Colette the woman is eternally fascinating.
Any biography of the celebrated French author of Gigi, Chéri, and the Claudine novels would have to be replete with scandalous detail.
This entry, covering the first half of her life, does not disappoint. Colette’s novels of the demimonde and Parisian café society were noteworthy for both their high quality and their autobiographical content. Her numerous marriages, and her hetero and lesbian affairs, provided Colette with a subject and a lifestyle that made her one of the notorious fin-de-siècle celebrities. Francis and Gontier (co-authors of Simone de Beauvoir: A Life, A Love Story, 1987, etc.) sift through rumor, legend, and shadowy fact to piece together a life that would cause modern jet-setters to blanch, perhaps. Colette’s contention that she had black ancestors has usually been dismissed by her biographers as a literary conceit—as yet another example of her self-promotional efforts. Here, though, the authors dig deep to follow her maternal lineage to a black grandfather from Martinique. They also make great strides at dispelling Colette’s bitter late-career assertion that she was bullied into writing by her first husband, the publishing scion Henry Gauthier-Villara. Known as Willy, he was a leading literary figure of the day and, in fact, collaborated with his wife on dozens of novels, essays, and plays. He also gave her syphilis. Colette and Willy both conducted numerous affairs, she (notably) with the Marquise de Morny. Known as “France’s most notorious cross-dresser,” Missy, as she was called, and Colette staged a pantomime that summoned the police. Colette’s oeuvre remains of mild interest.
Colette the woman is eternally fascinating.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 1998
ISBN: 1-883642-91-4
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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