Perspective: Lives

Lives

By HOWARD TROXLER

FRANCOIS MITTERRAND: The Last French President, by Ronald Tiersky (St. Martin's, $29.95)

Americans like their politicians straightforward, honest and fairly one-dimensional. We want them to give us "straight talk" and to take clear "stands." What a contrast, then, to read this life of mitterrand, the complex, ambiguous president of France from 1981 to 1995.

As a young soldier, mitterrand escaped from the Nazis then worked in the Vichy regime before bolting to the Resistance. In his political career he moved from the right all the way over to lead the Socialists. The Reagan-led West was dismayed that he did business with Communists in his government, but it was mitterrand's typically nuanced way of keeping them in check.

Mitterrand's career is dotted with scandal and intrigue. Did he once conspire to fake his own assassination? How corrupt was his administration? He loved seduction as much as politics and kept a "second family" that raised eyebrows (yes, even French ones) after his funeral. The author, a teacher of politics at Amherst College, has written a non-chronological exploration that ranges from narrative to political philosophy, as layered as his subject.

GEORGE SAND: A Woman's Life Writ Large, by Belinda Jack (Knopf, $30)

George Sand was the male pseudonym of the French novelist, essayist, playwright and liver-of-life born Aurore Dupin in 1804. Had she been born a century later, Sand might have been a mass media-literary celebrity, sort of a blend of Dorothy Parker and Susan Sontag. She certainly enjoyed all the fruits that 19th century fame bestowed and knew intimately most of the leading intellectual and creative minds of her time.

Sand was the daughter of a prostitute and a pre-revolutionary aristocrat. Her childhood was spent in a tug-of-war between the two worlds. She ended those precocious years by marrying but regretted it; in frequent escapes to the exciting intellectual world of Paris she arrived as a published writer. A recurring theme in her 80-plus novels was the escape of women from societal conventions to achieve fulfillment.

Certainly Sand was unconventional. Her adult life was a series of passionate love affairs with a variety of brilliant or artsy men (most famously, Chopin) and the occasional woman. The author, a lecturer at Oxford, does a fine job of exploring these richly documented relationships not for scandal but for their influence on Sand's writings. In the end, she concludes, Sand's legacy is her spirit as much as her body of work: "Had Sand been born at another time, she might have been a great mountaineer, or have attempted to sail solo around the globe."

PARCELLS: A Biography, by Bill Gutman (Caroll & Graf, $25)

Okay, enough French stuff. Bill Parcells retired last year after 15 years as a head coach in the National Football League. He went to the Super Bowl twice with the New York Giants and once with the New England Patriots, the first coach to get there with two different teams. He finished his career with the New York Jets. Hard-driving and sharp-tongued, Parcells had a particular talent for fixing losing teams fast.

Parcells, nicknamed "Tuna," was by no account a sweetheart. His method was to ride players hard, with the de facto motto: "You stink. Now prove to me that you don't." Sometimes his former players bad-mouthed him, but that didn't change the fact a team's record usually was worse the year before he took over and worse the year after he left.

It is hard to write a great sports biography. This isn't one. The author, a sportswriter who also has produced books on Michael Jordan, Sammy Sosa and Brett Favre, dutifully plods through the standard formula. "Winning," he informs us about Parcell's youth, "was already the name of the game for Bill." Wooo. If it is superficial stuff meant for fans, fine, just don't charge 25 bucks and subtitle it "A Biography."

Howard Troxler is a Times staff writer.