Colette Books

In Return to Paris, which covers her teen and early adult years (after she left Cairo permanently), Collette Rossant constantly showed an air of superiority toward others. When she married an American, this trait became even more evident. She was rude to the American Army wives and spent her time alone rather than mingle with them. When she and her husband moved to New York, she acted the same way toward her mother-in-law. While living with her mother-in-law, she wasn't gracious enough to hide her dislike of the food she was served, sometimes refusing to eat it. Yes, a lot of American food was convenience oriented in the 1950s, but there were plenty of good home cooks. CR was from a family who had full-time cooks, and she was a food snob.

Her attitude made me not like her and not feel sympathy for the poor little rich girl. I will not buy or read any more of her books.

I don't usually read food-related books. I generally stick with novels or straightforward history/biography. Yet I could not resist Colette Rossant's earlier memoir, Memories of a Lost Egypt, for its poignant, delectable interweaving of memories, recipes, and passionate observations about the tastes and foods she discovered as a child growing up in remarkable circumstances. (Her recipes are fabulous, by the way--easy to recreate.)

Rossant's new book, Return to Paris, continues the story of her extraordinary upbringing. I really recommend reading both books, which are delightfully different but ideal companions. In fact, I so loved Rossant's evocation of Cairo in both writing and recipes, and her candid portrait of her family there, that I wasn't sure at first how I would react to her new memoir's focus on Paris, where she returned as a teenager. As it turns out, I enjoyed the dramatic turn this book reflects, in both her life and her culinary education, as she describes her difficult adjustment to postwar life in a country so different from her beloved Egypt. I was touched by young Colette's largeness of spirit as she accepts her losses and isolation, and opens up to the delights of Paris and its food.

Rossant is a wonderful writer with an explorer's personality, which makes her books transcend their genre. Lovers of good stories and good writing, as well as marvelous food, will enjoy Return to Paris. I'd like to add that given the events of our time, in particular the appalling anti-French and anti-Arab behavior some folks exhibit, it is compelling to read how one young person bridged two strikingly different cultures with grace, open eyes, and receptive tastebuds.

I read this book trying to forget about the stiffling heat we're experiencing in Europe in one day. As wonderful as the first book is (Apricots on the Nile) this book is even better. Collette takes us on her journey back to Paris after being wrenched away from her loving coccoon of close family in Egypt to the great unknown. Soon however she finds solace in the kitchen & rediscovers her passion for food. Faced with many life changing decision, she recounts the events that took her all over Europe & (later to the US) on different adventures & always with food as her loyal companion.
A wonderful read that ended too soon, & although I rated this book with 5 stars, I felt it ended a bit too abruptly ... but then again you alawys want more of a great book don't you?!

I loved this little book and read it in one sitting on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It made me wish that Colette would invite me to dinner! The writing swept me along throughout the journeys in her life. The recipes were a surprise bonus for me as I had never read her other books and had no idea she was known for cuisine. It was the beautiful cover that sold me! Highly recommend this book. I can barely cook, but am going to try the Agvolemono soup, a favorite from my 20's when I worked upstairs from a Greek Deli in downtown Boston.

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Reading _Return to Paris_ (and preparing its recipes) is like listening to a Piaf song, at once strikingly beautiful and hauntingly sad, something that commands your attention to the very end.

So, dear reader, beware! For should you open the first page of this book, you may find yourself swept away to a Paris you never knew of, to return to a present made a little sadder by finding there are no more pages left to turn.

I also recommend these other books by Rossant which I have read:
- Memories of a Lost Egypt (the first of her food memoirs)
- Bocuse a la Carte (translator)
- Colette Rossant's After Five Gourmet
- Colette's Slim Cuisine
- New Kosher Cooking
- Vegetable

I came across this collection by mistake, just recently. I was shocked that I had not read or even heard of it before. "The Complete Claudine" consists of four books. The first, "Claudine at School" was the first of Colette's novels and was an immediate success when released between 1900 and 1907. It is followed by "Claudine in Paris", "Claudine Married", and "Claudine and Annie". The books are semi-autobiographical and depict the life of a young girl (Claudine) through to adulthood. The first book shapes Claudine into a daring and sometimes naughty, sometimes mean, girl. A perfect start to a character that, as a reader, you grow to love for her sheer audacity. If you put the book/s in to the context of the period (early 20th Century ) they really are shocking. As Mme Claudine mixes with the Parisian socialites of the period, she so shamelessly shuns the dictates of social propriety that she manages to gain the attentions of both men and women, effortlessly - she is merely being herself. By the end of this book, if you haven't fallen in love with Claudine and her little Fanchette, or, laughed out loud at the scenes at Arriege (a health spa), I'd be surprised. I thought this collection was great and will definitely make an effort to read some of Colette's other works.

