A scandalously talented stage performer, a practiced seductress of both men and women, and the flamboyant author of some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature, Colette was our first true superstar. Now, in Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh, Colette at last has a biography worthy of her dazzling reputation. Having spent her childhood in the shadow of an overpowering mother, Colette escaped at age twenty into a turbulent marriage with the sexy, unscrupulous Willy--a literary charlatan who took credit for her bestselling Claudine novels. Weary of Willy's sexual...
A scandalously talented stage performer, a practiced seductress of both men and women, and the flamboyant author of some of the greatest works of twen...
Colette, prodded by her first husband, Willy, began her writing career with Claudine at School, which catapulted the young author into instant, sensational success. Among the most autobiographical of Colette's works, these four novels are dominated by the child-woman Claudine, whose strength, humor, and zest for living make her seem almost a symbol for the life force.
Janet Flanner described these books as "amazing writing on the almost girlish search for the absolute of happiness in physical love . . . recorded by a literary brain always wide awake on the pillow."
Colette, prodded by her first husband, Willy, began her writing career with Claudine at School, which catapulted the young author into instant, sen...
Thirty-three years-old and recently divorced, Renee Nere has begun a new life on her own, supporting herself as a music-hall artist. Maxime, a rich and idle bachelor, intrudes on her independent existence and offers his love and the comforts of marriage. A provincial tour puts distance between them and enables Renee, in a moving series of leters and meditations, to resolve alone the struggle between her need to be loved and her need to have a life and work of her own.
Thirty-three years-old and recently divorced, Renee Nere has begun a new life on her own, supporting herself as a music-hall artist. Maxime, a rich an...
Colette herself considered The Pure and the Impure her best book, "the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography." This guided tour of the erotic netherworld with which Colette was so intimately acquainted begins in the darkness and languor of a fashionable opium den. It continues as a series of unforgettable encounters with men and, especially, women whose lives have been improbably and yet permanently transfigured by the strange power of desire. Lucid and lyrical, The Pure and the Impure stands out as one of modern literature's subtlest reckonings not only with the...
Colette herself considered The Pure and the Impure her best book, "the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography." This guided tour...
A New York Times Notable Book of 2007 Cleopatra's Nose is an exuberant gathering of essays and profiles, representing twenty years of Judith Thurman's writing, particularly her fascination with human vanity, femininity, and "women's work"--a term that, in her definition, encompasses haute couture, literature, and ruling empires. The subjects are varied--Cleopatra, Jackie Kennedy, Anne Frank; tofu, performance art, pornography--but as a whole these essays hint at the central preoccupations of a uniquely inquisitive...
A New York Times Notable Book of 2007 Cleopatra's Nose is an exuberant gather...
