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Chéri #1-2
Chéri and The End of Chéri
Chéri and its sequel, The End of Chéri, mark Colette’s finest achievements, in their brilliant, subtle, and frank investigations of love and power. Set in the Parisian demimonde in the last days of the Belle Époque, Chéri tells the story of Léa, a courtesan at the end of a successful career, and her lover, the beautiful but emotionally opaque Chéri. Chéri will soon enter into an arranged marriage, ending their six-year affair, which—they will each realize too late—has been the one real love of their lives. The End of Chéri picks up their story in the aftermath of the First World War; as a psychically wounded Chéri begins an inexorable descent, he finds he cannot return to the Léa he left.
With a preface by the acclaimed Lydia Davis, Rachel Careau’s lean, attentive translation restores to these classic novels their taut, remarkably modern style—the essence of Colette’s genius.
With a preface by the acclaimed Lydia Davis, Rachel Careau’s lean, attentive translation restores to these classic novels their taut, remarkably modern style—the essence of Colette’s genius.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
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6646 people want to read
About the author
Colette
886 books1,731 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 363 reviews
May 30, 2016
In some ways, the characters in these two short novels are utterly free. Just about everything is permitted in the Parisian society to which they belong: Become a courtesan. Take a much younger lover. Have a child out of wedlock. Become addicted to opium. Don’t ever bother to get married, but if you do, sleep around with other people. Spend your whole life in total leisure. Go ahead! No one cares. But this culture, like every culture, does have its own codes of conduct, and thus its own set of restrictions. Specifically, you must never allow yourself to feel the more heartfelt emotions, like love, and if you do unfortunately fall victim to such emotions, please keep it to yourself. Be as wild as you want, but take no actual risks. For all their decadence and ostensible freedom, the characters in this book are just as repressed as Edith Wharton’s proper New Yorkers.
Novels such as this usually seem to focus on female characters’ struggles with the repressive cultures they find themselves in, so Chéri and The Last of Chéri are unique: They focus on a young man, nicknamed Chéri (real name: Fred)—gorgeous, spoiled, privileged, and utterly trapped. Chéri is without a doubt the architect of his own despair, but his realization of the meaninglessness of his life and his subsequent efforts to change it broke my heart. These novels were published almost 100 years ago, but as with most classics, their themes continue to resonate in the present day.
So why am I not giving this book the deluxe five-star treatment? For one thing, everyone was so repressed that there was very little of the sensuality I was expecting from Colette (although its sparseness made it very effective when it did appear). For another, while the writing sometimes positively shone, at other times it was a bit humdrum, or even clumsy, so I suspect some of its real power got lost in translation. In fact, given that this translation was first published in 1951, I might say we’re due for an entirely new one. But since the only person who seems to be doing new translations from French these days is Lydia Davis, maybe we should just let it be. This was an interesting and worthwhile read nonetheless.
Novels such as this usually seem to focus on female characters’ struggles with the repressive cultures they find themselves in, so Chéri and The Last of Chéri are unique: They focus on a young man, nicknamed Chéri (real name: Fred)—gorgeous, spoiled, privileged, and utterly trapped. Chéri is without a doubt the architect of his own despair, but his realization of the meaninglessness of his life and his subsequent efforts to change it broke my heart. These novels were published almost 100 years ago, but as with most classics, their themes continue to resonate in the present day.
So why am I not giving this book the deluxe five-star treatment? For one thing, everyone was so repressed that there was very little of the sensuality I was expecting from Colette (although its sparseness made it very effective when it did appear). For another, while the writing sometimes positively shone, at other times it was a bit humdrum, or even clumsy, so I suspect some of its real power got lost in translation. In fact, given that this translation was first published in 1951, I might say we’re due for an entirely new one. But since the only person who seems to be doing new translations from French these days is Lydia Davis, maybe we should just let it be. This was an interesting and worthwhile read nonetheless.
