Letters to the Editor
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‘Walk Like a Man, Write Like a Woman’
It was gratifying to learn that Carl Rollyson had to finish my “effortless narrative” before he could feel a “tad dissatisfied” [Arts & Letters, “Walk Like a Man, Write Like a Woman,” December 6, 2006]. I have to take issue, however, with the principal cause given for his dissatisfaction: my perceived failure to give due credit to Elizabeth Harlan’s biography of George Sand, published in 2004.
Ms. Harlan’s research into the question of Sand’s paternity produced irrefutable evidence that her aristocratic father could have not been the writer’s biological parent. More dramatic still, Ms. Harlan discovered that Sand herself had commissioned this archival search, only to suppress the findings as a refutation of a favorite theme of her selfmythology: namely, that as the child of a plebian mother and blue-blooded father, she had “chosen” to be a daughter of the people. Ms. Harlan’s disclosure is, indeed, the basis of my discussion of Sand’s parentage and the fact (noted disapprovingly by Mr. Rollyson) that her book is the only source given for this chapter would seem to highlight my debt — and that of all future biographers — to this author’s remarkable work in Sand’s genealogy.
By strange coincidence, on the same day that Mr. Rollyson’s review appeared in the Sun, I received what can only be described as a fan letter from Elizabeth Harlan in Paris. After congratulating me for both “telling a good story and synthesizing an impressive amount of the endless and unwieldy information in GS’ complicated life,” she added, “And thank you for your gracious acknowledgment of my own work in your notes.”
BENITA EISLER
New York, N.Y.
Mr. Rollyson’s reply:
Ms. Eisler says far more in her letter to the Sun than she does in her biography about the importance of Elizabeth Harlan’s work.
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