Oooo la la! ( )

It’s a slim book with a simple plot, picking up the series with Claudine on her wedding night with Renaud and living in Paris, but I liked it because of its unabashed expression of the lesbian attraction which follows (impressive for 1902!), and for its balance between titillation and expressing sexual exploration without going over the top. There is a French coolness to it all, and honesty as well. Claudine is on the one hand independent, and on the other, wants to be ‘dominated’ by a strong husband. If we feel a contradiction there, or in Colette herself not wanting to be referred to as a feminist for that matter, it’s our problem, not hers.

Quotes:
On memories:
“My memories of the past fifteen months mill about in my head like specks of dust in a dark room barred by one shaft of sunshine. One after the other they pass into the beam, glitter there for a second while I smile or pout at them, then go back into the shadow.”

On seduction:
“I could see, close enough to touch, the perfectly curved shoulder, Rezi’s anxious profile, and, lower down, two bared young breasts, round and far apart, like the ones gallants toy with in naughty eighteenth-century engravings. I saw all this, stupefied, and did not say a word. I was unaware, at first, of the intense gaze she had fixed on me. The gaze attracted mine at last, but I averted it to dwell on the peerless whiteness of that flawless, even-tinted skin where the breasts broke abruptly into pink at the tips, the same pink as her nail varnish…
Triumphant, Rezi followed my wandering eyes. But because they had become fixed and urgent, she weakened herself and her eyelashes fluttered like wasp-wings…Her eyes turned bluer and rolled upwards and it was she who whispered, ‘No, no…please…’ as palpably shaken as I was myself.
‘Please…’ That word, breathed on a sigh, with a mixture of sensuality and childishness, had done more to precipitate my defeat than the most searching caress.” ( )

Colette a de rafraîchissant qu'elle aborde des thèmes tabous dans la plus grande innocence et avec le plus grand naturel. Les pérégrinations de Claudine, qui devraient être choquantes et déstabilisantes, sont, au contraire, simples, honnêtes et douces. On ne sent pas chez le personnage un quelconque déchirement mais une connaissance intime de ses besoins et de l'acceptation de ses émotions, même si elles peuvent porter vers des larmes.

Le style sucré, nacré et poli de Colette permet de communiquer ce charme et cette simplicité sans jamais tomber dans le mièvre ou le mélodrame. C'est un plaisir que de lire ces phrases charmantes, presque féériques : on ne trouvera jamais du sordide ni du laid. Artificiel? Peut-être, mais je pense que c'est avant tout un monde privilégié qui ne s'excuse pas de l'être - Claudine est une enfant gâtée mais une qui le sait et qui l'apprécie. ( )

I wish I'd read this when I was a wee chick. How I would have loved it! Women having an affair! In collusion with one of their husbands! Sadly, now, Claudine annoys me, I could not grasp Rezi's attractiveness; she seemed shallow, petulant, manipulative and boring. Claudine's life was pointless, inactive luxury. What a spoilt, self-centred, boring, immature human. ( )