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My Mother's House and Sido
English, French (translation)
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
37 people are currently reading
1167 people want to read
About the author
Colette
889 books1,738 followersColette was the pen name of the French novelist and actress Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. She is best known, at least in the English-speaking world, for her novella Gigi, which provided the plot for a famous Lerner & Loewe musical film and stage musical. She started her writing career penning the influential Claudine novels of books. The novel Chéri is often cited as her masterpiece.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
September 10, 2011
Two novellas written seven years apart. Both composed of short chapters/vignettes where Colette--in her 60's or 70's--writes about her mother Sido, her father (her mother's second husband, the ex-soldier with one of his legs amputated), her mother's first husband and her three siblings, all of them dead already except one brother.
Every family has its own story and I am sure that given the same talent for writing as that of Colette each of these stories can be as interesting as these novellas. But life is not fair. Not everyone can write well, or have the patience and energy for it, and unless a family history catches the eye of someone who would be interested to write about it for money or fame, then even its most interesting times, or its happiest days, can attach themselves to no surviving memory and would be like as if they didn't happen at all.
But having a Colette in the family is like having a deathless raconteur who shall keep your family alive for as long as there are human beings who read or listen. These novelettish biographies were published around the 1950's so even without me googling it, I am sure Colette and his then still living brother had long both passed away too. Yet here they, and the rest of the family, are as alive as the person next to you. How common is it, for example, for us to have had mothers who were full-time housewives, had grown old doing mostly nothing but housework, and still thought of their family and household concerns up to their dying days? Yet only a Colette can write about a mother like that (her own) with a memorably bittersweet nostalgia like this (her mother already 71 years old at the time, a widow, with various illnesses):
"At five o'clock in the morning I would be awakened by the clank of a full bucket being set down in the kitchen sink immediately opposite my room.
"'What are you doing with that bucket, mother? Couldn't you wait until Josephine (the househelp) arrives?'
"And out I hurried. But the fire was already blazing, fed with dry wood. The milk was boiling on the blue-tiled charcoal stove. Nearby, a bar of chocolate was melting in a little water for my breakfast, and, seated squarely in her cane armchair, my mother was grinding the fragrant coffee which she roasted herself. The morning hours were always kind to her. She wore their rosy colours in her cheeks. Flushed with a brief return to health, she would gaze at the rising sun, while the church bell rang for early Mass, and rejoice at having tasted, while we still slept, so many forbidden fruits.
"The forbidden fruits were the over-heavy bucket drawn up from the well, the firewood split with a billhook on an oaken block, the spade, the mattock, and above all the double steps propped against the gable-windows of the attic, the flowery spikes of the too-tall lilacs, the dizzy cat that had to be rescued from the ridge of the roof. All the accomplices of her old existence as a plump and sturdy little woman, all the minor rustic divinities who once obeyed her and made her so proud of doing without servants, now assumed the appearance and position of adversaries. But they reckoned without that love of combat which my mother was to keep till the end of her life. At seventy-one dawn still found her undaunted, if not always undamaged. Burnt by fire, cut with the pruning knife, soaked by melting snow or spilt water, she had always managed to enjoy her best moments of independence before the earliest risers had opened their shutters. She was able to tell us of the cats' awakening, of what was going on in the nests, of news gleaned, together with the morning's milk and the warm loaf, from the milkmaid and the baker's girl, the record in fact of the birth of a new day.
"It was not until one morning when I found the kitchen unwarmed and the blue enamel saucepan hanging on the wall, that I felt my mother's end to be near. Her illness knew many respites, during which the fire flared up again on the hearth, and the smell of fresh bread and melting chocolate stole under the door together with the cat's impatient paw. These respites were periods of unexpected alarms. My mother and the big walnut cupboard were discovered together in a heap at the foot of the stairs, she having determined to transport it in secret from the upper landing to the ground floor. Whereupon my elder brother insisted that my mother should keep still and that an old servant should sleep in the little house. But how could an old servant prevail against a vital energy so youthful and mischievous that it contrived to tempt and lead astray a body already half fettered by death? My brother, returning before sunrise from attending a distant patient, one day caught my mother red-handed in the most wanton of crimes. Dressed in her nightgown, but wearing heavy gardening sabots, her little grey septuagenarian's plait of hair turning up like a scorpion's tail on the nape of her neck, one foot firmly planted on the crosspiece of the beech trestle, her back bent in the attitude of the expert jobber, my mother, rejuvenated by an indescribable expression of guilty enjoyment, in defiance of all her promises and of the freezing morning dew, was sawing logs in her own yard."
