Die französische Braut

by Clare Clark

It is 1704 and, while the Sun King Louis XIV rules France from the splendour of Versailles, Louisiana, the new and vast colony named in his honour, is home to fewer than two hundred souls. When a demand is sent requesting wives be dispatched for the struggling settlers, Elisabeth is among the twenty-three girls who set sail from France to be married to men of whom they know absolutely nothing. Educated and skeptical, Elisabeth has little hope for happiness in her new life. It is to her astonishment that she, alone among the brides, finds herself passionately in love with her new husband, Jean-Claude, a charismatic and ruthlessly ambitious soldier.Auguste, a poor cabin boy from Rochefort, must also adjust to a startlingly unexpected future. Abandoned in a remote native village, he is charged by the colony's governor with mastering the tribe's strange language while reporting back on their activities. It is there that he is befriended by Elisabeth's husband as he begins the slow process of assimilation back into life among the French. The love Elisabeth and Auguste share for Jean-Claude changes both of their lives irrevocably. When in time he betrays them both, they find themselves bound together in ways they never anticipated.With the same compelling prose and vividly realized characters that won her widespread acclaim for THE GREAT STINK and THE NATURE OF MONSTERS, Clare Clark takes us deep into the heart of colonial French Louisiana.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, 18th Century, Book Club, Unfinished, Literary Fiction

478 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clare Clark (b.1967) is the author of The Great Stink, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Nature of Monsters.

Clark's novel Beautiful Lives (2012) was inspired by the lives of Gabriela and R.B. Cunninghame Graham.

Reviews

[Misfit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Savage Lands begin in 1704 when a group of French Women are sent to the Louisiana Territory to become brides to the settlers there. One of those women is Elisabeth and upon arrival weds Jean-Claude Babelon and for who-knows-what-reason she falls madly in love with him. Also in the story is Auguste who is a bit of a spy or something and after spending time further north with one of the Indian tribes (Savages) returns to Mobile and becomes close with Elizabeth and Jean-Claude.

I could go into greater detail, but 1) other Amazon reviewers have done it quite nicely and 2) I've already wasted the good part of my day to get to page 200 so I'll give that a pass and just say why I couldn't finish it. First was the prose and writing style - I can't put my finger on what it was but it was so like present tense (which I loathe) but it wasn't either - I just didn't feel like I was part of the story. As for this great love that Elisabeth had for her husband, I never got where it came from. The author takes the reader from beginning her voyage (I really would have like to read more about that) until like magic they are married and she's flashing back on how it all happened and it was all quite disconcerting.

I found no chemistry between these two; it was all sex and not love and rather distasteful sex at that. While not going into spoilers, there is a time where Elisabeth does something that I find hard to believe of any devout catholic female of her time would resort to when she finds herself in an unwelcome situation - or at the very least wouldn’t she have confessed to the priest or felt some guilt? And outside of a few references to the irritating mosquitoes I didn't find much about the real hardships the early settlers faced in this region (if you'd like something more realistic I would suggest Gwen Bristow's Deep Summer). Frankly, by page 200 I found myself not caring about anyone or anything and decided it was best to let it go and move on to a better book.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book, provided you do not expect any romance, characters that are appealing, attractive, charming, or even nice, or expect early 19th century Lousiana to be anything but the worst frontier experience ever.

Elisabeth leaves France for Lousiana with a green silk featherbed, and books carefully tucked away. She is snapped up in marriage by a man with whom she falls in love to the point of madness, a madness that takes her to one ugly place after another. A boy named Auguste arrives on the same ship and is pressed into becoming a translator/spy for one of the local tribes. He, also, is drawn to the dark energy of Elisabeth's husband.

The Mississippi Company encouraged the settlement of Lousiana as part of an early investment bubble that eventually burst. In the first 20 years of colonization little progress was made. The horrible weather, flooding, disease made these settlements wretched. The enslavement of native Americans and the introduction of slaves from Africa simply added diversity to the misery.

Okay, so "Savage Lands" is a downer, but I actually enjoyed it. You will want to finish--could there be a bright star for somebody, right?

[treva · Rating 1 out of 5]

This really might be one of the worst books I've ever read. It was unbelievably dull, and not one of the characters was likable. Funny thing, apparently when girls lose their virginity, they also lose all personality and independent thought. Who knew? Clark has a way of searching arduously for an unusual description or piece of imagery that feels labored and often is just distracting ("lettuce-pale" sticks in my mind).

