The Other One

by Colette, Elizabeth Tait (Translator), Roger Senhouse (Translator)

Translated into English from the French. Jane is Farou's secretary and mistress. Jane is also the admirer, confidante and constant companion of Farou's wife, Fanny. Colette exposes the subtle torments of living with infidelity, the capacity for suffering and the ruthlessness of women in love. Her sensitivity and honesty give this novel an emotional intensity which makes the startling twist at the end very poignant.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, France, French Literature, Classic Literature, Literature

157 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Colette 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.

Reviews

[Carol, She's so Novel ꧁꧂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★

"She is made for moderate emotions, ash-blonde sorrow."

I read a lot of Colette when I was young - she seemed to be very popular with Auckland librarians of the time! But until I found this book in a local charity shop, I have been unsuccessful locating her works.

I liked this book without loving it. As another reviewer says, it feels very French. The translation by Elizabeth Tait & Roger Senhouse feels authentic and natural.

While I found Fanny & Jane's alliance interesting, I never really cared about them. I certainly didn't like Farou or his son.

Beautiful writing, but it didn't touch me. This won't stop me searching for Colette's better known books.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Carlo Hublet · Rating 2 out of 5]

De temps en temps tenté de lire un roman de Colette, parce que j'apprécie énormément cette femme moderne et féministe. Mais souvent déçu. Ici, une espèce de petit "boulevard", ça se veut guilleret, et ça l'est, d'ailleurs. Mais trop léger, trop superficiel, suranné, malgré la modernité d'avant-garde de cette écrivaine, mais davantage dans sa vie que dans l'écriture, apparemment. Quand même envie de fouiller dans l'oeuvre, dans l'espoir d'être enfin conquis.

[Alex Sarll]

Farou is a successful, mildly scandalous playwright; the characters only ever realise it in flashes, but Colette, having long since outgrown the type, makes it clear to the reader that he's rubbish. Fanny is his fond though not entirely blind wife; at no stage did I stop finding her name funny, especially when reference was made to a "Fanny-fitting", and when she has a funny turn and someone sends for Doctor Moreau, my mind really boggled. And Jane is his secretary-cum*-mistress. The scenario is unimpeachably French, especially when Jane attempts to deny everything with "He kissed me as he would have kissed the housemaid". Sure, it all feels a bit slight compared to peak Colette, never mind Simone de Beauvoir's treatment of similar territory in She Came To Stay, but put it next to the heavily overlapping, utterly airless A God And His Gifts by Ivy Compton-Burnett and the growing kinship between the two women is so much more plausibly developed and insightfully observed. The back of my 1980 edition promises a "startling twist at the end"; reading it in 2025, the direction of travel seemed so clear from early on that I was only surprised it concluded with companionship, and not at least kissing.

*As it were.

[Nicholas Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully nuanced story about the relationship between two women, Fanny wife of the irascible playwright Farou a lothario who has slept with every available woman he comes across and Jane his secretary/mistress. How the 2 women come to terms with each other and the ne'er-do-well playwright who is quite content with the situation is the meat of this short novella. For some reason Alexandre Dumas or Dumas fils came to mind while I was reading this as the basis for Farou.

[Carolann De Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

French authoress, Colette was a women more scandalous in her day than fellow one-named dames a la Cher and Madonna. She was married more then once, a divorcee, a lover of men and women, acted on the stage – at times with her top off, and she did her damnedest to speak the truth. But while Cher and Madonna sing the truth, Colette wrote it – in minute, delectable detail. She talks about everything. Everything. And while lesbianism, sex, and adultry may not shock many today – in the 1900s these things were not discussed, most especially in print.

I love immersing myself in a Colette novel – I admit I have read most of them. A few short stories, and no longer published books have escaped my voracious literary appetite - until now that is, now that I have a library card and the world is my book oyster.

’Just as well. If I didn’t admit it, what would happen? Exactly the same thing.’