Think: apart from literature, wher one writes from the heart, which magical thing here on earth can make a brief, solitary dawn in a forgotten place on a forgotten day, eternal like this?
Every family has its own story and I am sure that given the same talent for writing as that of Colette each of these stories can be as interesting as these novellas. But life is not fair. Not everyone can write well, or have the patience and energy for it, and unless a family history catches the eye of someone who would be interested to write about it for money or fame, then even its most interesting times, or its happiest days, can attach themselves to no surviving memory and would be like as if they didn't happen at all.
But having a Colette in the family is like having a deathless raconteur who shall keep your family alive for as long as there are human beings who read or listen. These novelettish biographies were published around the 1950's so even without me googling it, I am sure Colette and his then still living brother had long both passed away too. Yet here they, and the rest of the family, are as alive as the person next to you. How common is it, for example, for us to have had mothers who were full-time housewives, had grown old doing mostly nothing but housework, and still thought of their family and household concerns up to their dying days? Yet only a Colette can write about a mother like that (her own) with a memorably bittersweet nostalgia like this (her mother already 71 years old at the time, a widow, with various illnesses):
"At five o'clock in the morning I would be awakened by the clank of a full bucket being set down in the kitchen sink immediately opposite my room.
"'What are you doing with that bucket, mother? Couldn't you wait until Josephine (the househelp) arrives?'
"And out I hurried. But the fire was already blazing, fed with dry wood. The milk was boiling on the blue-tiled charcoal stove. Nearby, a bar of chocolate was melting in a little water for my breakfast, and, seated squarely in her cane armchair, my mother was grinding the fragrant coffee which she roasted herself. The morning hours were always kind to her. She wore their rosy colours in her cheeks. Flushed with a brief return to health, she would gaze at the rising sun, while the church bell rang for early Mass, and rejoice at having tasted, while we still slept, so many forbidden fruits.
"The forbidden fruits were the over-heavy bucket drawn up from the well, the firewood split with a billhook on an oaken block, the spade, the mattock, and above all the double steps propped against the gable-windows of the attic, the flowery spikes of the too-tall lilacs, the dizzy cat that had to be rescued from the ridge of the roof. All the accomplices of her old existence as a plump and sturdy little woman, all the minor rustic divinities who once obeyed her and made her so proud of doing without servants, now assumed the appearance and position of adversaries. But they reckoned without that love of combat which my mother was to keep till the end of her life. At seventy-one dawn still found her undaunted, if not always undamaged. Burnt by fire, cut with the pruning knife, soaked by melting snow or spilt water, she had always managed to enjoy her best moments of independence before the earliest risers had opened their shutters. She was able to tell us of the cats' awakening, of what was going on in the nests, of news gleaned, together with the morning's milk and the warm loaf, from the milkmaid and the baker's girl, the record in fact of the birth of a new day.
"It was not until one morning when I found the kitchen unwarmed and the blue enamel saucepan hanging on the wall, that I felt my mother's end to be near. Her illness knew many respites, during which the fire flared up again on the hearth, and the smell of fresh bread and melting chocolate stole under the door together with the cat's impatient paw. These respites were periods of unexpected alarms. My mother and the big walnut cupboard were discovered together in a heap at the foot of the stairs, she having determined to transport it in secret from the upper landing to the ground floor. Whereupon my elder brother insisted that my mother should keep still and that an old servant should sleep in the little house. But how could an old servant prevail against a vital energy so youthful and mischievous that it contrived to tempt and lead astray a body already half fettered by death? My brother, returning before sunrise from attending a distant patient, one day caught my mother red-handed in the most wanton of crimes. Dressed in her nightgown, but wearing heavy gardening sabots, her little grey septuagenarian's plait of hair turning up like a scorpion's tail on the nape of her neck, one foot firmly planted on the crosspiece of the beech trestle, her back bent in the attitude of the expert jobber, my mother, rejuvenated by an indescribable expression of guilty enjoyment, in defiance of all her promises and of the freezing morning dew, was sawing logs in her own yard."