The Complete Claudine by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Highly recommended.

* Claudine at School
* Claudine in Paris
* Claudine Married
* Claudine and Annie

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette wrote the Claudine novels when she was in her late twenties, when she was young enough to remember the single-mindedness and bitterness of adolescent fixations and old enough to have acquired the tempered wisdom and understanding of experience. Through Claudine's eyes, the reader sees how the unreserved passion of the young must, of necessity, burn itself out or be transformed into a more lasting love that expresses itself more deeply and less dramatically to ensure its own survival.

Not surprisingly, Claudine at School is the most delightful of the series. Our narrator is full of life and mischief, and never fails to indulge in scathing commentary on anything within her limited countryside range-the licentious superintendent of schools, the weak and pretentious assistant masters, and the assistant mistress and head mistress who are literally joined at the lip and hip. Claudine's barbs find targets in everyone, including her father, her former wet nurse and servant, and her best friends.

Like her creator, Claudine is a sensualist. She loves that which appeals to her senses, not necessarily her heart or her mind. Claudine craves her first "love," the assistant schoolmistress Aimée Lathenay, for her "slim waist," "lovely eyes," "golden eyes with their curled-up lashes," "complexion," and "supple body" that "seeks and demands an unknown satisfaction." Mademoiselle Lathenay proves her faithlessness quickly, and Claudine makes an abrupt transition from gushing would-be lover to "a chill that froze me." Astute and precocious, Claudine recognizes that Aimée's nature is "frail and egotistical, a nature that likes its pleasures but knows how to look after its own interests." Claudine, calling the loss a "great disappointment," seems to understand that the battle has not been for the love of Aimée, but for her possession.

Also like Colette, Claudine seems to sense that sexual relationships between women, a recurring motif throughout the four novels, are somehow incomplete. At this age, however, Claudine does not yet have the experience to make the comparison to a relationship with a man, especially since the men she knows are primarily her single-minded father, the silly assistant masters and the licentious superintendent.

Claudine soon learns what it's like to be the object of unrequited adoration and submissiveness, and protests-too much-that she doesn't like it coming from Aimée's younger sister.

Despite the 19th-century setting and the adult themes, Colette has captured the essence of the adolescent experience-the testing of authority and its limits, sexual exploration and emotions, interest in the things of the senses, a more realistic view of adults and their foibles, and a sense of being caught between the familiar comforts of childhood and the frightening prospect of adulthood. It's fascinating to watch Claudine slowly realize that she is not the sophisticate that she tries to project to adults and her peers, that there is more to life, love, and sex than she can glean from her racy books.

Claudine in Paris takes Claudine-and the reader-away from the country village of Montigny, to Paris, where Claudine will finally experience the delusions, illusions, deceits, ecstasies, and cruelties of adult love and lust. She, who naturally dominates women, longs to be dominated by a man, her husband. In Paris, in the adult world, and in the world of marriage, Claudine becomes less sure of herself as part of maturing. It is in this milieu, where her stepson poses for his portrait as a Byzantine queen, where her husband indulges her tastes (and then his), and where sex is a form of currency between those who want and those who have, that Claudine learns the distinctions between lust and love, the practical, the sensual, and the romantic. When her marriage is threatened by her desires and her husband's encouragement, she finally discovers what love is-and is not.

Claudine and Annie is a departure in the series; it is the only one of the four novels that is told by a different narrator, the housewife Annie. In some ways, it's more interesting than Claudine in Paris and Claudine Married because Annie is a powerful narrator in her own way, who loses her innocence when her husband goes away to collect an inheritance. In his absences, she sees how she has been subjugated as well as the crassness of her acquaintances, including her practical, faithless, domineering, money-grubbing sister-in-law. As she sees more of that from which her husband protected her-for his own selfish reasons-she experiences the paradoxical need to escape and to see more (not unlike Claudine in Claudine Married).