The latest find, ‘The Other One’, is a short tale by Colette and I have to say one of my new favorites. The story is simply put – a story about adultery in marriage. A man who cheats on his wife, flagrantly and with little apology. READ MORE

[Vel Veeter]

Theater is rife for cheating as I am wont to understand and believe from the various novels I have read on the subject. In this novel we have the Farou couple, a housewife and a playwright. This couple is dealing with the very common experience of the husband putting himself out there in his field and industry and the poor wife having to basically completely acquiesce to these choices as they were not only the obvious choice but also the only choice. It’s a goddamn choice to be a playwright. And it needs to be said that men who create love to flaunt their beholdenness and fatalism in the face of their “art” as if those are the only possible ways to move forward. Colette loves to create men who hate marriage, feel unable to resist it, and then can’t even have the temerity to be gay or something understandable rather than simply not get married. In this novel, the great artist himself not only can’t help being busy, and being talented, but falsely feels he has some of that BDE people keep talking about these days. He’s probably most definitely a hack though.

[Reds_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Other One, Colette tells the story of Fanny Farou, her unfaithful husband, Jane who is her friend and both secretary and mistress of her husband and finally Jean, her stepson who is in love with Jane.

As with The Ripening Seed the casual acceptance of male infidelity was irritating, it made me want to shake both of the women and tell them that they could do without Farou who came across as self indulgent and spoilt. The difference in the two books was that here the characters were were easier to like. Fanny has a warm and voluptuous charm and it's obvious that Farou has charisma. Jane cuts a more pathetic figure. I pitied her more than liked her, but I found Jean a more sympathetic adolescent than Philippe.

The story also takes in some of the theatrical world of the time, and the author brings this to life through descriptions and minor characters. All add up to make this a more satisfying and enjoyable read.

[Elizabeth Sprague · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly some aspects of colette’s style are a bit too minimalistic at times, but overall i really enjoyed this. the ending is often described as a twist but i was not surprised at all considering the closeness of fanny and jane throughout. extremely ahead of its time asking her audience to consider: what conditions do we bring to love, friendship, female friendships especially, versus other sorts of relationships (husband/wife, mother/son, etc.)?, what builds and threatens solidarity?, and what constrains our understandings of ourselves and other women? such important and timeless questions!!! i also liked how reading it did feel much like reading a play (fitting to farou’s profession). like fanny and jane consider, like actors famously must ask themselves, what *are* the stakes?

[Molly Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

my fav Colette. And I have sweet memories of reading this in Galway while drinking cider with my mom outside pubs

[Ivana Melgoza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amo los triángulos amorosos en los que el hombre no es por mucho el protagonista sino que la relación más importante es la complejidad y solidaridad particular de las mujeres que comparten un mismo amor, que se necesitan en su cercanía y en su traición.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is something for fans of Anaïs Nin, but rather less heavy on the interesting figures (unless Farou happens to be Cocteau?), and decidedly uninterested in psychoanalysis. This also, unfortunately, has the ring of a lesser work of Colette's, perhaps? I found it rather unsatisfying in its brevity as well. I do intend to read some of her other more well known works.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the hell is this author trying to tell me? And "the twist ending"? Did I miss it?! What the-?!

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do like Colette's writing. This isn't the strongest work, but it's still atmospheric and incredibly French.

[Briana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5? Surprisingly got sucked in

[Alyssa Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book left me confused in the best way. a tragedy/french soap opera, the two female protagonists are engaged in an emotional ménage à trois whose resolution leaves a sweet-tart flavor in my mouth. this book is a dramatic, entertaining exploration of the limitations class and gender place on maintaining relationships and navigating loyalty when personal and financial stability is at stake. the resolution is dialectic; it asserts that (when leaving isn’t an option), we can deprioritize abusive relationships with men by staying with them, so long as we have strong female ties…i’m not sure how true this is, especially in the context of this story, but it’s an ending that made me think, and that’s what matters.

[Caroline Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phew! Wow! A love triangle. Feels like a "locked room love triangle". Painful. The sense of betrayal by a female friend is suffocating. And then, the realization that the friend will always be her friend, while the husband...well...

This is short - a novella really? So it perhaps feels a bit more devastating.

[Madelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Elles n’échangèrent plus que des paroles rares, et banales. Feignant l’une de lire, l’autre de coudre, elles ne souhaitaient que se taire, laisser reposer et mollir des forces que l’homme n’avait pas affrontées, et s’en remettre au silence de nourrir, à peine née, leur sécurité débile"

[Emma Gentry · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an absolute romp