Think: apart from literature, wher one writes from the heart, which magical thing here on earth can make a brief, solitary dawn in a forgotten place on a forgotten day, eternal like this?
December 21, 2012
An excellent edition, and very nice to have the two memoirs in the same volume. The magic of Colette's evocation of motherhood--and of her mother--is that she builds it by also evoking what it is like to be someone's child, someone's sibling. As much as Sido is the undisputed chief of this family pantheon, no one and no EXPERIENCE (even a pet's) is granted anything less than reverence.
It was in this book that I started "understanding" one of the mechanisms by which Colette is able to render a thing sacred without rendering it untouchable. It's not by avoiding examination and difficult questions, but by refusing answers where there are no good ones.
Also rather miraculous: I finished the book longing to mean to anyone what Sido meant to her daughter--to her whole family--but also convinced that reaching that point isn't about turning into "the kind of person" Sido was. I'm left with the distinct impression that when Colette paints her mother's goodness, she is painting just one possibility. By showing all the flaws and idiosyncrasies in Sido's character, and yet demonstrating what a peerless blessing she was to everyone she met, Colette opens the possibility that there might be as many ways to be good as there are ways to be human.
It was in this book that I started "understanding" one of the mechanisms by which Colette is able to render a thing sacred without rendering it untouchable. It's not by avoiding examination and difficult questions, but by refusing answers where there are no good ones.
Also rather miraculous: I finished the book longing to mean to anyone what Sido meant to her daughter--to her whole family--but also convinced that reaching that point isn't about turning into "the kind of person" Sido was. I'm left with the distinct impression that when Colette paints her mother's goodness, she is painting just one possibility. By showing all the flaws and idiosyncrasies in Sido's character, and yet demonstrating what a peerless blessing she was to everyone she met, Colette opens the possibility that there might be as many ways to be good as there are ways to be human.
November 4, 2008
This would have to be one of my very favourite Colette books.
Sido was Colette's very earthed, very wise,very "french" Maman.Its some years since I read it which is why I have put it in my re-reads. But to savour their rustic village life again is like renewing an old acquaintance.
Sido was Colette's very earthed, very wise,very "french" Maman.Its some years since I read it which is why I have put it in my re-reads. But to savour their rustic village life again is like renewing an old acquaintance.
December 29, 2020
“Any writer whose existence is long drawn out turns in the end towards his past, either to revile it or rejoice in it.” This is Colette’s comment in the preface to this beautiful book, which is her own thoughtful gaze into the past. Reading it felt somewhat like flipping through a verbal photo-album: a series of images, each describing a separate moment of her past. Ordinary moments of joy, surprise, humor, confusion, but which together make up the fabric of her childhood.
The structure of the two novellas contained in this book (My Mother’s House and Sido) reminded me of Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs : a series of sketches and vignettes loosely woven together into a larger whole. The timeline is anything but a line – in one scene we see Colette as a child of nine, and in the next she’s a skeptical 15-year-old. At other times we see her as an old woman, pulling up memories of her brother as an elfin 6-year-old, while the man he has become strolls through her kitchen with wrinkled hands and graying hair.
The unifying figure among these stories is Sido, Colette’s mother. We see her from many angles: fiery and opinionated, yet tender and comforting. She’s a woman who sees the world in a fresh way, who can respond to a child reading ghost stories by saying,
Told with humor and beauty, this memoir is one that sticks in the mind even after the book has been put down.