August 4, 2011
Virginia Woolf, though rather a she-wolf herself, declared that reading Colette made her feel "dowdy." So too, getting into these twinned short masterpieces of love perverse yet pure, indeed superlunary, you yourself will likely feel pretty country-mouse & small-town. Yet you’ll also get stung to the quick, all five senses reawakened. Colette begins the 1st novella w/ a worldly woman’s bare arms extended above a tousled morning bed, demanding her pearls, & then ends the 2nd w/ a man on a threadbare divan, in an outrageous kimono, w/ opium-smoking apparatus at hand, running his life-weary but still-beautiful eyes over long-ago photographs of his former love. In between there’s just no denying the tangles of arousal — sexual, yes, but it’s the emotional that truly knots us up. We quicken at exposure to the lissome Cherí, actual name Frederick, a prostitute’s son in his late teens as the story starts, a boy both overindulged & neglected. The love that shapes both fictions is that between this gorgeous youngster & another whore, though perhaps her price entitles her to be called a “courtesan.” The remarkable Léa has had a career that’s left her rich, & why should she apologize now for her appreciation of the fabulous Cherí? Yes, he’s 30 years her junior, & but why shouldn’t this Queen of the Fairies have her own Puck, sniggering over what fools these mortals be? Isn’t Léa mentoring her kept boy? Isn’t she exhibiting, far better than his mother ever could, sustaining love? These ambiguities & others often take the forms of delicious ironies, in conversations & turns of phrase that can make us laugh aloud: “Telephoning to a discarded mistress is riskier by far than holding out your hand in the street to a nervous enemy....” Colette herself knew those ambiguities, to be sure. This author’s a notorious case, taken advantage of as a young woman, then turning that abuse to her advantage, climbing over lech paramours to stellar careers in both theater & writing (she was the Madonna of her time, photographed unendingly, often in the nude). Yet such worldliness & sensuality — the meals & the fashions, in CHERÍ & THE LAST.., are rendered every bit as ripely as the lovemaking — aren’t what make these two accomplishments Colette’s greatest. What distinguishes these stories is their sensitivity to the young man, as much to his older woman. Sophisticated Colette reveals her savvy in something simple, the titles, for these books together constitute Cherí’s tragedy, not Léa's. Cherí's suffering even embraces what we’d now call PTSD, post-World-War-I. The boy's cynicism curdles into a man's despair, & eventually a creature made for love alone gets crushed by dawning awareness that “his world, though people thought of it as reckless, was governed by a code almost as narrow-minded as middle-class prejudice.”
September 25, 2025
“An undecipherable thought appeared in the depths of his eyes; their shape, their dark wallflower hue, their harsh or languorous glint, were used only to win love, never to reveal his mind. From sheets crumpled as though by a storm, rose his naked body, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted; and his whole being breathed forth the melancholy of perfect works of art.”
Chéri - 3 stars
The Last of Chéri - 4 stars
Reading Colette is like lying naked in a garden and being fed chocolate truffles. At first, it’s exciting, But after a while you start to feel sick. Not that I speak from experience or anything.
I fell in love with this in an instant. It’s charming, artfully written, very feminine, very French. You can practically smell the perfume and cigarette smoke wafting from the pages. It’s also a splendid evocation of the Belle Époque, an era of lace and ruffles and elaborate hats, swept away by the First World War (an era also evoked by Proust, but here with SO much more economy). However, I fell out of love almost as quickly. The two novels center on the love affair between the spoiled, selfish gigolo Chéri and the beautiful, aging courtesan Léa, who is twice his age. I was expecting a steamy, stormy romance and was disappointed that Léa is absent for most of the two novels, and in the first one, I didn’t feel Chéri was given enough complexity to carry the story without her.
I found the second novel much more compelling. Chéri returns from the army as an uninjured hero and finds a world in decline—and there’s no question of a decline, just as there’s no question for the characters themselves (or at least for their looks), touched by the invisible finger of time. A wrinkle here, a white hair there—enough to spell disaster for a man whose whole life and happiness is wrapped up with beauty, sure to find himself at sea when time does its work and the comfortable world of his youth is gone forever.
“The apparition of the large, flat, half-veiled moon among the scuppering vaporous clouds, which she seemed to be pursuing and tearing asunder, did not divert him from working out an arithmetical fantasy: he was computing—in years, months, hours and days—the amount of precious time that had been lost to him for ever.”
“Every time he bumped into his own image, Chéri was brought up sharp by a slight shock when he recognised it as his own. He never could understand why this glass did not reflect the faithful image of a young man of twenty-four. He could not detect the precise points where time, with invisible finger, marks first the hour of perfection on a handsome face, and then the hour of that more blatant beauty, the herald of a majestic decline.”
As frustrating as this was, I like Colette’s style and subject matter enough to read the rest of her books. Maybe in a few years. After all, there’s still Balzac, Maupassant, Gautier… It never ends!
Chéri - 3 stars
The Last of Chéri - 4 stars
Reading Colette is like lying naked in a garden and being fed chocolate truffles. At first, it’s exciting, But after a while you start to feel sick. Not that I speak from experience or anything.
I fell in love with this in an instant. It’s charming, artfully written, very feminine, very French. You can practically smell the perfume and cigarette smoke wafting from the pages. It’s also a splendid evocation of the Belle Époque, an era of lace and ruffles and elaborate hats, swept away by the First World War (an era also evoked by Proust, but here with SO much more economy). However, I fell out of love almost as quickly. The two novels center on the love affair between the spoiled, selfish gigolo Chéri and the beautiful, aging courtesan Léa, who is twice his age. I was expecting a steamy, stormy romance and was disappointed that Léa is absent for most of the two novels, and in the first one, I didn’t feel Chéri was given enough complexity to carry the story without her.
