THE LIPSTICK PAPERS WEEKEND REVIEW

HELLO and welcome to The Lipstick Papers Weekend Review! Tonight we have La Petite Fadette by Georges Sand, and here I am at my favorite cafe, where I certainly do a lot of my reading!

La Petite Fadette is a 1849 French novel, and probably one of the first novels I have ever read (the first was Good Wives). I read Fadette in a good Greek translation, and absolutely loved it!!!!!!

Fadette has been translated into English as Fanchon, the Cricket; I don't know how well-known it is in the English-speaking world though. In Greece and Cyprus it is virtually unknown, I think.

The plot goes something like this. Fadette is an orphan girl raised by her grandmother in the woods. She has a handicapped brother. Their grandmother is not very nice, and Fadette and her brother, poor and disadvantaged, are hated in the village. Everybody thinks that Fadette is a witch, and that her late mother was a witch also. As luck would have it, Fadette gets to meet Landry, son of a respectable farmer family. She saves him one evening (where he gets lost in the woods while looking for his twin brother Sylvinet). Landry is the best-looking boy in the area, and a huge success with the girls. At first, he thinks that Fadette is ugly and plain, but he is soon crazy about her. In the end, and after a number of difficulties, they marry and live happily ever after.

La Petite Fadette is an unsettling novel. It is all about young romance and the power of love, of course, but it is also about the dark side of everyday life, and the great evil people can do with their common sense and common wisdom. Often these are just another name for prejudice and spite, the novel seems to say.

The protagonist Fadette is, in my view, a real witch. Landry becomes certain she is a witch the night she saves him in the dark woods. There is something highly disturbing in the scene where she comes near the young man carrying her lantern. We know she is safety, but, somehow, she is also not quite safe.

As a young child, I learnt a lot from La Petite Fadette. I learnt that people and common wisdom are not always right, and that there can be men and women out there who may not be exactly like us, but they are kind and good; I think the novel taught me about difference and about tolerance. As I grew older, I realised that, for many, I am different and unusual as well. There is no same to compare yourself to.

I don't know if you can get hold of an English copy of the novel! The Greek edition I have is old and threadbare, and definitely out of print (the cover is still pretty, though). The novel is highly popular in France (and was made into a TV movie in 2004), so all Francophones and French-speakers may be at advantage here!

Have a good night and be well! xxx