The structure of the two novellas contained in this book (My Mother’s House and Sido) reminded me of Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs : a series of sketches and vignettes loosely woven together into a larger whole. The timeline is anything but a line – in one scene we see Colette as a child of nine, and in the next she’s a skeptical 15-year-old. At other times we see her as an old woman, pulling up memories of her brother as an elfin 6-year-old, while the man he has become strolls through her kitchen with wrinkled hands and graying hair.
The unifying figure among these stories is Sido, Colette’s mother. We see her from many angles: fiery and opinionated, yet tender and comforting. She’s a woman who sees the world in a fresh way, who can respond to a child reading ghost stories by saying,
“Have you been reading that ghost story, Minet-Chéri? It’s a lovely story, isn’t it? I can’t imagine anything lovelier than the description of the ghost wandering by moonlight in the churchyard. The part, you know, where the author says that the moonlight shone right through the ghost and that it cast no shadow on the grass. A ghost must be a wonderful thing to see. I only wish I could see one; I should call you at once if I did. Unfortunately, they don’t exist. But if I could become a ghost after my death, I certainly should, to please you and myself too. And have you read that idiotic story about a dead woman’s revenge? I ask you, did you ever hear such rubbish! What would be the use of dying if one didn’t gain more sense by it? No, my child, the dead are a peaceful company. I don’t fall out with my living neighbours, and I’ll undertake to keep on good terms with the dead ones!”
Told with humor and beauty, this memoir is one that sticks in the mind even after the book has been put down.
March 15, 2021
An entertaining, enjoyable, concisely written, fairly upbeat book of two novellas that reads like a memoir. The author writes about her mother, father and siblings. The author relates various incidents in her years living with her family in the country. The first novella consists of short 5 - 6 page chapters. The later part of the novella has a number of humorous incidents about her mother. The dialogue written of what her mother states is excellent, providing a very clear description of her mother’s personality. The second novella is in three parts. The first about her mother, the second about her father, and the third mainly about her two brothers.
Overall a very satisfying reading experience. This is my first experience with reading Colette and will not be my last!
The author, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in the country village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in 1873 and died in 1954. She was given a state funeral and mourned as a national treasure.
The first novella, ‘My Mothers House’ was first published in 1922. ‘Sido’ was first published in 1930.
Overall a very satisfying reading experience. This is my first experience with reading Colette and will not be my last!
The author, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in the country village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in 1873 and died in 1954. She was given a state funeral and mourned as a national treasure.
The first novella, ‘My Mothers House’ was first published in 1922. ‘Sido’ was first published in 1930.
October 28, 2021
I'm always eager to read a book by a well-known author that I'm unfamiliar with, but this was a slog. The writing was lovely at times, but My Mother's House was structured as a series of vignettes that lacked a compelling through-line. As a result, there was no narrative momentum. I was never excited to pick the book up again and only did so because it was a book club pick. I love the idea of any daughter paying homage to her mother, but the characterization left me cold despite Colette's best attempt at achieving the opposite.
May 19, 2007
so this is her masterpiece apparently, and it was one of the last things i got around to reading by her. it makes sense it is--the best thing about colette is her vivid description of sensory experience and little daily luxuries, and such descriptions abound here and are very strong, even for her. also makes me understand why proust admired her--the best things he does with the sensual aspects of memory she does here. a truly pleasurable read.
July 19, 2012
This is one of my all time favorite books. I rarely re-read a book, but I have read this book many times. This is writing that Colette did for herself, unlike Cheri and other books that she wrote at her husband's request. This is a personal memior as seen through her eyes as a child. Magical stuff!
June 6, 2008
Some books, like The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and Pippi in the South Seas, appeal to my childlike love of mischief and weirdos. My Mother's House & Sido took me to a different place from my childhood, completely dreamy, sensual and romantic. I loved Colette's love for the provinces, with their basket-fulls of suckling kittens, hyacinths and foxgloves, and melted chocolate for breakfast. I loved her strange siblings who read books in trees and made up epitaphs for fun. And then there is her mother, the mesmerizing and seductive "Sidonie," who seems a little like the Tarot-Empress with her uncanny intuition about all things natural and living.