I found the second novel much more compelling. Chéri returns from the army as an uninjured hero and finds a world in decline—and there’s no question of a decline, just as there’s no question for the characters themselves (or at least for their looks), touched by the invisible finger of time. A wrinkle here, a white hair there—enough to spell disaster for a man whose whole life and happiness is wrapped up with beauty, sure to find himself at sea when time does its work and the comfortable world of his youth is gone forever.
“The apparition of the large, flat, half-veiled moon among the scuppering vaporous clouds, which she seemed to be pursuing and tearing asunder, did not divert him from working out an arithmetical fantasy: he was computing—in years, months, hours and days—the amount of precious time that had been lost to him for ever.”
“Every time he bumped into his own image, Chéri was brought up sharp by a slight shock when he recognised it as his own. He never could understand why this glass did not reflect the faithful image of a young man of twenty-four. He could not detect the precise points where time, with invisible finger, marks first the hour of perfection on a handsome face, and then the hour of that more blatant beauty, the herald of a majestic decline.”
As frustrating as this was, I like Colette’s style and subject matter enough to read the rest of her books. Maybe in a few years. After all, there’s still Balzac, Maupassant, Gautier… It never ends!
May 8, 2020
Colette is such a fascinating character herself, that it's tempting to give a description of some of the highlights of her life right here. I will defer, however, to two of my favorites among her many novels, Chéri (1920) and Fin de Chéri (1926). In the first novel and in its sequel, Colette sensitively examines the tenuous emotions of Léa de Lonval, a courtesan nearing age 50, who has been the longtime mistress of the much younger Fred "Chéri" Paloux. Whereas the first novel focuses on Léa’s heartbreaking sense of loss— fading beauty, a lover’s abandonment, an uncertain future—the sequel shows a contented, productive Léa some six years later with a new lease on life.
Chéri opens with the title character lying naked on Léa's bed playing languidly with her pearl necklace. Their passion is coming to an end as Chéri will soon enter an arranged marriage with the rich, but insignificant 18-year-old Edmée, and Léa, though still beautiful and sporting a figure that is the envy of much-younger women, suspects the current passion will probably be her last. After all, she no longer wears the pearls at night, afraid that artificial light will call attention to her aging neck. "Chéri . . . .eût remarqué trop souvent que le cou de Léa, épaissi, perdait sa blancheur et montrait sous la peau des muscles détendus." A woman of sophisticated tastes —"Elle aimait l'ordre, le beau linge, les vins mûris, la cuisine réfléchie" [9:]) and one with a position of respect in the demi-monde, Léa takes exquisite care of herself with beautiful clothes and jewelry, daily massages, semi-weekly manicures, and a Chinese pedicure every month. Although Léa insists she is accepting of Chéri's impending marriage, and, therefore, the demise of their long-standing affair, she now feels a loss of control in her life. "Elle se sentait circonspecte, pleine de défiance contre un ennemi qu'elle ne connaissait pas: la douleur. Trente ans de vie facile, aimable, souvent amoureuse, parfois cupide, venaient de se détacher d'elle et de la laisser, à peu près de cinquante ans, jeune et comme nue" (Chéri 78).
When she encounters three aging courtesans of her acquaintance, including the ridiculous old Lili, who boasts of wanting to marry her young Italian lover, Léa is horrified at what might be in store for her in a few short years. Still in love, even obsessed, with Chéri, Léa deliberately leaves Paris for the first few months after his marriage. Upon her return, she is more agitated than ever about becoming old.
Chéri, who abandoned his bride for several months, has been equally agitated in Léa's absence. When the two finally end up making love at Léa's apartment, she is elated. She assumes he will now leave his wife for good and begins planning a new life for the two of them together. Chéri, however, has no intention of ending his marriage—a sham though it may be—and returning permanently to Léa.
The novel Chéri winds down poignantly with Léa's voluntary adieu to her lover. For the briefest moment, she thinks he might be turning around on the sidewalk and coming back to her. Before she can become fully elated, though, she sees her own reflection in the mirror. It is the face of an old woman. Thus, on this sad note for an aging courtesan, the novel is finished. But Léa's story is not.
Fin de Chéri opens in 1919, six years after Chéri and Léa parted. World War I, during which Chéri served lackadaisically in the French army, has come and gone, and he has returned even more lethargic and bewildered about his place in the world than he was before. The women in the novel, however, are all busily engagées in various activities. Edmée, who has grown well beyond the naïve stupor she endured as Chéri's new bride, bustles about a local hospital nursing the war wounded, men to whom Chéri cannot relate. Chéri's mother, Marie-Laure (herself a former courtesan), has become involved in financial affairs.
Most astonishing of all, though, is the transformation that Léa has undergone. Whereas the third-person narrator in Chéri focused mostly on Léa's point of view, Fin de Chéri, is told entirely through Chéri/Fred's eyes. Lea's appearance in the second novel is limited to one chapter about halfway through, a point at which, a jaded and frustrated Chéri finally visits her apartment seven years after their split, and five years since he saw her last.
