 
|
|
Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Roger Senhouse
Two volumes of Colette's most beloved works, with a new Introduction by Judith Thurman.
Chéri, together with The Last of Chéri, is a classic story of a love affair between a very young man and a charming older woman. The amour between Fred Peloux, the beautiful gigolo known as Chéri, and the courtesan Léa de Lonval tenderly depicts the devotion that stems from desire, and is an honest account of the most human preoccupations of youth and middle age. With compassionate insight Colette paints a full-length double portrait using an impressionistic style all her own.
| Customer Reviews: |
|
| |
| You saw the film? Now read the book! |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
 |
|
The writing is a bit flowery but because you are already familiar with the story, you will enjoy the book as I did.
The book arrived quickly and in good condition. I am happy with it.
|
| Poignant Pen |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
 |
|
"I wept a little this evening," Proust wrote to Colette upon reading her love story, 'Mitsou'. I wept when I read these two short novels, 'Cheri' and 'The Last of Cheri'. So beautiful. So elegant. And so perfectly tragic and sad. (Just as a love affair should be!)
|
| Great European Novel |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
|
|
I think Cheri and The Last of Cheri should be treated as one book. The relationship between Lea and Cheri, in my view, is far more complex than love between an older female and a young man. Lea is a woman who never married or had children, and for all we know, has no family. Cheri is a young man who grew up without a father or any other positive male role model. His life is ruled by a selfish and domineering mother, a former courtesan who neglected him when he was a child. Cheri spent early childhood in the care od servants.
He has known Lea all his life and has always loved her for her warmth and "goodness." As a young man, he found in her not only a lover, but also a substitute mother and a closest friend. Not knowing what love is, and being used to abandon others or be abandoned themselves, neither Lea nor Cheri foresaw how their separation would affect them. Don't we all often understand the value of something only after we have lost it.
By marrying Edmee, Cheri did what he was told, and it seemed perfectly sensible. His wife was young, beautiful, intelligent, moneyed and seemingly easy. And they seemed to have much in common, at least a similar background. At one point, they concluded they were both "orphans." The idea also was to have children, which Cheri could not have with an older mistress. But, "compatibilites", for lack of a better word, do not guarantee a solid marriage. Things don't always work out as planned, that's why we have so many divorcves today.
To call Cheri a boy who never grew up is oversimplification. By the time he reached 30, Cheri undestood perfectly well how unfulfilled his life had been. But like many people, he lacked the strength to do something about it. So he regretted that he did not spend a few more years with Lea, thinking that every extra day would have been worth having.
The characters from almost a century ago could easily be transposed to the present era when many parents are too preoccupied with their careers and material wealth, leaving children in the care of others. The difference is that Lea would end up in jail today, at least in the early years of her relationship with Cheri.
I would recommend the novel to readers who are interested in the complexity of human nature and emotion. It illustrates how certain energies bring people together and make them suitable for each other, regardless of their age and circumstances. But humans and their relationships are mortal. Nothing is forever.
Colette's prose is fluid. Cheri grabs the reader's attention from the first page - from the very first line. There is never a dull moment. But the book is not for people who are firmly grounded in present day realities and cannot see beyond them. It certainly is not for people who compartmentalize books and movies into comedy, horror, action, drama and "forein."
|
| Cheri, The Last of Cheri, by Colette |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
|
|
French Literature: (English Translation)Great historical piece placed in Paris, right before and just after WW1. Interesting study of the French business woman and the men who "served" them..Colette's best work
|
| Love born of illusion |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
|
|
"Cheir" and "The Last of Cheri" could only have been written by a Frenchwoman, one who understood the notion of "love" created out of passion, money, beauty and artifice. Cheri, himself son of a courtesan, was the lover of Lea, a beautiful, older, worldly wise woman, who achieved independence and wealth in a pre-WWI society where men normally held all the cards. With his mother's blessing, Cheri takes up with Lea for a passionate six years, but eventually marries and leaves her. Cheri realizes he can't leave her behind though, and Lea discovers she's done the unpardonable--allowed herself to love. At the end of "Cheri" he returns, for one more night, but reality and age intrude in the morning, and in an excrutiating scene Cheri leaves again, this time for good.
Or maybe not, because the war, his marriage, the modern age, aren't enough to break the hold Lea has on his heart--but of course it's an illusion, there's no turning back. Life moves on, but Cheri remains mired in his youth, protected by money from having to move on. Cheri's life ends as he stares at a wall of pictures of Lea, a Lea who disappeared long ago.
Almost 100 years later, it's an image of love, of women, of aging, that's hard to relate to. But Collette does a beautiful job of evoking the time and place, the peculiar French sensibility of courtly, unreal, illusory love.
|
|