In this novel, Claudine has become a background figure whose voice is for the most part rare and strangely muted. The reader, who has watched Claudine mature and grow, can imagine how Claudine might have told this tale from the outside. At the same time, the strength of the Claudine novels lies in her voice and perspective, and in her catty observations, sarcasm, ironic wit, sensuous descriptions, and unique personality. In that sense, Claudine and Annie is an anticlimax-a loss to the reader of the Claudine we had come to appreciate (if not always like) in her prime. With her earlier return to Renaud, Claudine has lost her edge, which is only hinted at in Claudine and Annie.

The Claudine novels are filled with wonderful characters, including her unforgettable father and her equally unforgettable white cat, Fanchette. The Complete Claudine is a great read for Colette's distinctive voice and insights and for the view it provides of turn-of-the-century rural France and urban Paris. You may not always like Claudine (or Colette), but she never fails to entertain and to say that which is worth hearing.

Claudine is in school and has good friends and boy friends that she often talks to and refers to in this book. She has as many problems as she does good events. She goes through her life as a journey and these four stories (claudine at school, claudine in Paris, and Annie and Claudine) she describes it in a college reading level but anyone who isn't is still able to understand it and get the gist.

"Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: 'It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss... '"

This quote comes from one of those unclassifiable writers who flout all convention and blaze their own trail through life. I am referring to Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), better known simply as Colette. After completing the last of four of the Claudine novels, I'm trying to put words to an experience I have some difficulty describing.

Colette is one of those writers who is so feminine and even feline that, as both a man and a person allergic to cats, I almost have to disqualify myself from the effort. But, being game, I'll give it a try.

The first four novels Colette wrote were a fictionalization of her life in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in the Burgundy region of France and in Paris. In COLETTE IN SCHOOL (1900), we see our heroine Claudine as a 15 year old in a provincial girls' school which is a hotbed of mischief and lesbianism. The headmistress is openly carrying on a relationship with one of her teachers at the school where they share a bedroom. Claudine is a rebellious teen who is a natural born leader and troublemaker. When her father decides to move to Paris, Claudine must go with him. In CLAUDINE IN PARIS (1901), we see Claudine getting used to the metropolis and finding love in her friend Marcel's father, Renaud. CLAUDINE MARRIED (1902) sees Claudine marrying Renaud. She falls under the sway of an Austrian woman named Rézi with whom she carries on a lesbian relationship with Renaud's amused approval. When she discovers that Rézi is serving both of them, Claudine leaves for her home town, called Montigny in the book. Finally, CLAUDINE AND ANNIE (1903) sees Claudine reunited with Renaud through the eyes of another young married woman, Annie, who is married to an absent, yet controlling, husband.

These four novels are published together in one Penguin paperback called THE COMPLETE CLAUDINE, which is something of a misnomer, as there are other Claudine books, though none quite so famous as these four.

Colette was a controversial and somewhat contradictory figure during her long life. She conducted both lesbian and heterosexual affairs and was married three times. Although she collaborated with the Vichy government during the war, she also helped Jews escape capture. She wrote over forty books and lived a very public life. In the end, she was honored by the Belgian Royal Academy, the Académie Goncourt, and the Legion of Honor.

She is probably best known to most Americans as the creator of GIGI, which went on to become an acclaimed American musical directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Leslie Caron.

Set in summer in Brittanny, Vinca and Phillipe are childhood friends who are awakening to sexuality.Phillipe has an affair with an older woman, a theme taken from Colette's own life. The affair has a lasting effect on the teenage lovers. This book is provocative, as only Colette could be on the subject of sex.

The characters in this novel are both fascinatingly "other" while at the same time easy to indentify with. The book captures how it feels to be young and in love, to be young and misunderstood, to be experienced and bitter, to feel torn between two selves. The novel shows us both hard and loveable sides of each of three main characters--constantly challenging our desire to judge and fix each character's nature in one place. The book ends ambiguously as if we really had encountered these people in life and then suddenly lost touch. The two seductions of a 16-year-old boy--first by a 30-year-old woman and secondly by a 15-year-old girl--are presented without any vulgarity but in a way that makes clear the sordid nature of the sex which is close to rape. The connection between sex, desire, power, and competition is richly treated.

I can't agree that Colette is under-rated. (Not in her native France, certainly. After all, she was the first woman ever given a state funeral.) But this peculiarly intense novella does deserve as much recognition as the more widely heralded "Cheri" and "Claudine" books.

What stands in its way is a sophistication and subtlety so profoundly French that, even translated into English, the narrative sometimes seems to be in a foreign language. The nearest American literature equivalent I can think of is Henry James's "The Sacred Fount", which is also a love story explored on such a psychologically deep level that it can be hard to know what exactly is going on.