Of course, this is chock-full of great, melancholy quotes about the relationship between mothers & daughters:
Of course, this is chock-full of great, melancholy quotes about the relationship between mothers & daughters:
"At the mere sight of her mother's hand the Little One starts to her feet, pale, gentle now, trembling slightly as a child must who for the first time ceases to be the happy little vampire that unconsciously drains the maternal heart; . . . the warm sitting-room with its flora of cut branches and its fauna of peaceful creatures; the echoing house, dry, warm and crackling as a newly-baked loaf; the garden, the village. . . Beyond these all is danger, all is loneliness."
January 5, 2021
I don't know how to rate this book. I might try to re-read this in the future.. there's beautiful .. I guess languorous? passages.. that perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for. It felt like a series of quaint anecdotes to me, but I didn't feel an overall sense of purpose to it? Which is maybe the point?
January 2, 2009
Even if you only read a vignette or two from this book, it's worthwhile. Colette's recollections of her childhood, and her parents in particular, is amazingly rich, both in style and emotional substance.
December 11, 2008
I read this or Earthly Paradise every fall. Somehow it seems like the right time to fall into Colette's meditations on childhood and family and tramping through gardens and over fences into fields.
December 26, 2025
3.5 I wanted to love it. I expected I would. What's not to love about a memoir by Colette, reflecting on her France, her childhood, cats, gardens, books, her father, and her dear (eccentric) mother Sido? But as much as the writing was exquisite, the imagery gorgeous, and the childhood itself so unusual to me, I just couldn't connect. What I mean is, I couldn't connect to myself as a reader. I felt like I was just going through the motions of reading. And each chapter seemed like I started over again because the vignettes were separate memories of her childhood. I thought I would feel more. Especially because I was so close to my own mother. And to be honest, the parts that moved me the most were stories of her father. Perhaps, because Collett's mother was so independent, fierce, and in my opinion, kind of aloof, I just couldn't relate to her. Parts did interest me. Or move me. But for now in my life anyway, I couldn't find a way to enter her world and enjoy the scenes.
November 5, 2024
It’s hard to believe that the young innocent farm girl in a hamlet far from Paris grew up to be the Colette.
December 29, 2016
It's hard to know whether to classify this as fiction or non-fiction. My Mother's House (originally Claudine's House, 1922) is a collection of very short anecdotes about the lives of the author and her family, with particular focus on her mother, as she grew up in rural France in the late 19th century. Each of the tales seems to have some basis in truth, and are thus in the nature of memoir or autobiography, but I suspect that most, if not all, have been a little embellished or romanticized for dramatic or artistic interest. Nobody, I think, could swear that all of the stories are 100% true,
Similarly, Sido (1929), which is an abbreviated form of the author's mother's name, consists of three short stories, one each predominantly dealing with her mother, her father and her two older brothers. Colette also had a half-sister, who was somewhat estranged from the family after her marriage, at the husband's insistence.
it is easy to see why Colette is a French national treasure. Her stories are completely charming and captivating, written to bring joy and delight to the reader. The are full of love and affection, a degree of mischief that is never nasty and a joie de vivre that celebrates a time that was more simple and innocent than today.
I look forward to reading more of Colette in the not too distant future.
Similarly, Sido (1929), which is an abbreviated form of the author's mother's name, consists of three short stories, one each predominantly dealing with her mother, her father and her two older brothers. Colette also had a half-sister, who was somewhat estranged from the family after her marriage, at the husband's insistence.
it is easy to see why Colette is a French national treasure. Her stories are completely charming and captivating, written to bring joy and delight to the reader. The are full of love and affection, a degree of mischief that is never nasty and a joie de vivre that celebrates a time that was more simple and innocent than today.
I look forward to reading more of Colette in the not too distant future.
