I started reading Colette about 30 years ago, starting with The Vagabond and continuing on to just about everything that's been translated into English, several of them twice or more. Why on earth did I never read the Claudine books? Love, hypocrisy, independence, solitude in the midst of a crowd, it's all there in this fourth volume that some say is the final one in the series, but Colette says it isn't. She says Retreat from Love is the final volume in the series and I've read that. Will soon read it again with a new perspective. In fact, every time I reread anything by Colette it is with a new perspective. The books seem to change as I grow older. ( )

‘Claudine and Annie’ (1903), the fourth and final installment in Colette’s ‘Claudine’ series, starts off interestingly enough, with a new narrator, Annie, a young woman recently married to a man who has just gone away to Argentina to tend to family business. He’s on the domineering and serious side, and has left her with detailed instructions, among which are to minimize visits with Claudine and her husband, Renaud. It’s interesting to see Claudine from another’s perspective and in glimpses, but the character who shows up more in the novel is Annie’s sister-in-law Marthe, who is meant to help take care of her, but who has her own shortcomings.

There is the customary titillation, Mathe having a ‘shapely, provocative behind’ (which I giggled at later when it was described as ‘impudent and deeply-dimpled’), Renaud observing of Annie, ‘When she raises her eyelids it’s as if she were taking off her clothes’, and Claudine ‘dazzling me with her eyes, bright as a wild animal’s and suddenly so dominating that I closed my own, overwhelmed…’, but the book is a little more tame than the others. It’s interesting to read about Annie taking ether for migraines (yikes), and the ‘douche/spa’ treatment Marthe undergoes. It’s a short novel but drags a little in the middle. I did like how Claudine helps Annie to find her own voice, and to realize she has control over her life. As Colette would separate from Willy two years later, the book seems meaningful and a good way of ending the series. ( )

liked this one much better. very little claudine whom i don't enjoy. ( )