I dare you to find a single page in this novel that doesn't use the word "savage" in reference to American Indians. Go on, try it. Make it a drinking game. Take a shot every time you see the "s" word; you'll be dead of blood-alcohol poisoning within five pages. Fine, play the "historical accuracy" card if you want to, but I would like to point out that when the black slaves appear, they are referred to as Negroes, but not as the other "n" word. So what makes "savage" okay? You couldn't just call them natives? This simply strikes me as another example of the persistent sanctified racism against Native Americans.

[nettebuecherkiste · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well-researched, but told in a rather confusing style and the characters weren't really appealing to me. Also, I would have liked to read more about everyday life in the colony.

German review:
1704. Die junge Elisabeth Savaret soll nach Louisiana auswandern, um dort einen ihr unbekannten Mann zu heiraten. Die Kolonie braucht dringend Frauen für ihre Männer, und Louisiana wird als eine Art Paradies beschrieben. Die Realität sieht natürlich anders aus, die Einwanderer sind bald gezeichnet von Krankheit, Auseinandersetzungen mit den Ureinwohnern, harter Arbeit und anderen Entbehrungen. Dennoch ist Elisabeth zunächst glücklich, denn sie hat sich tatsächlich leidenschaftlich in ihren Mann verliebt. Wie wird sie in dem neuen Land weiterhin zurechtkommen?


Mit diesem Buch habe ich so meine Probleme. Ich habe die ganze Erzählweise als wirr empfunden. Ganz elementare Dinge, etwa, wie sich Elisabeth und ihr späterer Mann verliebt haben, bleiben außen vor und werden nur in lückenhaften Rückblicken angerissen. Der Leser kann gar nicht richtig nachvollziehen, wie es zu dieser Beziehung gekommen ist. Elisabeth ist sicherlich eine sehr interessante Figur aufgrund ihrer schieren Stärke, doch richtig warm werden konnte ich weder mit ihr noch mit der zweiten Hauptfigur Auguste, einem französischen Jungen, der zeitgleich mit Elisabeth in Louisiana ankommt und vom Kommandanten der kleinen französischen Armee bei einem Indianerstamm zurückgelassen wird, damit er ihre Sprache lernt, um später vermitteln zu können. Zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt verweben sich die Geschichten dieser beiden Personen.

Andererseits hat Clare Clark ganz eindeutig großartige Arbeit bei der Recherche geleistet, die politischen Konstellationen zwischen Franzosen, Engländern und den vielen verschiedenen Indianerstämmen werden wirklich gut geschildert. Aber ich hätte gern mehr darüber erfahren, wie das tägliche Leben denn so aussah, Clark beschreibt zwar viele Probleme wie die hohe Kindersterblichkeit und die Überflutungen der kleinen Stadt Mobile in dem sumpfigen Siedlungsgebiet, der richtige Alltag wird jedoch kaum beschrieben. Sprachlich befindet sich das Buch auf durchaus hohem Niveau, dennoch kann ich das Buch nur mit 3 von 5 Sternen bewerten, während der Rahmen stimmt, konnte ich weder mit der Geschichte noch den zugehörigen Charakteren warm werden.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, a novel set in the early eighteenth century, mostly for what I learnt about the early days of colonial occupation of the southern states of America - a part of history I have been quite ignorant about. It provided a vivid account of the early European settlers and native Americans in particular. The practice of sending expendable, vulnerable people to far off lands was repeated over and again. It is barely removed from slavery.

In this case, a young French woman is one of many from poor families sent by the French government as a pool from which wives are drawn by men already inhabiting the hostile land. As outrageous as it seems today, it was seen in a different light at the time and, I suppose, resulted in the new lands being populated by resourceful people with an instinct for survival.

it is a good read.

[Helen Carolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful read, not pretty or sweet but often raw, barbaric and brutal. 104 and a group of young women arrive in Louisiana from France to marry local men to help shore up France's new colony. Elisabeth Savaret is one and to her surprise not only does she find a husband, she also falls in love with him. As the years pass the horrors of swamp life, several miscarriages and her husbands infidelity shake Elisabeth to the core. Can she live and survive in this savage land. Terrific read at times honest and not always for the faint-hearted.

[~Annaki~ · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.
I have to give up with this one. The amount of metaphors and similes are get ting on my nerves, especially as a lot of them seem really contrived. The writing is confused and jumbled and often seems to make no sense or have no relevance to the story. On top of that the characters are unlikeable and the way every woman seems to go braindead as soon as she is bedded by a man, just.. argh...

