Cheri by Colette - 1920 - translated by Walter Ballenberger - 2014 - 142 pages

Paris in July - 2019 - Week Two - Hosted by Thyme of Tea

The Official Reading Life Paris in July Video

Works Read so for Paris in July 2019

1. At the Existentialist Cafe:Freedom, Being and Apricot  Cocktails by Sarah Blackwell.  2016 - An exploration of the Parisian origins of French post World War Two Existentialism 
2. Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson. 2017- an important addition to French Holocaust Literature
3. Journey to the Edge of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine -1932
4. Death on The Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine - 1936
5. "Luc and his Father" - a set in Paris short story by Mavis Gallant - 1982
6. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer - 2010
7. Paris Vagabond by Jean-Paul Clebert - 1952, translated 2016
8. Cheri by Colette- 1920

I said this last year and am happy to say it again, if Paris is the City of Love than Colette is her High Priestess.  I also hope to say it again next year.  Colette (1873 to 1954, Sidonie Gabrielle Colette) wrote lots of short stories, novellas and a few novels, mostly set in The Belle Époque Era (1871 to 1914).  She was the first French woman writer to be given a state funeral.  Many draw their 

impression of Paris in the glory days from her most famous work, Gigi, or from the movies based upon it.  Much of her work focuses on slightly or more louche men, young and old, and the women of their world.   Colette worked on the stage in a period where preforming as an actress was often seen as part of the demimonde world.  Colette is also a revered GLBT figure for her sensitive and acute perceptive treatment of lesbian relationships as well as for her own very open sexuality.  Ok and she also loved cats!  I highly recommend The Secrets of the Flesh:  A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman, among the very best of literary biographies.

In Cheri we return to the world of Gigi, one populated with courtesans in their at least late forties living in mansions and still entertaining wealthy men who come to them for their extreme experience and for a feeling of through them being in touch with the high culture of older days.  Cheri is Fred Peloux, twenty five, the son of a once famous courtesan, Charlotte.  When we meet him he has been in a relationship with Leá for six years. Leá is forty nine, also a courtesan, friends with Cheri's mother.  They were in their younger days professional rivals for the men who sought out very expensive women, giving the, expensive gifts, mansions and such to mask the fact that they are prostitutes.  We know from works like Paris Vagabond, the novels of Celine and Zola that Paris was in this period full of cheap prostitutes so we know the clients of Leá and Charlotte seek more than sex.  Cheri is kind of a totally spoiled "boy toy" for Leá.  She has no big reaction when Cheri decides to marry a woman his age.  We also meet Desmond, who might be a same sex occasional lover of Cheri.

Part of the fun of this novel is the luxury of the world we find depicted.  

The conversations are marvelous and there is a lot of depth in the relationships.  We also wonder what are the men in their lives, wealthy all, seeking besides sex.  

Ambrosia Bousweau

Mel u