtesan, now she has married a charming and handsome aristocrat, a military hero. The relationship does not last, and Aurore is left in the charge of Grand’Mere, her father’s mother. The old woman never approved of her daughter-in-law, and she has little affection for her granddaughter.
Sent to a Catholic convent school, young Aurore becomes passionately religious, eventually declaring that she wishes to become a nun. Her grandmother removes her from the school, refusing to consider the girl’s wish—if she becomes a nun, her family’s property will be lost. Instead, Grand’Mere insists that Aurore begin to consider marriage.
Aurore falls for Stephane, a young medical student, but the relationship is doomed from the start: his family is insufficiently wealthy to satisfy Grand’Mere, while Aurore’s dubious parentage is unsatisfactory to Stephane’s family.
Instead, Aurore is betrothed to Casimir. There is passion on neither side: Casimir needs Aurore’s money, and Aurore her new husband’s respectable name. Their pre-nuptial agreement affords Aurore some independence, but not much. While Casimir is free to have affairs, Aurore risks losing her wealth if she is caught in infidelity.
However, when Aurore meets a handsome young lawyer, Aurélien de Sèze, she falls for him, and they begin a passionate and risky affair. Aurélien asks her to leave Casimir, and she is desperate to do so, but she doesn’t wish to leave her son. Later, she consults her former lover Stephane for medical care: they have sex and Aurore becomes pregnant with her daughter, raising her as Casimir’s.
The two timelines merge as Aurore leaves her husband and arrives in Paris. Hired as a theatre critic, she begins dressing as a man to take advantage of the cheaper male-only theatre seats. She also changes her name to George Sand. We learn that she had an ulterior motive for her move to Paris: as well as pursuing a writing career, she is also in pursuit of a young man named Jules. After Jules, there are many other lovers, most of them immature young men to whom George is a maternal figure.
Every three months, George returns to Nohant, where she is Aurore again, running her husband’s home and caring for her children. However, she continues to write during these retreats—staying up all night scribbling so she can spend time with her children during the stay. Her son comes to understand why his mother needs to be free, but her daughter continues to resent her.
Her wider family, too, disapproves of her lifestyle. Her brother tells George that her children are forgetting her, in an attempt to force her to return to Nohant for good.
George resists these pressures, and when she starts making a living from her writing, she leaves Casimir for good, winning custody of their children. Her writing is extremely popular, but controversial. Together with her masculine dress, her intellectual reputation allows her to move in male circles at a time when women were largely excluded from intellectual, political, or artistic life. However, George continues proudly to identify as a woman and to speak up for her sex: “I find I don't wish to be either man or woman. I wish to be myself. Why should men serve as judge and jury, deciding for us what can and cannot be done, what is our due? Why should they decide in advance of our deciding for ourselves what is best for us; why should they decide what is us? … Perhaps I wish to be a woman with a man's privileges.”
Through many more affairs, including with the composer Chopin, George continues to seek an ideal experience of love. She finds it with the actor Marie Dorval. Their passionate friendship culminates in a handful of sexual encounters—afterward, they remain friends and George continues to long for her until Marie’s death.
The novel opens in 1831. Aurore feels stuck. Living in Nohant, deep in the French countryside, she is immured in a loveless marriage to Casimir Dudevant, the illegitimate son of a local aristocrat. She loves writing and longs to make a career as a writer in the literary salons of Paris, but there are several obstacles. First, although her mother obtained a pre-nuptial agreement on her behalf that her inheritance would remain her own, the agreement will be invalidated if she leaves Casimir—meaning that she will be penniless. Second, she has a young son and an even younger daughter. Her own mother left her to be raised by her grandmother and she resents it: she doesn’t want her own daughter to resent her in the same way.
After much thought, Aurore proposes a trial separation to Casimir: she will live in Paris for three months at a time, returning in the intervals to live with her children and husband. Reluctantly, Casimir agrees, and Aurore sets off for Paris.
Here the novel jumps back in time to Aurore’s own birth, in 1804. Her mother is a beautiful, passionate young woman—once a courtesan, now she has married a charming and handsome aristocrat, a military hero. The relationship does not last, and Aurore is left in the charge of Grand’Mere, her father’s mother. The old woman never approved of her daughter-in-law, and she has little affection for her granddaughter.
Sent to a Catholic convent school, young Aurore becomes passionately religious, eventually declaring that she wishes to become a nun. Her grandmother removes her from the school, refusing to consider the girl’s wish—if she becomes a nun, her family’s property will be lost. Instead, Grand’Mere insists that Aurore begin to consider marriage.
Aurore falls for Stephane, a young medical student, but the relationship is doomed from the start: his family is insufficiently wealthy to satisfy Grand’Mere, while Aurore’s dubious parentage is unsatisfactory to Stephane’s family.
Instead, Aurore is betrothed to Casimir. There is passion on neither side: Casimir needs Aurore’s money, and Aurore her new husband’s respectable name. Their pre-nuptial agreement affords Aurore some independence, but not much. While Casimir is free to have affairs, Aurore risks losing her wealth if she is caught in infidelity.
However, when Aurore meets a handsome young lawyer, Aurélien de Sèze, she falls for him, and they begin a passionate and risky affair. Aurélien asks her to leave Casimir, and she is desperate to do so, but she doesn’t wish to leave her son. Later, she consults her former lover Stephane for medical care: they have sex and Aurore becomes pregnant with her daughter, raising her as Casimir’s.
The two timelines merge as Aurore leaves her husband and arrives in Paris. Hired as a theatre critic, she begins dressing as a man to take advantage of the cheaper male-only theatre seats. She also changes her name to George Sand. We learn that she had an ulterior motive for her move to Paris: as well as pursuing a writing career, she is also in pursuit of a young man named Jules. After Jules, there are many other lovers, most of them immature young men to whom George is a maternal figure.
Every three months, George returns to Nohant, where she is Aurore again, running her husband’s home and caring for her children. However, she continues to write during these retreats—staying up all night scribbling so she can spend time with her children during the stay. Her son comes to understand why his mother needs to be free, but her daughter continues to resent her.
Her wider family, too, disapproves of her lifestyle. Her brother tells George that her children are forgetting her, in an attempt to force her to return to Nohant for good.
George resists these pressures, and when she starts making a living from her writing, she leaves Casimir for good, winning custody of their children. Her writing is extremely popular, but controversial. Together with her masculine dress, her intellectual reputation allows her to move in male circles at a time when women were largely excluded from intellectual, political, or artistic life. However, George continues proudly to identify as a woman and to speak up for her sex: “I find I don't wish to be either man or woman. I wish to be myself. Why should men serve as judge and jury, deciding for us what can and cannot be done, what is our due? Why should they decide in advance of our deciding for ourselves what is best for us; why should they decide what is us? … Perhaps I wish to be a woman with a man's privileges.”
Through many more affairs, including with the composer Chopin, George continues to seek an ideal experience of love. She finds it with the actor Marie Dorval. Their passionate friendship culminates in a handful of sexual encounters—afterward, they remain friends and George continues to long for her until Marie’s death.