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Review
'This biography delves far into the past, unraveling the mysteries that Chanel herself worked to create…it's a beautifully honest yet surprisingly unforgiving portrait of a woman often outshone by her own legend' Observer.
'A fascinating, intimate, merciless, but ultimately sympathetic portrait… Even for those with only the slightest interest in fashion this is a beautifully written, highly entertaining biography' Guardian.
'Chanel's life was extraordinary, varied, full, perverse and like all good stories, full of dramatic reversals and successes' Margaret Drabble.
'A fascinating, intimate, merciless, but ultimately sympathetic portrait… Even for those with only the slightest interest in fashion this is a beautifully written, highly entertaining biography' Guardian.
'Chanel's life was extraordinary, varied, full, perverse and like all good stories, full of dramatic reversals and successes' Margaret Drabble.
Product Description
She revolutionized how women looked. She banned corsets, shortened skirts and scented the world with Chanel No.5. Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was an icon. But how closely did her carefully moulded image match the truth? Born illegitimate and raised in an orphanage - not by the two aunts that she invented - Gabrielle Chanel fought constantly to escape the mundane. She rose from back-street milliner to become the head of a vast business empire, and socialised with Picasso, Stravinsky and Cocteau. Edmonde Charles-Roux also reveals one of Chanel's best-kept secrets - her love affair with a prodigal German spy. Chanel's legend did not fade with her death, and nor has the mark of sheer elegance that she left upon the world of fashion. This is the living woman behind the vibrant legend.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
I found this book a nightmare to read. I'm on page 188 of 406 and am detemined to finish it because I don't like to leave a book unfinished, but this is what I have found.
1) The author supposes much of the story. I found it hard to understand how he supposed how Chanels great-grandfather, and every relative including Chanel herself could have lived and thought. I then read the inside of the front cover where it says ' this book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental'. Why proffer it as a bio of Chanel then? Why use photos of her? Why say it is the inspiration for the movie 'Coco avant Chanel'?
2) The text is very difficult to follow. The author rambles. He uses sentences that are too long mixed in with sentences that are too short.
3) He uses this - ... - constantly. It makes you feel that he couldn't find the right way to put the sentence together or that something is missing.
4) He uses inverted commas - approx. 3 per page - unnecessarily and out of context. It becomes really irritating.
5) He inserts sentences of the present tense into the general past tense of the story. He combines overly pompous descriptions with slang eg. wierdos.
6) He uses rhetorical questions to suggest what he doesn't know. For example, on page 9 - 'He spent eight months at Travers de Castillion, a little village at the foot of the Cevennes, neither forest nor mountain, nor yet plains or town. Jobs were scarce. People said that in Ales...That was true, Ales, mines, coal, jobs...But he hesitated. It meant going even farther away. Weren't they already saying he ''came from afar''? What would it be like elsewhere? He hunted, groped. Something in him still resisted the allure of the town, the dreams of high life.' This was of Chanels grandfather.
All in all, I'm not sure if it the author, the translator or the publishers who are to blame. But for sure, all fell down on what should have been a great book.
1) The author supposes much of the story. I found it hard to understand how he supposed how Chanels great-grandfather, and every relative including Chanel herself could have lived and thought. I then read the inside of the front cover where it says ' this book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental'. Why proffer it as a bio of Chanel then? Why use photos of her? Why say it is the inspiration for the movie 'Coco avant Chanel'?
2) The text is very difficult to follow. The author rambles. He uses sentences that are too long mixed in with sentences that are too short.
3) He uses this - ... - constantly. It makes you feel that he couldn't find the right way to put the sentence together or that something is missing.
4) He uses inverted commas - approx. 3 per page - unnecessarily and out of context. It becomes really irritating.
5) He inserts sentences of the present tense into the general past tense of the story. He combines overly pompous descriptions with slang eg. wierdos.
6) He uses rhetorical questions to suggest what he doesn't know. For example, on page 9 - 'He spent eight months at Travers de Castillion, a little village at the foot of the Cevennes, neither forest nor mountain, nor yet plains or town. Jobs were scarce. People said that in Ales...That was true, Ales, mines, coal, jobs...But he hesitated. It meant going even farther away. Weren't they already saying he ''came from afar''? What would it be like elsewhere? He hunted, groped. Something in him still resisted the allure of the town, the dreams of high life.' This was of Chanels grandfather.
All in all, I'm not sure if it the author, the translator or the publishers who are to blame. But for sure, all fell down on what should have been a great book.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Its a very rambled dialogue that greets you in this book. You can tell it has been translated from the french original. Not exactly what I was expecting or wanting.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
I had wanted to buy the author's other (beautifully illustrated) book on Chanel - The World of Coco Chanel; Friends, Fashion, Fame - which wasn't available when I wanted to read something on Chanel after seeing the film (which I felt was a missed opportunity). I thought this was perhaps a paperback edition, and therefore felt very let down before I even started to read it at the meagre and uninspired picture selection. It really is astonishingly mean-spirited of the publishers. I agree absolutely with the other reviewers and am finding the author's overwritten style to be utterly exhausting, especially when combined with the sheer amount of supposition (particularly about Chanel's ancestors, about whom it is very hard to care, especially for fifty pages). It is difficult to believe there has been any editing here, especially by the author, but I have sympathy for her editor, because if you cut out the rambling, repetition and supposition, you would have very little left. I also feel cheated by the declaration that this is all fiction... I really am not sure I will ever finish it (and I hate not to finish a book).
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tedious Read
I totally agree with all the other reviewer this book is very hard to read, the author has a very smug, superiour tone, as he seems to suppose all what Chanel was thinking and... Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2010 by Ms. P. J. Hayes
Dreadfully written and translated.
I have more or less had to give up on this book also due to the dreadful writing, translation and an obvious lack of editing. Read more
Published on 27 Oct 2009 by J. Mc Govern
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