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had a lot of promise. The plot sounded interesting, as it is premised on French women traveling to the New World to marry colonists. Unfortunately, only the premise was interesting. The execution was terrible and I could only bear to read about half of it before I decided to read something else. Life is too short to waste on a bad book!

The book centers on two main characters. Elisabeth is one of the girls who travels to France and falls in love - the author tells us this, but never shows us - despite her skepticism about her prospects in New France. It jumps from portraying Elisabeth as a reluctant participant in the venture to a snotty, love-sick wife. The book also deals with Auguste, a young French boy who travels to New France and ends up living with the Native Americans.

I just got so bored with Elisabeth's whining and disatissfaction. She alienates everyone around her. I also could not enjoy her infatuation wtih her husband as it came out of nowhere. Auguste's parts were really boring and I just didn't care about him.

Thus, I did something I rarely do and abandoned the book.

[Barb]

I didn't care for this latest novel from Clare Clark. I picked this up right after finishing Clark's 'The Great Stink'.

While 'The Great Stink' is not going to be for everyone I thoroughly enjoyed it and was eagerly looking forward to reading another book by Clare Clark. Unfortunately the writing styles of the two books are very different. I found the writing in 'The Great Stink' very well thought out, focused and very detailed. In 'Savage Lands' I felt like there was a lack of focus and not enough details. I was never able to clearly picture the setting and I was a bit confused about the way certain events unfolded.

I read the author's note before starting the book and that was very intriguing and well thought out. Sadly this book was not for me. But I am planning to try her other novel 'The Nature of Monsters'. I hope that it is more in keeping with the style of 'The Great Stink' which I would recommend for anyone who appreciates filth, rats and lice in their Victorian fiction.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this from a Goodreads give away.

As a fan of historical fiction (possibly my favourite genre), I was quite excited when I received this book in the mail. However, that excitement quickly dissipated.

The real problem with this book for me were the characters. Everyone felt one-dimensional and frankly, not very likable. I couldn't bring myself to root for a single one of them - and I liked Elisabeth in chapter one. Even as new characters are introduced in the second half of the book, it didn't really help any characters grow in any way.

I also felt like we never really got the whole story. It moved so fast - like someone else said in a previous review, in the first chapter Elisabeth is on the boat to be wedded, and in the next chapter she's already madly in love with her husband. I wish we could have seen her fall in love with him, since maybe then both her and Babelon could have been a little more likable.

I did manage to make it through the whole book, though part of that was because I was hoping that there would be something to like about the book.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in Louisiana in the early years of the eighteenth century, Savage Lands is the story of Elisabeth Savaret, a young girl despatched to the colony from Paris as one of a cargo of young women sent out to become wives for the colonists, and Auguste Guichard, a soldier who has grown up among the natives.

The life of the nascent French colony - little more than a huddle of wooden shacks built beside a swamp - is vividly evoked in Clare Clark's dense, exquisitely turned prose.

It's a style that makes considerable demands of the reader, forcing him to look beneath the surface of the narrative to interrogate the behaviour of the characters. But it's an effort that is richly rewarded for this is an emotionally powerful and deeply affecting moving novel

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Won this book on goodreads, and was really looking forward to reading it. The first chapter started out with the author being very descriptive, and I loved her writing style - looked forward to reading the rest of it. Right away in the second chapter, one of the two main characters appeared and was obsessed with the sensual things around him. I just can't bring myself to continue reading this book. I don't like to read around sex related stories, skipping around to get to the story line. Yes, that is a wonderful part of life, but something that is personal and sacred, not something to write into a storyline that could hold a story on its own. Sorry ...

[West Hartford Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ranks right alongside my favorite historical fiction, Tenderness of Wolves, Brookland, Lightning Keeper. What I love is the way you are instantaneously immersed in another time period. To have an author that can give you this gift is a wonder, that it is done with grace and imagination, is truly amazing. These are books that linger in the mind long after they've been read and put back on the shelf. The characters in Savage Lands are beautifully drawn and plot presents itself as naturally as thread woven together creates a colorful tapestry. Don't miss this one if you love glimpsing life in colonial days. It will enchant you.

[Tamara · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author has not yet mastered the art of "show, don't tell." Throughout the story I would read how the characters were changing/feeling, but I couldn't see it. I think because of this, I never began to care about any of them. It also means I managed to miss what must have been some very important interaction between the characters because I don't understand how the relationship evolved between a few of them.

