Gigi and the Cat

As I am sure you can tell I am a huge Colette fan and picked up Gigi and the Cat while I was on holiday in Texas.

Gigi is one of Colette's best known pieces, what with that movie that won 9 Oscars and all. I haven't seen the movie but I clearly I need to. Gigi is a beautiful short story of a young woman (emphasis on young) who is brought up by her two aunts to be a woman of the world. She learns how to become a desirable mistress to a rich man. But Gigi decides to play by her own rules when it comes to the dashing Gaston Lachaille.

The Cat had my full attention in a way that Gigi did not. The title character in this piece is Saha, a Russian Blue cat that has a creepy soul-connection with her own Alain. Alain's new wife has grown jealous over the cat, while Alain wonders who his heart really belongs to. All three are living in a 9th floor apartment while their new home in renovated and the close quarters lead to dramatic outbursts.

"But at the age when he might have coveted a car, a journey abroad, a rare binding, a pair of skis, Alain nevertheless remained the young-man-who-has-bought-a-little-cat."

I think what detached me from Gigi was the lack of insight into Gigi's motives. Colette is at her best when she is in a character's mind, which she does well with Alain in the Cat. But all and all this book was lovely read that finished off my 2012 year of reading.

Other Colette works I have blogged about:
The Pure and the Impure
The Innocent Libertine

My beloved and I went on a delicious walk...

I'm on a major Colette kick this year (see my previous post on the Innocent Libertine). The latest in my readings was The Pure and the Impure, which Colette herself thought of as her greatest work.

"They allow us to be their master in the sex act, but never their equal. That is why I cannot forgive them."

This novel is a difficult one to follow at times as the plot is fairly non-existent as far as I could tell. We follow a woman who relates the many different ways that couples search for love and the difficulties they have at being fulfilled. The biography of Colette that I just finished, Secrets of the Flesh, has a pretty great sum up of this book, "the loves in the Pure and the Impure, who give pleasure but can't receive it, or take it but can't give it, who are mismatched in age, appetite, egoism, and experience - who all feel obscurely cheated."

There are some very memorable characters in this novel that stood out to me. In this book she writes one of the first modern pieces on anorexia with the character Renee Vivien who would walk for miles for days only drinking tea to keep herself thin. There is also a really beautiful tale of two Ladies of Llangollen, young women from the 18th century who fell in love and ran off to live together. I could read a novel about those two.

"In short, what did they want? Almost nothing. Everything."

There is something so alluring to Colette. She talks about love of all kinds with equal seriousness, examines lesbianism, homosexuality, and heterosexuality, along with the relationships we have that are platonic. Even if I am not sure what Colette is trying to tell me at times, I could listen to her go on forever.

"Some people become transformed by riches, others acquire a real life only by impoverishment, their very destitution giving them life."

The characters are even more intriguing after reading a biography of Colette because so many of them are based on very fascinating people that she knew and walked around in the real world. I think I might have to give this one a reread after finishing the biography to try to pick this work apart more.

Side note, I have bought most of my Colette books at Frugal Muse, a little book store in Madison, and they are always surprised that anyone reads Colette anymore. Am I the only one out there?

Sacred mysteries

Colette is a fascinating woman and I am very excited to read a biography of hers that I am waiting to come in through library loan. She performed at Moulin Rouge, wrote erotic literature in the early 1900's, had an affair with her stepson, and hid some of her Jewish friends in her attic during World War II.

The Innocent Libertine is really two short novels, Minne and Les Egarements de Minne,  that Colette combined after they had been published separately. They go together beautifully into one long arc for Minne.

In Minne, she starts as a young women who lives a very rich inner life. She lives with her mother in Paris and becomes obsessed with a gang of street thugs. Their leader, Curly, is the main object of her affection and she creates a great love between them in her mind without ever speaking to him. Every action she takes has such importance in to her every noise outside is just one step closer to bringing her and Curly together. When he disappears, she becomes ill and they go to the country with her uncle and cousin.

"She felt herself on the threshold of another life, on the verge of initiation into sacred mysteries."

There she spends her time lying fantastically and her cousin, Antoine, grows to desire her immensely. She dismisses him because to her she is already engaged to Curly (a man she had never spoken to). When she returns home, she leaves her house during the night to chase after Curly and gets a very harsh dose of reality. The Paris streets are not the place for a young girl.

In Les Egarements de Minnne, or Part Two, Minne is grown up some and married. Yet she is having a string of affairs in search of achieving an orgasm. Jealous of the sexual joy the men she sleeps with have, she believes that if she just finds the right man she will be able to feel the same. Her husband grows jealous and attempts to recreate her as the innocent girl he is in love with.

"After all, that boy is as nice as anything! He was dying of pleasure in my arms and there was I waiting and saying to myself: 'Obviously, it's not unpleasant... but show me something better!"

Colette is sexy and exciting without being smutty, even if there is a naked lady lounging on the cover. Minne's tale really is lovely and came to a very stratifying ending, if you catch my drift.

Recent Buys

Not too much book shopping going along this week but I did pick up a few new things.

I always manage to find a few things. I love Colette and try to grab her books when I see them. I got The Pure and the Impure and The Innocent Libertine from her. I'm about halfway through The Innocent Libertine and really enjoying it. Her stuff is pretty sexy, but without the shame of reading 50 Shades of Grey. I'll review it in a few days probably.

Michael Chabon's Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands for the man and I will probably end up reading it too. I really enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and have just picked up any of his books I find for cheap since.

The final book in the pile is Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu. I'll do a short review of it here since I powered through it hours after buying it. Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell which I have not read, but now want to.

From the back cover, this book is reviewed by Spectator as so: "These tales read as if Jane Austen had rewritten the Brothers Grimm ... wonderful!" I think this sums up the book very well. There are eight beautiful little stories that mix the romanticism of Austen with the the magic of Grimm. The land of Faerie is someplace you can cross over to on your way to tea with the King and end up stuck for months until your love frees you by smashing a hornet's nest.

Clarke has a real flair for writing dialogue and sucked me in. She also has that way of describing a character to you totally with just a phrase or two.

"The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at."

If you are a fellow fan of Austen, but like a little more darkness, this is book is for you.