Colette, prodded by her first husband, Willy, began her writing career with Claudine at School, which catapulted the young author into instant, sensational success. Among the most autobiographical of Colette's works, these four novels are dominated by the child-woman Claudine, whose strength, humor, and zest for living make her seem almost a symbol for the life force.
Janet Flanner described these books as "amazing writing on the almost girlish search for the absolute of happiness in physical love . . . recorded by a literary brain always wide awake on the pillow."
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"The paradoxes of great literature are those of human nature, and Colette is nothing if not human . . . Accessible and elusive; greedy and austere; courageous and timid; subversive and complacent; scorchingly honest and sublimely mendacious; an inspired consoler and an existential pessimist—these are the qualities of the artist and the woman. Its is time to rediscover them." --From the Introduction
"Delighted and quivering with life . . . Imbued with the most characteristic elements of the personality we have come to call simply Colette." --Robert Phelps, The New York Times
Language Notes
Text: English (translation) Original Language: French
"Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: 'It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss... '"
This quote comes from one of those unclassifiable writers who flout all convention and blaze their own trail through life. I am referring to Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), better known simply as Colette. After completing the last of four of the Claudine novels, I'm trying to put words to an experience I have some difficulty describing.
Colette is one of those writers who is so feminine and even feline that, as both a man and a person allergic to cats, I almost have to disqualify myself from the effort. But, being game, I'll give it a try.
The first four novels Colette wrote were a fictionalization of her life in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in the Burgundy region of France and in Paris. In COLETTE IN SCHOOL (1900), we see our heroine Claudine as a 15 year old in a provincial girls' school which is a hotbed of mischief and lesbianism. The headmistress is openly carrying on a relationship with one of her teachers at the school where they share a bedroom. Claudine is a rebellious teen who is a natural born leader and troublemaker. When her father decides to move to Paris, Claudine must go with him. In CLAUDINE IN PARIS (1901), we see Claudine getting used to the metropolis and finding love in her friend Marcel's father, Renaud. CLAUDINE MARRIED (1902) sees Claudine marrying Renaud. She falls under the sway of an Austrian woman named Rézi with whom she carries on a lesbian relationship with Renaud's amused approval.... When she discovers that Rézi is serving both of them, Claudine leaves for her home town, called Montigny in the book. Finally, CLAUDINE AND ANNIE (1903) sees Claudine reunited with Renaud through the eyes of another young married woman, Annie, who is married to an absent, yet controlling, husband.
These four novels are published together in one Penguin paperback called THE COMPLETE CLAUDINE, which is something of a misnomer, as there are other Claudine books, though none quite so famous as these four.
Colette was a controversial and somewhat contradictory figure during her long life. She conducted both lesbian and heterosexual affairs and was married three times. Although she collaborated with the Vichy government during the war, she also helped Jews escape capture. She wrote over forty books and lived a very public life. In the end, she was honored by the Belgian Royal Academy, the Académie Goncourt, and the Legion of Honor.
She is probably best known to most Americans as the creator of GIGI, which went on to become an acclaimed American musical directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Leslie Caron.Read more ›
The Complete Claudine by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Highly recommended.
* Claudine at School
* Claudine in Paris
* Claudine Married
* Claudine and Annie
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette wrote the Claudine novels when she was in her late twenties, when she was young enough to remember the single-mindedness and bitterness of adolescent fixations and old enough to have acquired the tempered wisdom and understanding of experience. Through Claudine's eyes, the reader sees how the unreserved passion of the young must, of necessity, burn itself out or be transformed into a more lasting love that expresses itself more deeply and less dramatically to ensure its own survival.
Not surprisingly, Claudine at School is the most delightful of the series. Our narrator is full of life and mischief, and never fails to indulge in scathing commentary on anything within her limited countryside range-the licentious superintendent of schools, the weak and pretentious assistant masters, and the assistant mistress and head mistress who are literally joined at the lip and hip. Claudine's barbs find targets in everyone, including her father, her former wet nurse and servant, and her best friends.
Like her creator, Claudine is a sensualist. She loves that which appeals to her senses, not necessarily her heart or her mind. Claudine craves her first "love," the assistant schoolmistress Aimée Lathenay, for her "slim waist," "lovely eyes," "golden eyes with their curled-up lashes," "complexion," and "supple body" that "seeks and demands an unknown satisfaction." Mademoiselle Lathenay proves her faithlessness quickly, and Claudine makes an abrupt transition from gushing would-be lover to "a chill that froze me...." Astute and precocious, Claudine recognizes that Aimée's nature is "frail and egotistical, a nature that likes its pleasures but knows how to look after its own interests." Claudine, calling the loss a "great disappointment," seems to understand that the battle has not been for the love of Aimée, but for her possession.
Also like Colette, Claudine seems to sense that sexual relationships between women, a recurring motif throughout the four novels, are somehow incomplete. At this age, however, Claudine does not yet have the experience to make the comparison to a relationship with a man, especially since the men she knows are primarily her single-minded father, the silly assistant masters and the licentious superintendent.
Claudine soon learns what it's like to be the object of unrequited adoration and submissiveness, and protests-too much-that she doesn't like it coming from Aimée's younger sister.