June 9, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir, especially Colette's lush and sensual descriptions of the rural village in 19th century France where she grew up under the care of her unconventional and fascinating mother (Sido) and her father, the Captain, who was passionately in love with Sido (his nickname for his wife Sidonie). When I picked this book up, I was already reading another novel, but I figured I could read both at one time since "My Mother's House" reads like a collection of vignettes that would be easy to put down often. How wrong I was! I couldn't put this one down because I didn't want to leave Colette's beautiful childhood world where hearty peasants drink wine out of tin pails used for milking cows, and they fiddle in the moonlight and dance the quadrille under canopies of honeysuckle. I can still smell the sage, freshly cut grass, harvested tomatoes and aubergines, and the bricks of homemade chocolate left out to dry in the summer night stalked by feral cats who stamp paw prints like mysterious flowers on them with the turn of each page. Last week, I read Colette's "The Ripening Seed," but I didn't like it at all. Now I'm glad I gave her writing another chance. Because of "My Mother's House & Sido," I will enjoy reading other works by her.
April 11, 2015
I can't believe how wonderful this is. I can't believe I hadn't managed to read it years ago. I mean, I like all her books that I've gotten my hands on so far. But this one is so far and above my favorite I can't even explain! It reminds me of My Family and Other Animals, that's how wonderful it is. It has the elusive Coletteness, the unpindownable author's voice, of course. And it has her characteristic cryptic statements about memory and desire, love and aggression. And the lyrical but taut descriptions of animals and plants that are only approached in my experience by Durrell. But it has something else I've never found in any other Colette. Perhaps an approachability, a comfortable shape, a softness. I can hardly wait to read it again.
June 21, 2010
This book is a reminder of the beauty of a life well-lived and nurtured by nature. This is a deceptively simple collection of Colette's musings about her mother and the rest of her family in their country estate.
Want to read
December 27, 2012Reading this one in the bathroom...when I'm not reading something for school...have been reading for the last few months, I think its going to take me a few more to finish. Each story in the book is like a little gem, so its nice to take it slow.
September 21, 2012
Had never read Colette before. Some lovely, simple, timeless mother-daughter stories hidden in lots and lots of imagery and adjectives. Grew tired of trying to find them, and didn't finish the whole book. :)
February 2, 2022
(Reflection) A mediocre read. I read Colette’s Cherie years ago and enjoyed it. This one, not so much. ‘Tis a collection of two memoirs focusing on her mother, Sido. The narrative is non-linear, confusing and limiting.
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📚 My Mother’s House and Sido by Colette
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Colette narrates the tale of her volatile and emotionally unstable childhood. She worships her mother, a woman who is distant, cold and unloving. Her siblings are often in conflict but mainly they try to go through the years together. The family is quite poor but her mother attempts to present a decent facade. Her father is often an absent shadow, a man who was talentless and financially parasitic. He is clingy and needy. He does not seem to care much for the children.
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The book does make me wonder. When authors narrate their memoir, they are presenting to us their version of the story. I wonder how true Colette’s version is. I believe she exaggerates her mother’s wonderful qualities. I believe she romanticises her challenging early years. Hence, the emotion that rings throughout the pages is frantic and all over the place. There are hints of abandonment, codependency and isolation. The family is deeply unhappy but has no other options but to soldier on.
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I am beginning to wonder if this is a French thing. Perhaps I don’t really get the French style of writing. It is poetic but seems to be going nowhere. But anyways, if you are into French literature, do check this out.
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📚 My Mother’s House and Sido by Colette
.
Colette narrates the tale of her volatile and emotionally unstable childhood. She worships her mother, a woman who is distant, cold and unloving. Her siblings are often in conflict but mainly they try to go through the years together. The family is quite poor but her mother attempts to present a decent facade. Her father is often an absent shadow, a man who was talentless and financially parasitic. He is clingy and needy. He does not seem to care much for the children.
.
The book does make me wonder. When authors narrate their memoir, they are presenting to us their version of the story. I wonder how true Colette’s version is. I believe she exaggerates her mother’s wonderful qualities. I believe she romanticises her challenging early years. Hence, the emotion that rings throughout the pages is frantic and all over the place. There are hints of abandonment, codependency and isolation. The family is deeply unhappy but has no other options but to soldier on.