In all, I got less a picture of what life must have been like for the first French settlers in Louisiana than the love triangle/square between the main characters.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am just not quite sure what to think about Savage Lands. My two stars is probably more like 2.5. The time period was interesting and the author certainly didn't whitewash anything about life in that place and time. A few characters were interesting and the descriptions were rich, but the plot just wasn't compelling enough to keep me engaged. All the action occurs off-stage, so to speak. It's referred to obliquely, and you have to pick up bits and pieces of what happened as you read on. This isn't necessarily a bad technique, but a little goes a long way.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt that this was absolutely fantastic book! Although I am familiar with the arrival of "Filles de Roi" in late 17th century Quebec, I had not realized the history that surrounded Louisiana's "casket girls." Claire is quite descriptive in terms of taste, smells, and how men and women lived in the early 1700's.
Elisabeth Savaret is not the easiest character to like but since the characters in the book seem to have difficulty understanding her, it makes perfect sense.

[Prince Philip Hospital Library Book Club · Rating 2 out of 5]

Four members of the bookclub didn't manage to finish this month's book, and they weren't sure they would continue with it after the meeting. The reason for this seemed to be that they found it very hard going, only managing to read a few pages at a time. We also felt that there seemed to be no major theme running through the book to give the reader something to want to follow. There were a few different themes, none of which seemed to get to a satisfactory conclusion. We weren't sure whether the dissatisfaction with the themes was to do with the writing style which we found to be very literary and not very clear. The themes also seemed not to move very fast, it felt very static as you were reading it.

Most of the bookclub became very confused about the time periods between the different chapters in the book. We needed to have a bit more information as to when things were happening, and how far apart in time different parts of the book occurred. Trying to discover these time periods by looking for clues in the text was very confusing and we would have preferred for this to be more obvious.

We did feel that the historical aspects of the book had been very well researched, they were highly evocative of the time period. The sections of the book that described how people lived, and the interactions between the "savages" and the townsfolk were very interesting. We also enjoyed the section when Elisabeth was reading her books, we felt this could have been used to better effect within the book. The descriptions of Auguste's garden and his drawings of plants were also very interesting but more could have been made of this.

The use of language in the book was excellent, with some lovely descriptive passages to do with the environment. However, the descriptions of the characters and their reactions to things was not so well done. Of the characters in the book not many of the bookclub members felt any connection to any of them. We felt they were very dry, maybe this was to do with the author being too historically accurate to the detriment of creating likeable, or realistic characters.

Overall we gave this book 4 out of 10, only a couple of people would recommend it to their friends.

[Sherry Sidwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of Savage Lands is interesting enough. Around 1704, France, realizing it better get to colonizing the North American continent in earnest before the other European powers swallow it up entirely, hits upon the idea of recruiting respectable well-bred French women to be wives and bring stability to the fledgling colonist effort on the Gulf Shore. But as one character keeps saying over and over, "It's not Paris." What these women end up with are the sort of men you might expect in a rough frontier colony where everyone thinks they're too good to farm to feed themselves, the bills aren't getting paid by anybody, and they spend most of their time alternately depending on or antagonizing the local tribes.

Unfortunately, it's built upon a sort of romance that never really makes any sense in that you spend much of your time wondering just what does main character Elisabeth see in this man that takes her to such awful depths. A marriage of convenience under the circumstances would be understandable, but not this nor an unrequited side thing that makes up so much of the backbone of the story. Most of the characters come across as very flat while seemingly under the impression they're participants in a grand tragedy. Their early colonial efforts sound just awful and largely inept, and that they use the word "savage" roughly 5 million times while meaning anything native doesn't really help either. Frankly by the end with Mobile and New Orleans founded, you're almost rooting for the people they colloquially see as "savages" to massacre the whole lot of them, or least let them starve.

[ErinAlise · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1704 twenty three girls were sent from France to the colony in Louisiana in hopes that they will help it prosper.
As the girls arrived in Louisiana, though exhausted from the dangerous journey-they were ready for a fresh start. The choice of husbands were slim, however somehow Elisabeth managed to catch the eye of a handsome soldier. She had only heard rumors of Louisiana, of the hardships and trials that the settlers endured, yet no rumor could truly prepare her. Not only were supplies low and sicknesses flourished but the location itself appeared to be inhospitable. Her one consolation is discovering that she not only liked her new husband but actually found herself falling in love with him. As she begins her new life, she worries if love will be enough to survive.
This book is broken up by two parts, a before and after. Admittedly I enjoyed the “before” so much more than the “after.” From the beginning I was completely committed to Elisabeth’s story, her inability to fit in, her trials with conceiving and insecurities towards her marriage, however once it flipped to the 2nd part…the story kind of lost me. It was probably the time jump, if only it was explained better than I would’ve been more receptive. Sadly it was very vague. Still a good read, very interesting story-just could’ve been better.