But even at her murkiest, Colette never fails to provide a spectacular mimesis of the natural world. The reader may all but recline in the flower-filled meadows, the warmth of the sun on his face cooled by fragrant breezes. Her insightful portrayal of what another writer called "the wrung loins of boyhood" can be considered a rich bonus.

This is a great book, with vivid characters and plenty of moral complexity. It is about the affair of a very
young man with an older woman, who uses him yet at the same time reflects the emptiness of her life and her
enjoyment of control. You also get a wider view of the consequences of their affair on the delicate balance of his other
relationships, particularly with his childhood lover. And the "relations" are handled with extreme dexterity and delicacy,
never going for cheap thrills. It is packed with descriptions of sensations and thought, beautifully poetic and dense,
requiring re-reading and reflection from the reader.

Taken together, it emerges as a subtle and unusually stimulating reading experience. Collette truly was underrated.

Warmly recommended.

This is a great book, with vivid characters and plenty of moral complexity. It is about the affair of a very young man with an older woman, who uses him yet at the same time reflects the emptiness of her life and her enjoyment of control. You also get a wider view of the consequences of their affair on the delicate balance of his other relationships, particularly with his childhood lover. And the "relations" are handled with extreme dexterity and delicacy, never going for cheap thrills. It is packed with descriptions of sensations and thought, beautifully poetic and dense, requiring re-reading and reflection from the reader.

Taken together, it emerges as a subtle and unusually stimulating reading experience. Collette truly was underrated.

Warmly recommended.

I mean the book was not bad and it was well written.I love the caracter of Philippe because he isn't like every teenager boy.He is sensible and caring.

I had to study this book for my A-levels and to be honest I found it a bit difficult to grasp the plot but this was due to the fact that this was the first French book I'd read. Once you get past the fact that it's French you can see a tale of two youngsters finding growing up to be a difficult time and with this we can see brilliant descriptions of emotions and the French coast of Brittany. There's much more to this book than meets the eye.

Years ago I read Dowling's The Cinderella Complex and found I shared many of her views on being female in the 70's. Red Hot Mamas carries us onto the Middle Years for emancipated women.

Much of it was interesting - this book isn't information about menopause only (thank goodness - sometimes an evolving woman needs a break), but is about female aging in America.

From the squeeze caused by needs of children and parents (middle squeeze), to the realizations that we are no longer fertile, svelte and young, Red Hot Mamas offers positive looks at the major changes in the Fifty Something woman's life. She does offer a lot of information on Hormone Replacement Therapy, giving women food for thought. She also addresses the changes in our relationships with our partners, financial independence and our generation's waning interest in marriage - not entirely because fewer men are available. Although the author is a feminist, it is clear she is NOT a separatist, but she strongly supports older women who are more often finding it possible to have relationships with men based on the needs of both.

This book is certainly not for everyone - traditionalist will no doubt find this book, and probably this review, not helpful to them. The rest of us will find this a nice read for women going through menopause and feeling down. It offers offers positive stories of what other women have done with their lives. Would be a terrific group discussion read, but also is good as a stand-alone book.

Read it and smile.

I am 47, and this book has confirmed my strange feeling that that the 50's will be outstanding! Once we make peace with the wrinkles, bags & sags, we can truly leave behind all the emotional constraints of our first half-century. We can finally move beyond our frenzied and frustrating lives to realize the dreams we had at age 12. What, quit the corporate rat race & become a dancer? Yes! Let our hair turn gray, don long flowered skirts and start a greenhouse? Yes, these and even more "bizarre" pursuits! Collette Dowling shows us how the brick walls defining our lives can be dismantled to reveal the paths of our dreams. I for one can hardly wait for menopause!! This is more than just a breezy book about life transitions. This book opens the spy glass onto the real opportunities of mid-life and presents the complexities of 50ish women as gifts rather than curses. Please write more and more, Ms. Dowling!

I admit it's been a while since I read this book. On the other hand, I found it so pivotal I have given it to friends and gone out to buy more copies, one of which I am starting to reread now. This book is funny and it is sad. Most of all, I found it realistic and affirmative.

I am a relatively conservative person, so I found some parts of the book a little over-the-top, but the underlying affirmative message is one we shouldn't ignore. I encountered the book just as I was dipping my toes into graduate school at the age of 50+. I had lived a fulfilling life as stay-at-home wife and mother and had run my own home-based business for years. I never intended to go back to school, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time and with my husband's blessings and my children's encouragement, off I went in a totally new direction. Somehow I felt this book gave me permission to go for it.