Fred is shocked to see that Léa, though calm, cheerful, and welcoming, has grown large, gray-haired and completely practical in her dress—sensible shoes, plain suits, etc.,—and no longer bothers with makeup. "Il s'épouvanta de la trouver si simple, joviale comme un vieil homme." When Chéri remarks that she may wish to change clothes, she chuckles, showing her total preference for function over style in all activities. "Habillé pour la vie, je te dis! Ce que c'est commode! Des blouses, du beau linge, cet uniforme par là-dessus, me voilà parée. Prête pour dîner chez Montagné. . . prête pour le ciné, pour le bridge et pour la promenade au Bois" (Fin de Chéri 102).
Léa's comfort with her new persona is intolerable to her former lover. "Cesse! Reparais! Jette cette mascarade! Tu es bien quelque part là dessus. Éclos! Surgis toute neuve, les cheveux rougis de ce matin, poudrée de frais; reprends ton long corset, ta robe bleue à fin jabot, ton parfum de prairie. . .. Quitte toute cela, viens-t'en” (Fin de Chéri 93).
Chéri knows, though, that his wishes are useless. Léa is too attuned, too snugly ensconced in the easier lifestyle she has embraced and the new possibilities which she at last has allowed herself. Even her excess weight is favorably suited to the woman into whom she has evolved.
And yet, what does Léa really seem to miss in her life and is there any indication she is searching for missing puzzle pieces? One could just as easily argue that the obesity itself was more likely a backlash—albeit an extreme one-—to her earlier obsession and constant paranoid dissatisfaction with her appearance as she entered middle age, bothersome details she seems to be gratefully rid of. Léa may no longer be beautiful and alluring to men, but, unlike her friend Lili, she has escaped the pathetic realm of the ridiculous, and is virtually basking in peace and self-respect .
Colette, then, has pursued an unexpectedly modernist vein with an eye toward the possibilities that the former courtesan may achieve instead of the stereotypes and expectations through which she is assumed to spiral downward and to which she is traditionally thought to fall prey. Colette refuses to subject her female characters to a tragic destiny and creates not only in Léa, but also in Marie-Laure and Edmée, women who escape traditional female roles, first of all, like George Sand's title character in Isidora, not having men as an integral part of their lives, and second, by being devoted to the present and to a happiness of their own making. "Seule compte leur adhésion passionnée au présent, leur 'prodigieuse et femelle aptitude bonheur.'" This acceptance of the past and enthusiasm for the present is why Léa, despite her faded beauty, keeps up a rigorous attitude and language. For Colette, beauty may come or go, and this is not a tragedy. However, she is stating that it is unforgivable to lose the desire to live. There is a very good a 2009 film version of Cheri starring Michele Pfeifer as Léa, Rupert Friend as Chéri (he does a good job in this role, but you'll like him better as Prince Albert in Victoria and Albert), Felicity Jones as Edmée, and Kathy Bates as Marie-Laure. Although the film goes through only the first novel, a voice-over narrator at the end tells briefly the events of Fin de Chéri, including the conclusion (which I will not reveal here).
Chéri opens with the title character lying naked on Léa's bed playing languidly with her pearl necklace. Their passion is coming to an end as Chéri will soon enter an arranged marriage with the rich, but insignificant 18-year-old Edmée, and Léa, though still beautiful and sporting a figure that is the envy of much-younger women, suspects the current passion will probably be her last. After all, she no longer wears the pearls at night, afraid that artificial light will call attention to her aging neck. "Chéri . . . .eût remarqué trop souvent que le cou de Léa, épaissi, perdait sa blancheur et montrait sous la peau des muscles détendus." A woman of sophisticated tastes —"Elle aimait l'ordre, le beau linge, les vins mûris, la cuisine réfléchie" [9:]) and one with a position of respect in the demi-monde, Léa takes exquisite care of herself with beautiful clothes and jewelry, daily massages, semi-weekly manicures, and a Chinese pedicure every month. Although Léa insists she is accepting of Chéri's impending marriage, and, therefore, the demise of their long-standing affair, she now feels a loss of control in her life. "Elle se sentait circonspecte, pleine de défiance contre un ennemi qu'elle ne connaissait pas: la douleur. Trente ans de vie facile, aimable, souvent amoureuse, parfois cupide, venaient de se détacher d'elle et de la laisser, à peu près de cinquante ans, jeune et comme nue" (Chéri 78).
When she encounters three aging courtesans of her acquaintance, including the ridiculous old Lili, who boasts of wanting to marry her young Italian lover, Léa is horrified at what might be in store for her in a few short years. Still in love, even obsessed, with Chéri, Léa deliberately leaves Paris for the first few months after his marriage. Upon her return, she is more agitated than ever about becoming old.