Despite the 19th-century setting and the adult themes, Colette has captured the essence of the adolescent experience-the testing of authority and its limits, sexual exploration and emotions, interest in the things of the senses, a more realistic view of adults and their foibles, and a sense of being caught between the familiar comforts of childhood and the frightening prospect of adulthood. It's fascinating to watch Claudine slowly realize that she is not the sophisticate that she tries to project to adults and her peers, that there is more to life, love, and sex than she can glean from her racy books.
Claudine in Paris takes Claudine-and the reader-away from the country village of Montigny, to Paris, where Claudine will finally experience the delusions, illusions, deceits, ecstasies, and cruelties of adult love and lust. She, who naturally dominates women, longs to be dominated by a man, her husband. In Paris, in the adult world, and in the world of marriage, Claudine becomes less sure of herself as part of maturing. It is in this milieu, where her stepson poses for his portrait as a Byzantine queen, where her husband indulges her tastes (and then his), and where sex is a form of currency between those who want and those who have, that Claudine learns the distinctions between lust and love, the practical, the sensual, and the romantic. When her marriage is threatened by her desires and her husband's encouragement, she finally discovers what love is-and is not.
Claudine and Annie is a departure in the series; it is the only one of the four novels that is told by a different narrator, the housewife Annie. In some ways, it's more interesting than Claudine in Paris and Claudine Married because Annie is a powerful narrator in her own way, who loses her innocence when her husband goes away to collect an inheritance. In his absences, she sees how she has been subjugated as well as the crassness of her acquaintances, including her practical, faithless, domineering, money-grubbing sister-in-law. As she sees more of that from which her husband protected her-for his own selfish reasons-she experiences the paradoxical need to escape and to see more (not unlike Claudine in Claudine Married).
In this novel, Claudine has become a background figure whose voice is for the most part rare and strangely muted. The reader, who has watched Claudine mature and grow, can imagine how Claudine might have told this tale from the outside. At the same time, the strength of the Claudine novels lies in her voice and perspective, and in her catty observations, sarcasm, ironic wit, sensuous descriptions, and unique personality. In that sense, Claudine and Annie is an anticlimax-a loss to the reader of the Claudine we had come to appreciate (if not always like) in her prime. With her earlier return to Renaud, Claudine has lost her edge, which is only hinted at in Claudine and Annie.
The Claudine novels are filled with wonderful characters, including her unforgettable father and her equally unforgettable white cat, Fanchette. The Complete Claudine is a great read for Colette's distinctive voice and insights and for the view it provides of turn-of-the-century rural France and urban Paris. You may not always like Claudine (or Colette), but she never fails to entertain and to say that which is worth hearing.Read more ›
I'd heard of Colette for a long time, but had read nothing of hers (I tend to overdose on English Lit). Then I saw the film *Cheri* with Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend (there are other versions) and developed the desire to read more by the creator of that tale (also watched the film *Gigi*, which is surprisingly spicy/worldly for its era). I read the novelette *Cheri* and enjoyed it, but found that the Claudine stories are more appealing to me. It is often said that Colette's Claudine series is autobiographical. If so, that could explain the truth and believability of the emotions in her writing, which transcend time (they were written around the turn of the 20th century) and translation from French. Claudine, as portrayed in *Claudine at School* and throughout the series, is a girl/young woman whose intelligence and sensitivity are matched by a strength of personality which was not (and still may not be!) considered feminine. She observes and comments on many aspects of the world around her - the French countryside with its plants, birds, animals, towns; her school with girls of differing looks and temperaments; and her teachers and the headmistress, plus more. Details are abundant, and I was able to picture the clothing and hair, as well as the complexions and eyes (Colette carefully describes the eyes)of all the characters, all interacting in French surroundings which, though they are over 100 years old and far away, I could visualize. These books make a tome of thousands of pages, so I will try to generalize.... As the stories go on, Claudine discovers herself (and others) to be bisexual, but somehow, because of her generally wholesome -- even delicate and earnest -- outlook, this proclivity doesn't make her quite as tawdry or perverse as one might expect, though her books have been thought quite shocking by some. Claudine's personality is shown as varying between strength/dominant tendencies and clinging/submissive tendencies, which may very well explain her bisexuality. Biographies of Colette show that she indeed favored both men and women, so she was well-qualified to explain the various feelings and moods which swept through young Claudine. The charm of her writing, at least to this reader, resides in the immense attention that Colette expended on the attraction, seduction, and emotional foreplay aspects of relationships relative to physical acts, which are not really described at all, except for kisses, hand-touching, etc. The stories are not really about sexual acts, they are about emotions and relationships. Anyone who has ever been attracted to anyone else should be able to relate to the feelings which Colette described with such clarity and richness, especially feelings as experienced by the young. (At my stage of life, I found this quite nostalgic.) I would go so far as to say that Colette had an amazing ability to capture the emotions of attraction (notice I am not saying *love*; sometimes love didn't enter into it much in these stories). I did find some of the relationships and personalities troubling and/or annoying, especially in the later stories (Claudine Married, Claudine and Annie). However, they were believable and from that standpoint, sound. Even characters I heartily disliked had hats, dresses or suits, mannerisms, expressions, and complete personalities in which I could believe. Highly recommended.Read more ›
