Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814)

Along with Rousseau's Julie, the French Romanticist O.G. - not quite the iconic, omnipresent classic it once was and it can inevitably feel quite creaky and ludicrous in certain elements (and ends up with more than a scent of Christian propaganda about it) but its appeal remains obvious for its evocative and wonderfully painted setting and its tragic and transcendent amour that would be the blueprint for so many to come. Shares with Rousseau also its basic philosophical predilections (humans are born good but then corrupted by avarice, money, power etc.; the state of nature is a kind of idyllic paradise from which society separates us inevitably). The characters are wholly unreal and one-dimensional though it doesn't matter much for the purposes of the story.

Wonderfully written and worth seeking out to discover the book that sent Emma Bovary off the deep end as it's not too long either - I had to see a man about a dog and ended up reading the whole thing in a day on various train journeys.… (more)

Tout l'équipage se précipitait en foule à la mer, sur des vergues, des planches, des cages à poules, des tables, et des tonneaux. On vit alors un objet digne d'une éternelle pitié : une jeune demoiselle parut dans la galerie de la poupe du Saint-Géran. C'était Virginie. Tous les matelots s'étaient jetés à la mer. Il n'en restait plus qu'un sur le pont, qui était tout nu et nerveux comme Hercule. Il s'approcha de Virginie avec respect : nous le vîmes se jeter à ses genoux, et s'efforcer même de lui ôter ses habits; mais elle, le repoussant avec dignité, détourna de lui sa vue... Dans ce moment une montagne d'eau d'une effroyable grandeur s'avança en rugissant vers le vaisseau. À cette terrible vue le matelot s'élança seul à la mer; et Virginie parut un ange qui prend son vol vers les cieux… (more)

"It was from far away that my trouble came; here around me all is happiness"
By sally tarbox on 12 Aug. 2016
Format: Paperback
Written in 1788 and set on the Ile-de France (modern Mauritius), this Romeo and Juliet style novella has a Rousseau style theme in its young lovers who have "a taste for Nature's gifts, a love of work and a dread of riches."
Paul and Virginia are the offspring of two French women : Virginia's well-to-do mother married beneath her, and when she and her spouse emigrated to seek their fortune she soon found herself a poor widow ("Her sole worldly possession was a Negress") - and expecting a child. On Mauritius she became close friends with another unfortunate, left pregnant after an affair with a faithless nobleman and who had fled to the colonies.

Together these women and their children have a poor but joyful life. An elderly local man tells the story of their lives to the author: their pleasure in the fruits of Nature, their innocent pastimes. All this is rather sickly to the modern reader:
"The sight of you restores me when I am weary. When, from high on the mountain, I see you on the floor of the valley, you appear to me in the midst of our orchards like a rosebud. The partridge that runs towards her little ones has not so graceful a form or so light a step as you..."

And so Paul and Virginia are a modern day Adam and Eve in their own, charmingly described, Eden:
"No cares had furrowed their brows, no intemperance had corrupted their blood, no unhappy passion had depraved their hearts..."

Perhaps the modern reader would query their attitude to slavery: when a cruelly treated slave runs to them for sanctuary, Virginia immediately escorts her back to ask the master to pardon the girl (instead of helping her hide.) The slave greets the proposal with an improbable "Angel of God, I will follow you wherever you like." And when poverty threatens their little commune, Paul is all for going to trade in the Indies and buying another slave (they already have two; they are well-treated and portrayed as entirely content with their lot.)

The story gains in interest in the last third or so, when the outside world and its possibilities - and dangers - intrudes into their peaceful set-up, and the elderly narrator is given a chance to discourse upon philosophical ideas with Paul. The man has lived in France and tells of the corruption found there.
"Happiness is to be found in the mean between (wealth and poverty) and in the practice of virtue... Virtue is an effort of the will which we make for the good of others with the intention of pleasing God alone."

Too sentimental to wring the heartstrings where it should, but interesting to read a novel of some 230 years ago.… (more)