Chéri, who abandoned his bride for several months, has been equally agitated in Léa's absence. When the two finally end up making love at Léa's apartment, she is elated. She assumes he will now leave his wife for good and begins planning a new life for the two of them together. Chéri, however, has no intention of ending his marriage—a sham though it may be—and returning permanently to Léa.
The novel Chéri winds down poignantly with Léa's voluntary adieu to her lover. For the briefest moment, she thinks he might be turning around on the sidewalk and coming back to her. Before she can become fully elated, though, she sees her own reflection in the mirror. It is the face of an old woman. Thus, on this sad note for an aging courtesan, the novel is finished. But Léa's story is not.
Fin de Chéri opens in 1919, six years after Chéri and Léa parted. World War I, during which Chéri served lackadaisically in the French army, has come and gone, and he has returned even more lethargic and bewildered about his place in the world than he was before. The women in the novel, however, are all busily engagées in various activities. Edmée, who has grown well beyond the naïve stupor she endured as Chéri's new bride, bustles about a local hospital nursing the war wounded, men to whom Chéri cannot relate. Chéri's mother, Marie-Laure (herself a former courtesan), has become involved in financial affairs.
Most astonishing of all, though, is the transformation that Léa has undergone. Whereas the third-person narrator in Chéri focused mostly on Léa's point of view, Fin de Chéri, is told entirely through Chéri/Fred's eyes. Lea's appearance in the second novel is limited to one chapter about halfway through, a point at which, a jaded and frustrated Chéri finally visits her apartment seven years after their split, and five years since he saw her last.
Fred is shocked to see that Léa, though calm, cheerful, and welcoming, has grown large, gray-haired and completely practical in her dress—sensible shoes, plain suits, etc.,—and no longer bothers with makeup. "Il s'épouvanta de la trouver si simple, joviale comme un vieil homme." When Chéri remarks that she may wish to change clothes, she chuckles, showing her total preference for function over style in all activities. "Habillé pour la vie, je te dis! Ce que c'est commode! Des blouses, du beau linge, cet uniforme par là-dessus, me voilà parée. Prête pour dîner chez Montagné. . . prête pour le ciné, pour le bridge et pour la promenade au Bois" (Fin de Chéri 102).
Léa's comfort with her new persona is intolerable to her former lover. "Cesse! Reparais! Jette cette mascarade! Tu es bien quelque part là dessus. Éclos! Surgis toute neuve, les cheveux rougis de ce matin, poudrée de frais; reprends ton long corset, ta robe bleue à fin jabot, ton parfum de prairie. . .. Quitte toute cela, viens-t'en” (Fin de Chéri 93).
Chéri knows, though, that his wishes are useless. Léa is too attuned, too snugly ensconced in the easier lifestyle she has embraced and the new possibilities which she at last has allowed herself. Even her excess weight is favorably suited to the woman into whom she has evolved.
And yet, what does Léa really seem to miss in her life and is there any indication she is searching for missing puzzle pieces? One could just as easily argue that the obesity itself was more likely a backlash—albeit an extreme one-—to her earlier obsession and constant paranoid dissatisfaction with her appearance as she entered middle age, bothersome details she seems to be gratefully rid of. Léa may no longer be beautiful and alluring to men, but, unlike her friend Lili, she has escaped the pathetic realm of the ridiculous, and is virtually basking in peace and self-respect .
Colette, then, has pursued an unexpectedly modernist vein with an eye toward the possibilities that the former courtesan may achieve instead of the stereotypes and expectations through which she is assumed to spiral downward and to which she is traditionally thought to fall prey. Colette refuses to subject her female characters to a tragic destiny and creates not only in Léa, but also in Marie-Laure and Edmée, women who escape traditional female roles, first of all, like George Sand's title character in Isidora, not having men as an integral part of their lives, and second, by being devoted to the present and to a happiness of their own making. "Seule compte leur adhésion passionnée au présent, leur 'prodigieuse et femelle aptitude bonheur.'" This acceptance of the past and enthusiasm for the present is why Léa, despite her faded beauty, keeps up a rigorous attitude and language. For Colette, beauty may come or go, and this is not a tragedy. However, she is stating that it is unforgivable to lose the desire to live. There is a very good a 2009 film version of Cheri starring Michele Pfeifer as Léa, Rupert Friend as Chéri (he does a good job in this role, but you'll like him better as Prince Albert in Victoria and Albert), Felicity Jones as Edmée, and Kathy Bates as Marie-Laure. Although the film goes through only the first novel, a voice-over narrator at the end tells briefly the events of Fin de Chéri, including the conclusion (which I will not reveal here).
June 22, 2020
Bezbrižni, bogati mladić, dugogodišnji je ljubavnik trideset godina starije, iskusne kurtizane u mirovini. U društvu iz kojeg potječu i u kojem se kreću to ne predstavlja nikakav problem... Ali onda niotkud, između njih se desi ljubav, da ljubav.
