Product Description

At the end of Cheri the young Cheri left his aging mistress Lea on the eve of his marriage. Having served in the army during the war Cheri returns to Paris haunted by memories of his carefree youth and the bounty of his benevolent mistress. In the post-war 1920's he finds it impossible to settle down to a new life with his efficient and entrepreneurial wife and friends. As his looks and his reputation begin to deteriorate Cheri's life is thrown into crisis as he attempts to recapture the contentment and companionship of his luxurious youth. As Cheri and Lea confront each other, and the changes a decade has wrought on their lives and their looks, Colette displays the incredible sensitivity and insight for which she is justly famous.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28894 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-06
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
Colette, the creator of Claudine, Cheri and Gigi, and one of France's outstanding writers, had a long, varied and active life. Born in Burgundy on 1873 she moved to Paris at the age of twenty with her husband the writer and critic Henry Gauthiers-Viller (Willy). Forcing Colette to write Willy published her novels in his name and the Claudine series became an instant success. In 1935 she married for the third time and lived with husband Maurice Goudeket until her death in 1954. Her writing runs to fifteen volumes, novels, portraits, essays, chroniques and a large body of autobiographical prose. She was the first woman President of the Academie Goncourt, and when she died she was given a state funeral and buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Customer Reviews

Wonderfully evocative
As the sequel to Cheri, although it is possible to read them separately and still enjoy them, you will not get the full pathos of this novella unless you read it in concert with the first. As each are only about 150 pages long, it is not too demanding and well repays the effort.

Cheri leaves his aging lover at the end of the first book, disgusted that she is old and that his love for her cannot weather her diminishing looks.

In this book the war years have intervened and it is now 1919. Cheri has survived, and is still living with his wife Edmee. Edmee has turned from a naive ingenue into a modern, independent business woman who no longer needs Cheri.

In fact as Cheri idles his days away he comes to the realisation that nobody he knows needs him, and that he no longer has a place in this new world. The loss of Lea and the war in between have left him incapable of solace and unable to find peace. We watch him drift through the new Paris, helplessly searching for the old world that no longer exists.

As a study of disaffection and a character out of joint this is beautifully drawn and reminded me of John Fowle's French Lieutenant's Woman in its sympathies and the intensity of the writing. Colette has a wonderful eye for detail, contrasting Cheri's gradual disconnection from the world with the cycles of nature that carry on without him, making the situation even more cruel and poignant.