.
I am beginning to wonder if this is a French thing. Perhaps I don’t really get the French style of writing. It is poetic but seems to be going nowhere. But anyways, if you are into French literature, do check this out.
.
June 13, 2020
Een bijzondere collectie anekdotes, schijnbaar volledig auto-biografisch, uit het leven en vooral de jeugd van Colette. Prachtig geschreven, met een pen vol warme, dankbare melancholie. Haar observaties, karakterschetsen, fijne humor, natuurbeleven, speels en vol fantasie, voeren je mee naar het rurale zuiden. Dat niet alles helemaal klopt met de werkelijke belevingen van Colette is toch wel jammer. Ik had het haar zo graag gegund...
Aanrader!
Aanrader!
January 31, 2023
sometimes all you need is bucolica
June 25, 2024
j’en ressort très impressionnée par la plume de mme colette !!! particulièrement évocatrice et touchante ! même si le livre lui-même n’est pas vraiment venu me chercher, c’était plaisant à lire et ça m’a donné envie de davantage plonger dans l’oeuvre colette ! plutôt un 3,5 que 3 mais c’est pas aujourd’hui que je vais changer le système de notation de l’application goodreads …. aussi c’était cool de faire un mini club de lecture le temps de quelques jours !!!!
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November 23, 20231) I think this book is somehow connected to Colette’s “Claudine” books but the character’s name throughout this one is Colette, and even though it’s sometimes translated as “Claudine’s House” I am not sure or aware of the reason behind this.
This novel is most definitely a kind of roman a clef or nonfiction novel and was written several years after the Claudine novels that I will read later, and most definitely has the voice of an older and more experienced writer. The novel is about the youngest of many children to a rural French family. The setting of this novel is right at the time that the older children are beginning to leave home and the pressures, tensions, and sadness that creates in the youngest child not only as she begins to lose her mentors and playmates, but also as this shifts the dynamic with her parents.
This novel is sad and wistful, but it’s also quite funny and energetic and full of the weird kinds of stories that stick with a person for a long time even after the specific everyday memories of childhood pass by. If it were the case that Colette started with the very specific memory of feelings and then created the narrative supports those, I would not be surprised.
This reminds me a lot of Jessica Mitford’s “Hons and Rebels” and even my own childhood, because I was also the youngest.
2) This very short novel is the immediate follow up to My Mother’s House. It’s important to look at titles here. The previous was called my mother’s house, and while that’s a transliteration of the title, it does speak to an important kind of distinction. This was not “her” house in that sense and it was not her father’s house, but her mother’s. This novel is called Sido, a shortened version of Sidonie, her mother’s name, but also her name. So these connections show us a lot about the kinds of distance and connection between Colette the writer, Claudine/Colette the character, and the narrative being told.
In this novel, we follow Colette back to her mother’s house now as an adult revisiting that childhood, not an adult narrator but the adult character. Colette finds her mother much smaller, much more human, and finds her father even less imposing than the almost non-entity imposition he was during her childhood. So when he dies, even in those moment his presence is barely felt.
This novel is much much more concerned with the nature of specific memories, probably because our character is much closer in time. And as a sequel, it doesn’t so much as add to the narrative, so much as add a narrative lens through which to view the original.
An odd connection for me is that this novel reminds me of Joseph Roth’s brilliant elegy to the Austro-Hungarian empire The Radetsky March, and then completely buried it in a somber follow-up, The Emperor’s Tomb.
This novel is most definitely a kind of roman a clef or nonfiction novel and was written several years after the Claudine novels that I will read later, and most definitely has the voice of an older and more experienced writer. The novel is about the youngest of many children to a rural French family. The setting of this novel is right at the time that the older children are beginning to leave home and the pressures, tensions, and sadness that creates in the youngest child not only as she begins to lose her mentors and playmates, but also as this shifts the dynamic with her parents.
This novel is sad and wistful, but it’s also quite funny and energetic and full of the weird kinds of stories that stick with a person for a long time even after the specific everyday memories of childhood pass by. If it were the case that Colette started with the very specific memory of feelings and then created the narrative supports those, I would not be surprised.