[Graham Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clare Clack is one of my favorite historical fiction writers. She always picks places and time periods that are usually overlooked and her characters have odd and interesting psychological quirks. I loved this book - though perhaps not quite as much as her previous novels). I thin it is a study of how the land land changed people. Some become more themselves (not necessarily a good thing), some strive to better themselves and others unravel.

There are occasional passages in this novel like little jewels of truth and beauty that just stop you in your tracks that you just keep re-reading for their perfection.

I was also very glad of the solid afterward - I crave these in historical fictions - and this one cleanly sorted the fictions from the amalgams from the real.

***
Just wanted to add a little post script to my review after seeing so many Goodreads reviewers disliked this book, one reason being that they found all her characters unlikable. That's precisely why I love Clark's novels. She does sullen maids and neurotic ladies better than anyone. Her novels don't try to shoehorn 20th century values into the past. In this novel, the characters' attitudes to slavery are quite difficult to read - but they are authentic.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like this book has a great premise - 20 (or so) girls of marrying age are sent from France to the Louisiana area (theareas of land bought in the Louisiana Purchase) to marry the Frenchmen and/or Canadians that are living there since the settlements are mainly men. The problem is the execution and writing style. The paragraphs are long and could definitely be broken up more, and when they are broken up, they jump from one idea to the next, but just from one paragraph from another and not separated by a break or even a chapter. Ughhh. And there's a chapter about a boy who's left with natives and who knows how his story is supposed to play into the narrative, I couldn't bear to stick around to find out.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 stars)

Read as part of the Reading Through the Ages historical fiction challenge (section: Early Colonial America). Rich with detail - mostly of how grim things are in early 18th-century Louisiana - without being too dense; subtle in terms of emotion and plot (the most dramatic moments tend to be accessed at a remove, via late, partial reflection). Nonetheless, there's always something disquieting in reading a story about colonialism that awards inner lives pretty much exclusively to the colonisers.

[Caroline McFarland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this book is very well written. There is a lot of description which allows you to immerse yourself in the early 1700’s Louisiana. However, I found that there was a lack of character development. The main character, Elisabeth, is not very personable. That is true to her character, but I found it off-putting. The entire book is mostly descriptive of the environment and actions in the day-to-day life of the characters in the colony, but not much else. Don’t get me wrong, I did appreciate the book. It gave much insight into how they lived back then. But I just found the characters dull.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I finished this book, I can't say that I liked it. The story and writing seemed so impersonal. I had a hard time feeling the struggles of the characters or sympathizing with their plights. I persevered because of the historical angle, but I had no actual attachment to any element in this novel.

[Angela Hedworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate read this book for 200 pages and then finally gave up. Written more as literature than historical fiction. Could have been fascinating. A topic I know nothing about. Instead, the characters are hard to follow, the events lack interesting description (ie: hurricanes), and there is an assumption that the reader is more knowledgeable of Native American practices. Do not recommend.

[Michele Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished it. I'm not sure why, as it is a very convoluted story that drags you along the misery of these characters.

I never liked or hated these characters, and that's the problem. I'm not sure why I didn't just give up, but I guess I was hoping for one little glint of joy in this book, but it never happened.

It is a miserable story about miserable people in a miserable place. That's it.

[Tamara Weller · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the poorest written books I have ever read. I literally could not understand the sentance structure. I would reread things twice and still not "get" what the author was trying to say. Ughhh. Invest yourself in a different book.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tone was very stream-of-consciousness, inside the characters' heads, with too much focus on what people were feeling. Therefore, I had trouble sometimes figuring out what was actually happening, and how much time was passing.

[Skyler Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was incredibly raw and I would not recommend for anyone younger than 18. But I enjoyed it immensely, it’s a great historical read.
Warning: This book talks extensively about abortion, if you are sensitive to that be mindful when reading.

[Tim Spinks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was proud of myself for getting to the end of this swampy quagmire of a book. Until I read other people’s reviews and it turns out that the book wasn’t complex and intricate at all. It was just bad

Almost as bad as Louisiana in the 1700s