Tako divno i šarmantno napisan roman priča je o ljubavi koja dolazi tiho i iznenadno a srljajući u propast odlazi u legende. I sve to obavijeno u svilu i peruniku, namirisano skupocjenim mirisima, ogrlicama od nefrita, biserjem, obučeno u gačice s chantilly čipkom, haljine sljezove boje, fino ukrašene kutije za kokain i još puno toga. Cijela jedna plejada mondenog francuskog društva s početka XX st. u svojoj punoj raskoši.
Tako divno i šarmantno napisan roman priča je o ljubavi koja dolazi tiho i iznenadno a srljajući u propast odlazi u legende. I sve to obavijeno u svilu i peruniku, namirisano skupocjenim mirisima, ogrlicama od nefrita, biserjem, obučeno u gačice s chantilly čipkom, haljine sljezove boje, fino ukrašene kutije za kokain i još puno toga. Cijela jedna plejada mondenog francuskog društva s početka XX st. u svojoj punoj raskoši.
February 27, 2009
On the surface, this is the melodramatic love story of a boytoy and the woman who turned him out. But go deeper, and you see that the characters are going through a lot more than simply growing old - they're all growing up, a condition brought on not only by nature but also by post WWI Paris. Cheri was raised to be an ornament, something his mother, lover, and finally wife could be proud to call her own. What all these women failed to see was that while they moved forward in life, he wanted nothing more than to hold on to what he had - even if it didn't exist anymore. It's that realization, that all things change and that he was incapable of changing with them, that changed my opinion an whether Cheri was a weak coward or a tragic victim.
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December 8, 2025The competition of the vanities astonishes.
"She's the perfect daughter for Marie-Laure," Léa thought, observing her closely. "She possesses discreetly everything that her mother possesses flamboyantly. Fluffy hair, ash-colored, as if powdered, restless eyes that stay hidden, a mouth that refrains from speaking, from smiling... Exactly what Marie-Laure needed, though she must hate her even so..." (p. 17)
"She's the perfect daughter for Marie-Laure," Léa thought, observing her closely. "She possesses discreetly everything that her mother possesses flamboyantly. Fluffy hair, ash-colored, as if powdered, restless eyes that stay hidden, a mouth that refrains from speaking, from smiling... Exactly what Marie-Laure needed, though she must hate her even so..." (p. 17)
January 8, 2010
It's been 4 months since I last read a love story. It was September 2009 when I read A.S. Byatt's POSSESSIONS and I really liked it. It was about two poets falling in love with each other but it did not materialize because they were both married.
This movie tie-in book is composed of 2 novels by Colette, a French lady author during and after World War I. This is semi-autobiographical which means that the main characters particularly Lea was based on her own life. She, an aging actress at the age of 50 fell in love with a young man aged 25. They were happy at first as the young man also loved her until he met a woman (Edmee in the story) 7 years younger than him and decided to get married. That man in these books is CHERI and the two novels are about him.
CHERI (published in 1920), the first book, is about the separation of Cheri and Lea. When Cheri got married to Edmee, Lea released him but after living separate lives for 9 months, Cheri missed Lea and they spent a night together. When Cheri realized that he was making a mistake, he went back to Edmee and Lea once again released him.
Think May-December affair ala Elizabeth Taylor and his many young men or Demi Moore and Ashton. Those ladies are beautiful even if they are already old and it is believable, in my opinion, that young equally good-looking guys can fall in love with them. That's the basic premise of Book 1.
THE LAST OF CHERI (published in 1926), the second book, happened after WW I when Cheri came back from the army. The highlight of the book is that after 10 years (Lea was already 60 and Cheri was 35), they saw each other again and Cheri still felt the love that he used to feel for Lea. Edmee was having an affair with another man and she thought that Cheri was doing the same with Pal, another courtesan who also an opium dealer so they just did not care about each other's lives. After that encounter, Cheri clearly saw that Lea did not love him anymore so he got his revolver and blew his brain out while looking at Lea's picture on the wall.
Just like POSSESSION, it's a tragic love story but it is also beautifully told. We all must have some lost loves in our younger years so anyone can relate to an unrequited love. Also, I have been to Paris and I loved it and I think any love story with that romantic city as the setting will always have an advantage as it is truly a lovable place.
Critics also say that the character of Cheri symbolizes France as a country before and after World War I. Maybe it is the same reason why Rizal professors in college said that Philippines was symbolized by Sisa in Noli Me Tangere. True or not, without or without symbolisms, these books are worth reading and could be a good candidate for valentine's read next month.
Thanks to Marge for buying this book among the ones I included in my kris kringle wish list last month. Fantastic classic love story!