This reminds me a lot of Jessica Mitford’s “Hons and Rebels” and even my own childhood, because I was also the youngest.
2) This very short novel is the immediate follow up to My Mother’s House. It’s important to look at titles here. The previous was called my mother’s house, and while that’s a transliteration of the title, it does speak to an important kind of distinction. This was not “her” house in that sense and it was not her father’s house, but her mother’s. This novel is called Sido, a shortened version of Sidonie, her mother’s name, but also her name. So these connections show us a lot about the kinds of distance and connection between Colette the writer, Claudine/Colette the character, and the narrative being told.
In this novel, we follow Colette back to her mother’s house now as an adult revisiting that childhood, not an adult narrator but the adult character. Colette finds her mother much smaller, much more human, and finds her father even less imposing than the almost non-entity imposition he was during her childhood. So when he dies, even in those moment his presence is barely felt.
This novel is much much more concerned with the nature of specific memories, probably because our character is much closer in time. And as a sequel, it doesn’t so much as add to the narrative, so much as add a narrative lens through which to view the original.
An odd connection for me is that this novel reminds me of Joseph Roth’s brilliant elegy to the Austro-Hungarian empire The Radetsky March, and then completely buried it in a somber follow-up, The Emperor’s Tomb.
March 20, 2016
Al empezarlo me llevé la sorpresa de que este libro no es una novela, cada capítulo es como un pequeño cuento, pero en realidad son recuerdos, sobre todo de infancia, de la autora. Al principio me costó ver una conexión entre cada capítulo (con los libros de cuentos siempre me pasa), cuando llevaba cuatro o cinco empecé a situarme en lo que estaba leyendo: Son anécdotas, a veces siguen más o menos un orden cronológico, pero otras veces no tienen nada que ver una con la siguiente. En conjunto, mientras leía me recordaba a cuando alguien te empieza a contar historias familiares.
Los capítulos están centrados sobre todo en la madre de esta familia francesa de principios del siglo XX, pero también conocemos a sus hermanos, a su padre, y a sus mascotas.
Está escrito con mucho cariño, con ese halo de nostalgia que rodea siempre a los recuerdos infantiles. El estilo es realmente delicioso, y resulta muy agradable de leer. Aunque he de confesar que me salté dos o tres capítulos sobre los gatos...
Los capítulos están centrados sobre todo en la madre de esta familia francesa de principios del siglo XX, pero también conocemos a sus hermanos, a su padre, y a sus mascotas.
Está escrito con mucho cariño, con ese halo de nostalgia que rodea siempre a los recuerdos infantiles. El estilo es realmente delicioso, y resulta muy agradable de leer. Aunque he de confesar que me salté dos o tres capítulos sobre los gatos...
May 19, 2008
This book is actually two books. My Mother's House is about the author's experience while growing up. The Vagabond is about the author's divorce, life as an actor, and subsequent relationship. What I most enjoyed were the descriptions of the food, lots of drinking chocolate (yummy hot chocolate in the States) and clothing. In the Vagabond the main character was suppose to be acting in skits, but apparently being an actor was like being a prostitute. Read this book if you are interested in French culture.
December 10, 2018
We read it for my book group. At first I thought the style was a bit precious, but I gradually warmed to it. It's a series of sketches about Colette's childhood and her family--a disabled father, a bookish but somewhat narcissistic mother, a depressive sister, and a very odd brother. Nevertheless, it seems like a pretty functional family, one you would not expect to produce a "libertine" like Colette. One appealing aspect of the book was the way the sketches, although mainly descriptive, had a kind of narrative arc, sometimes with a surprise ending or startling final aperçu.
April 23, 2009
Somehow, perhaps because of her extravagant history, I didn't expect Colette to be such a very, very good writer. These little vignettes about her childhood in the country are delightful because her love for her mother, her animals, the nature surrounding her, is so strong and real and so scrupulously and passionately observed. This is the kind of writing that connects you to life rather than providing an escape from it.
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