- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 Aug 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099458136
- ISBN-13: 978-0099458135
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 556,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
'A perpetual feast to the reader...her prose is rich, flawless, intricate, audacious and utterly beautiful' Raymond Mortimer
Product Description
In these two superb stories of the politics of love, Colette is at her witty, instinctive best. Gigi is being educated in the skills of the Courtesan: to choose cigars, to eat lobster, to enter a world where a woman's chief weapon is her body. However, when it comes to the question of Gaston Lachaille, very rich and very bored, Gigi does not want to obey the rules. In 'The Cat', a wonderful story of burgeoning sexuality and blossoming love, an exquisite strong-minded Russian Blue is struggling for mastery of Alain with his seductive fiancee, Camille.
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4 reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
First Love
12 Aug 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Gigi was the first novel I read in French, and at the time that I read it, probably it was the raciest book I ever read, I was a mere lad of I don't know, eleven or so. I couldn't figure out exactly who was who. I tried reading GONE WITH THE WIND in French but that was too long. Gigi was perfect. She was, after all, a young girl, though from a different world than mine. She had several aunts who wanted to train her into the high level world of the Courtesan. A good parallel would be the recent novel MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden.
What distinguishes Colette from Golden is that the French writer built a legend around herself in terms of the beauty and poetry of her language. Not only did she possess a stern and acute mind from which no nuance of regret or longing escaped her gaze, but she wielded a pen like an angel. She was incapable of writing a phony sentence, and like the American modernist poet William Carlos Williams she found beauty in the ordinary and the commonplace. A swatch of wildflowers growing in the graveyard where Gigi's mother lies becomes the palette of an artist with the dappled colors suggesting possibility. Gigi's hopes, dreams and fantasies lie mingled, like sooty water, with the harsh realities of her existence. Basically she must find a rich man to cling to, or lose all her status.
For a young boy reading her story, and trying to puzzle through the evocative French, I found myself stumbling at times, but at the end I became convinced that I knew this girl, and I took pleasure in her small triumphs and her enemies became mine.
Today many of Colette's works have been translated but she is still very much caviare to the general. Another couple of books I can recommend to you are CHERI and its sequel, THE LAST OF CHERI. (Cheri's a guy despite his name which to me seemed feminine before I got the drift of things.)
What distinguishes Colette from Golden is that the French writer built a legend around herself in terms of the beauty and poetry of her language. Not only did she possess a stern and acute mind from which no nuance of regret or longing escaped her gaze, but she wielded a pen like an angel. She was incapable of writing a phony sentence, and like the American modernist poet William Carlos Williams she found beauty in the ordinary and the commonplace. A swatch of wildflowers growing in the graveyard where Gigi's mother lies becomes the palette of an artist with the dappled colors suggesting possibility. Gigi's hopes, dreams and fantasies lie mingled, like sooty water, with the harsh realities of her existence. Basically she must find a rich man to cling to, or lose all her status.
For a young boy reading her story, and trying to puzzle through the evocative French, I found myself stumbling at times, but at the end I became convinced that I knew this girl, and I took pleasure in her small triumphs and her enemies became mine.
Today many of Colette's works have been translated but she is still very much caviare to the general. Another couple of books I can recommend to you are CHERI and its sequel, THE LAST OF CHERI. (Cheri's a guy despite his name which to me seemed feminine before I got the drift of things.)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
An original take on the story
4 April 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the actual story "Gigi" not the film version and it is charming. It is a novella (a short story/book) and takes about 2 - 3 hours to read. Just about everyone knows the story so I won't go there. Collette's characters are sympathetic, especially Gigi, and well written and her imagery is really in top form. This was her only "comedy". It's a small book that literally fits in your pants pocket so you can read it on the train going to work. It's a good investment at a good price.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Wry, witty and delightful Colette novella
13 April 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Fifteen year old Gilberte (Gigi), born into a family of Parisian courtesans, is being raised to follow in the footsteps of her older female relatives. Well-educated at a girls' day school, and drilled in matters of etiquette, dress, and jewelry connoisseurship by her formidable Aunt Alicia (once one of the great ladies of the demimonde), she is the one hope for a family of women with no current income. When an old acquaintance, the wealthy but jaded Gaston Lachaille--thirtyish, bored with Paris high society and his extravagant mistress--begins to think of Gigi as something other than a child, her aunt and grandmother are delighted. However--surprise, surprise! The girl does not want to be mistress to the rich and famous, but prefers the idea of an ordinary life. This entertaining tale, rich with detail and amusing dialogue, is one of Colette's less "serious" stories, as well as one of her best known works (having been made into a movie musical starring Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdain, and Maurice Chevalier, lo! so many years ago).
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