I cannot wait to see the movie with the beautiful Michelle Pfieffer as Lea. Cheri is the one included in the 501 MUST READ BOOKS but when I saw Michelle on the cover, I immediately wrote it in my wish list to my kris kringle "mommy".
This movie tie-in book is composed of 2 novels by Colette, a French lady author during and after World War I. This is semi-autobiographical which means that the main characters particularly Lea was based on her own life. She, an aging actress at the age of 50 fell in love with a young man aged 25. They were happy at first as the young man also loved her until he met a woman (Edmee in the story) 7 years younger than him and decided to get married. That man in these books is CHERI and the two novels are about him.
CHERI (published in 1920), the first book, is about the separation of Cheri and Lea. When Cheri got married to Edmee, Lea released him but after living separate lives for 9 months, Cheri missed Lea and they spent a night together. When Cheri realized that he was making a mistake, he went back to Edmee and Lea once again released him.
Think May-December affair ala Elizabeth Taylor and his many young men or Demi Moore and Ashton. Those ladies are beautiful even if they are already old and it is believable, in my opinion, that young equally good-looking guys can fall in love with them. That's the basic premise of Book 1.
THE LAST OF CHERI (published in 1926), the second book, happened after WW I when Cheri came back from the army. The highlight of the book is that after 10 years (Lea was already 60 and Cheri was 35), they saw each other again and Cheri still felt the love that he used to feel for Lea. Edmee was having an affair with another man and she thought that Cheri was doing the same with Pal, another courtesan who also an opium dealer so they just did not care about each other's lives. After that encounter, Cheri clearly saw that Lea did not love him anymore so he got his revolver and blew his brain out while looking at Lea's picture on the wall.
Just like POSSESSION, it's a tragic love story but it is also beautifully told. We all must have some lost loves in our younger years so anyone can relate to an unrequited love. Also, I have been to Paris and I loved it and I think any love story with that romantic city as the setting will always have an advantage as it is truly a lovable place.
Critics also say that the character of Cheri symbolizes France as a country before and after World War I. Maybe it is the same reason why Rizal professors in college said that Philippines was symbolized by Sisa in Noli Me Tangere. True or not, without or without symbolisms, these books are worth reading and could be a good candidate for valentine's read next month.
Thanks to Marge for buying this book among the ones I included in my kris kringle wish list last month. Fantastic classic love story!
I cannot wait to see the movie with the beautiful Michelle Pfieffer as Lea. Cheri is the one included in the 501 MUST READ BOOKS but when I saw Michelle on the cover, I immediately wrote it in my wish list to my kris kringle "mommy".
February 22, 2011
I first found Colette on the shelves of the library at Knox College - the sensualist French writer seemed rather out of place in the Anglican seminary collection.
'Chéri' rapidly became one of my favourite love stories - slim, sexy, sad. The tale the aging courtesan Léa and her love affair with the young, spoilt, beautiful Chéri, the book flips the usual love story on its head. An older woman cossets and educates a brash young man; when an advantageous marriage is arranged, Léa reluctantly ends their affair. for six months, both try to find ways to escape the memories of their six-year liaison until eventually they are drawn back together for one turbulent and painful night.
On my first reading I feel in love with the character of Léa. Colette unsparingly details her slowly crumbling beauty, set off by the lush and languorous surrounding of pre-war France, the suffocating company of the elderly courtesans and rogues she spends her twilight years with, and her maternal, possessive, proud desire for the petulant and beautiful Chéri.
The book opens with an intimate scene - morning in Léa's bedroom. Chéri 'caper[s] about in front of the sun-drenched rosy-pink curtains - a graceful demon, black against a glowing furnace', needling Léa to hand over her pearl necklace to him.
Colette lays out a world which is as foreign as a fantasy, where aging courtesans continue to woo and work their way through Paris. Léa is - not friends, exactly, but an uneasy ally of Charlotte Peloux, Cheri's mother:
Throughout the book, Colette contrasts Chéri's lack of self-knowledge with Léa's self-awareness. Yet even Léa can sometimes fool herself. While quoting from, or seeking to summarise, such a short book can sometimes tug all the delight from it for new readers, I still want to share one of my favourite passages, as Léa muses on how to fill the hole that she discovers - to some surprise - the loss of Chéri has left in her life:
'Chéri' rapidly became one of my favourite love stories - slim, sexy, sad. The tale the aging courtesan Léa and her love affair with the young, spoilt, beautiful Chéri, the book flips the usual love story on its head. An older woman cossets and educates a brash young man; when an advantageous marriage is arranged, Léa reluctantly ends their affair. for six months, both try to find ways to escape the memories of their six-year liaison until eventually they are drawn back together for one turbulent and painful night.
On my first reading I feel in love with the character of Léa. Colette unsparingly details her slowly crumbling beauty, set off by the lush and languorous surrounding of pre-war France, the suffocating company of the elderly courtesans and rogues she spends her twilight years with, and her maternal, possessive, proud desire for the petulant and beautiful Chéri.
