I was mostly enchanted with this book of short stories - which is to say, not quite as enchanted as I had hoped to be, but still really quite. The translation of this volume is copyright 1958 and I think it suffers a little bit for being dated. The stories were written by Colette between 1937 and 1945, so one expects a certain amount of 'period charm,' but some of the slang words and phrasing are sufficiently out of date to be jarring. I also have Duo & Le Toutounier to read and the translation of that is from 1974 (also Cheri and The Last of Cheri translated in 1949 BUT by a different translator from The Rainy Moon), so it will be interesting to compare them stylistically.

Enough waffling about translations; on to the stories! Basically they are a mix of two different sorts: a few are pure fiction, but most of them are told by Colette in the first person and purport to be about people she knew at various stages in her life. All of the stories are told with a beautiful and nearly obsessive attention to detail: botanical description in particular, but also animal companions, showgirls' costumes, precise quirks of dress and facial expression. Take, for example, the description of her father's 'desk-furniture':

A pad of virgin blotting-paper; an ebony ruler; one, two, four, six pencils, sharpened with a penknife and all of different colours; pens with medium nibs and fine nibs, pens with enormously broad nibs, drawing-pens no thicker than a blackbird's quill; sealing-wax, red, green and violet; a hand-blotter, a bottle of liquid glue, not to mention slabs of transparent amber-coloured stuff known as 'mouth-glue'; the minute remains of a Spahi's cloak reduced to the dimensions of a pen-wiper with scalloped edges; a big ink-pot flanked by a small ink-pot, both in bronze, and a lacquer bowl filled with a golden powder to dry the wet page; another bowl containing sealing-wafers of all colours (I used to eat the white ones); to right and left of the table, reams of paper, cream-laid, ruled, water-marked, and, of course, that little stamping-machine that bit into the white sheet, and, with one snap of its jaws, adorned it with an embossed named: J.-J. Colette.

Colette is often quoted as saying, 'I cannot interest myself in anything that is not life,' and her loving attention shines through in every sentence. The reader has the sense that she was someone who really lived every moment of life to the full, with her eyes open wide. The lavish descriptions also have the effect of really making you feel present in early 20th century France: delightful immersion!

The 'pure' fiction stories (The Rendezvous, Armande, The Sick Child) weren't my favourites. They are as beautifully written as the others but the emotional themes are a little bit maudlin (though not without touches of Colette's biting humour).

With regard to the first-person narratives, I can never tell exactly how much is about things that really happened and how much is invention, which is part of their charm. There is usually a little twist near the endings, but not so much as to be gimmicky and always plausible enough to be believed. Disappointment in love is a recurring theme but the overall tone is not hopeless - rather, it's one of slightly cynical affection for characters whose love affairs are made and broken on the strength of a glance.

I'll be keeping this collection of stories to revisit from time to time. ( )