Red Hot Mammas is about attitude as much as anything else. I loved its feisty attitude and I took that into the classroom where I discovered that not only could I hold my own, but that I had greater perspective than so many younger students. And the best part was that I wasn't crippled by their social and future-oriented worries. I already had a husband, children, fulfilling work. I was there not to get a mate or a job or a "future", but because I genuinely wanted to learn. I was doing what I WANTED.

To make a long story short, I lost my husband tragically during my two years in grad school. I have since gone on to a high tech consultancy job (about as far removed from my former life as you can imagine). I now live alone, with complete freedom, fully invested in my two somewhat grown children as well as my career and completely happy with everything except the loss of my husband.

My younger sister visited me last weekend, suffering burnout from family and work responsibilities. My message to her was, "Relax - we can do anything anything we want." That's Colleen Dowling's message really. It's very empowering. Check it out. And don't forget your sense of humor.

It's good for a quick reference. If you're looking for indepth meanings, I do not suggest this book.

I loved this book from the moment I read the first paragraph. Klaus Vollmar shares my approach to dream interpretation - that the symbols carry more than one meaning, and frequently a variety of symbols can have similar meanings. Dreams should not be interpreted intellectually. They should be interpreted intuitively as the dreamer perceives them, not as the books and shrinks say. The true interpretation can really only be understood by the dreamer. I agree with him 100 percent. I feel so strongly about this that I don't even take specific questions when I do tarot and rune readings and receive very positive feedback.

Vollmar also skips the ten pages of history and biological/physiological/psychiatric babble found in nearly every dream symbol dictionary. He touches on history, Freud and Jung briefly and goes into discussion on folklore and cultural meanings within the symbol definitions themselves. This is refreshing - he doesn't seem to feel that he has to establish his expertise and doesn't waste time writing about what's been done to death.

At the end of the book is a short chapter with a list of questions that the dreamer can ask themselves to assist in interpreting their dreams. He states that this is designed for people who don't have a lot of time to do a complicated reading. I appreciate that as well. My favorite tool is Kaplan-Williams' Dream Cards but this method is very time consuming.

The symbols are listed in three columns on each page and are comprehensive. No dream dictionary is perfect, but Vollmar's index also isn't filled with "see _____" for half of the symbols. Illustrations are colorful but not distracting and the book is hardcover. An amazingly informative book for a small price.

It's incredible that it's so hard to find much useful (or visual) information about this great, great Chilean artists, both in print or even on the Web. Born in 1912, and originaly, an architect and former disciple of Le Corbusier, Matta went on to be recognized as a true genius of the Surrealist movement. His works can be seen in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, of his homeland Chile. Any book you find on him, get it: you will be delighted to discover his work!

Matta did huge paintings that combined the energy of Abstract Expressionism with the weirdness of Surrealism and a thorough knowledge of color, composition, form and perspective, yet this is the only book I have seen dedicated to him. It's not a big coffee-table book like he deserves, but the paintings look good. I would have preferred to see more paintings and fewer drawings.

This book is good if the reader is looking for a general guide to personal healthcare. There are chapters on potential problems, but the information doesn't go into depth. This book is a general overview that just touches the surface.

I borrowed this book from the library because it was the only book that described vulvodynia, pain of the vulva. I was diagnosed with vulvodynia recently. In fact, it had 25 pages on it. This is an essential book for any woman, because all women sooner or later will experience health issues with their vagina, the more you know the better off you are!

Cheri tells a story of the end of a six years affair between a middle-age woman, Lea, and a young man, Cheri. The funny thing is that stereotypes are turned upside-down, it is Cheri who wears silk pyjamas and Lea's pearls. He is the object of gaze and Lea gives him lessons in love. But Cheri marries a young woman looking for her money and Lea is emotionally destroyed. The story continues in The Last Of Cheri, written six years later, which contrasts Lea's strength and Cheri's fragility. The two books recount the rise and fall of a spoiled, capricious and handsome man, who already as a child was called "petit chef-d'oeuvre" by the American ladies. The end is perhaps the punishment to passionate love, a feeling which seems to be condemned for the author as well.

This book develops a clear picture of the social dynamics of gender issues in Tajikistan. Personal stories are believable and compelling.