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Amazon.co.uk Review
The same keen yet affectionate gaze Judith Thurman trained on Isak Dinesen in her 1983 National Book Award winner, Isak Dinesen: The Life of Karen Blixen distinguishes her robust portrait of the great French writer Colette. In Secrets of the Flesh, Thurman shrewdly disentangles fact from legend during the course of the writer's long and turbulent life (1873-1954), yet she doesn't question Colette's right to mythologise herself. The fictions Colette created about herself were part of a lifelong attempt to make sense, not just of her own experience, but of the "secrets of the flesh" (André Gide's phrase in an admiring letter), the bonds that link women to men, parents to children, in an eternal search for love that is also a struggle for dominance. Chronicling Colette's scandalous life--male and female lovers, a stint in vaudeville, an affair with her stepson, a final happy marriage to a younger man--Thurman makes it clear that the writer's adored yet dominating mother and exploitative first husband made it difficult for her to conceive of amorous equality. Yet she nonetheless created a satisfying, creative existence, firmly rooted in the senses and filled with artistic achievement, from the bestselling The Claudine Novels to the mature insights of The Vagabond and Cheri. Thurman assesses with equal acuity the bleakness of Colette's world-view and a zest for life that it never seemed to dampen. --Wendy Smith
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Amazon.co.uk Review
The same keen yet affectionate gaze Judith Thurman trained on Isak Dinesen in her 1983 National Book Award winner, Isak Dinesen: The Life of Karen Blixen distinguishes her robust portrait of the great French writer Colette. In Secrets of the Flesh, Thurman shrewdly disentangles fact from legend during the course of the writer's long and turbulent life (1873-1954), yet she doesn't question Colette's right to mythologize herself. The fictions Colette created about herself were part of a lifelong attempt to make sense, not just of her own experience, but of the "secrets of the flesh" (André Gide's phrase in an admiring letter), the bonds that link women to men, parents to children, in an eternal search for love that is also a struggle for dominance. Chronicling Colette's scandalous life--male and female lovers, a stint in vaudeville, an affair with her stepson, a final happy marriage to a younger man--Thurman makes it clear that the writer's adored yet dominating mother and exploitative first husband made it difficult for her to conceive of amorous equality. Yet she nonetheless created a satisfying, creative existence, firmly rooted in the senses and filled with artistic achievement, from the bestselling Claudine novels to the mature insights of The Vagabond and Cheri. Thurman assesses with equal acuity the bleakness of Colette's world-view and a zest for life that it never seemed to dampen. --Wendy Smith
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IN THE MIDDLE of the last century, the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye was rustic backwater despite its proximity to Paris, three hours by train to the nearest station followed by a rough cart ride. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
IN THE MIDDLE of the last century, the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye was rustic backwater despite its proximity to Paris, three hours by train to the nearest station followed by a rough cart ride. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent writer examined by an equally excellent writer,
By A Customer
This review is from: Secrets of the Flesh: a Life of Colette (Paperback)
You may think Colette would be a gift for anyone to write about - how could you go wrong with detailing such a colourful life - but Thurman proves theres a world of difference between merely charting or interpreting someone's life and the 'art' of biography.And this is an excellent piece of work. If you find when you walk into bookstores, you despair at the piles of gaudily-covered repetitive works of fiction, this book will restore your confidence in literature. If you find you can devour a book in a day, this work will take you at least a week to consume - and it'll actually make you think in the process. And you'll enjoy it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting portrait of an artist and an age,
By A Customer
This review is from: Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette (Hardcover)
This book is so well written! Not only has Judith Thurman come to a truly thoughtful and sensitive point of view on Colette and her works, but also managed to see and portray her in the context of the fascinating society and the time in which she lived (late 19th to mid 20th centuries). There are so many interesting characters passing through the pages of this book, not to mention historical events. I have been a long-time fan of Colette's work, and this biography has deepened my appreciation of her books as well as given me much food for thought on the subjects of artists, 'rebels', and the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives to make them more interesting. I generally disapprove of authors biographies becuase so often they serve only to diminish an artist and her/his work. This time however the author, Judith Thurman has managed to enhance the writer and her work without in any way writing a hagiography. I particularly liked the sensitivity with which Thurman advanced her own criticisms or doubts about Colette's behaviour without ever giving herself the final word. Like any truly great biographer she allows her subject to have the final word and be the final authority on herself, leaving the reader better able to draw their own conclusions.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Depiction of An Artist and an Era,
By Kate Hopkins (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Secrets of the Flesh: a Life of Colette (Paperback)
A superb depiction of one of France's most famous female authors. Judith Thurman follows Colette from her provincial background in Burgundy to her marriage to one of the most notorious writers of the fin-de-siecle, Henri Gauthier-Villars (Willy), through her career as a music-hall artist and long affair with a cross-dressing lesbian, 'Missy', her very successful writing career, her second marriage to the diplomat and aristocrat Henri de Jouvenal, her seduction of her young stepson Bertrand, her second divorce, her third, very happy marriage to the much younger Maurice Goudeket, the agonies of World War II (when the Jewish Maurice had to go into hiding) and her old age, in which the great celebrity and animal-lover became almost bedridden with arthritis. When describing all periods of Colette's life, Thurman gives some fascinating historical background, placing Colette very much in the context of the Paris of her time. There are some wonderful depictions of fin-de-siecle and early 20th-century 'characters' such as the exuberant lesbian Natalie Clifton-Barney, the poet Renee Vivien, Willy himself, intelligent and yet lazy, a sybarite and yet melancholy, other literary figures of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Proust, Anna de Noailles, Francis Carco and Francis Jammes, the composer Maurice Ravel (with whom Colette collaborated), the lesbian circles that she sometimes frequented, and of Colette's family and friends. The historical information on France at the time of Colette (from the late 19th century until the 1950s) is brilliant, and always interesting. One learns a great deal from this book. Thurman is good on the literature too, and makes you want to go back and read Colette, while being well aware of the shortcomings in her fiction (such as her problems at being able to write about really tender relationships of equals). Most impressively, Thurman shows what a terrible woman Colette could be (a bad mother to her daughter, born when she was forty, a tyrant to young Bertrand who she managed to mess up as regards his relationships with women in later life, a bully to her friends, unforgiving to past lovers and husbands) but also make you like and admire her. How many other women have enjoyed careers as a writer, librettist, journalist, actress, dancer, beautician (OK - that one wasn't so successful) and also had a huge circle of friends, managed to end their life with a very happy marriage, and appreciated the pleasures and intelligence of animals so much? In the end, Colette's sheer zest for life, as captured by Thurman, make her an enthralling person to read about. This is a model of a good biography. A must for anyone interested in French literature and culture.
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