The book opens with an intimate scene - morning in Léa's bedroom. Chéri 'caper[s] about in front of the sun-drenched rosy-pink curtains - a graceful demon, black against a glowing furnace', needling Léa to hand over her pearl necklace to him.
At the snap of the clasp, ripples spread over the lace-frilled sheets, and from their midst rose two magnificent thin-wristed arms, lifting high two lovely lazy arms.
Colette lays out a world which is as foreign as a fantasy, where aging courtesans continue to woo and work their way through Paris. Léa is - not friends, exactly, but an uneasy ally of Charlotte Peloux, Cheri's mother:
They had known each other for twenty-five years. Theirs was the hostile intimacy of light women, enriched and then cast aside by one man, ruined by another: the tetchy affection of rivals stalking one another's first wrinkle or white hair. Theirs was the friendship of two practical women of the world, both adepts at the money game; but one of them a miser, and the other a sybarite. These bonds count.
Throughout the book, Colette contrasts Chéri's lack of self-knowledge with Léa's self-awareness. Yet even Léa can sometimes fool herself. While quoting from, or seeking to summarise, such a short book can sometimes tug all the delight from it for new readers, I still want to share one of my favourite passages, as Léa muses on how to fill the hole that she discovers - to some surprise - the loss of Chéri has left in her life:
'Surely a woman like that doesn't end up in the arms of an old man? A woman like that, who's had the luck never to soil her hands or her mouth on a withered stick? Yes, there she stands, the "vampire", who needs must feed off youthful flesh.'
She conjured up the chance acquaintances and lovers of her early days: always she had escaped elderly lechers, so she felt pure, and proud of thirty years devoted to radiant youths and fragile adolescents.
'And this youthful flesh of theirs certainly owes me a great debt. How many of them have me to thank for their good health, their good looks, the harmlessness of their sorrows! And then their egg-nogs when they suffered from colds, and the habit of making love unselfishly and always refreshingly! Shall I now, merely to fill my bed, provide myself with an old gentleman of ... of...' She hunted about and finished up with majestic forgetfulness of her own age, 'An old gentleman of forty?'
September 11, 2019
La giovinezza. La spensieratezza. L'amore vissuto ma riconosciuto nella sua interezza solo nel momento in cui lo si perderà. Il presente che passa e, passando, lascia solo un vuoto, un rimpianto perenne di ció che è stato e l'incapacità di vivere all'infuori di quell'attimo che ormai è passato.
Ecco cosa ho trovato in Chéri e in La fine di Chéri.
A tenere unito tutto questo la prosa perfetta di Colette.
Briosa, sensuale, fresca poi cupa, introspettiva, intima. Cambia con l'avanzare della storia.
Una storia che ho trovato a tratti insulsa, a tratti cattiva, poi solo tanto triste. Una storia che ho compreso in pieno solo arrivando alle ultime battute.
Un personaggio che ho detestato (Chéri) poi solo compatito.
Che tristezza, che lascia addosso.
E la certezza che Colette, lei sì che sapeva scrivere se da una storia tanto "banale" ha saputo tirarci fuori un testo indimenticabile. Perchè sento che alla fine di tutto per me Chéri sarà questo.
Indimenticabile.
Ecco cosa ho trovato in Chéri e in La fine di Chéri.
A tenere unito tutto questo la prosa perfetta di Colette.
Briosa, sensuale, fresca poi cupa, introspettiva, intima. Cambia con l'avanzare della storia.
Una storia che ho trovato a tratti insulsa, a tratti cattiva, poi solo tanto triste. Una storia che ho compreso in pieno solo arrivando alle ultime battute.
Un personaggio che ho detestato (Chéri) poi solo compatito.
Che tristezza, che lascia addosso.
E la certezza che Colette, lei sì che sapeva scrivere se da una storia tanto "banale" ha saputo tirarci fuori un testo indimenticabile. Perchè sento che alla fine di tutto per me Chéri sarà questo.
Indimenticabile.
Want to read
May 10, 2025Sadly I didn't order the paperback with this cover art lol
This is a book that F. Scott Fitzgerald recommended in his College of One, a set of 40 books he considered necessary for an education: https://www.listchallenges.com/f-scot...
This is a book that F. Scott Fitzgerald recommended in his College of One, a set of 40 books he considered necessary for an education: https://www.listchallenges.com/f-scot...
July 20, 2016
This is really two books in one so I have two ratings: 1st part is a 4 and the 2nd part is a 3 for me. These books show how the lives of certain rich French people are connected. A former courtesan takes the young son of one of her friends as her lover. They eventually fall in love without realizing it. Decisions are made about their futures, and those decisions are covered in the second book. This is not a fuzzy feelings love story but a complicated one. It's a fascinating read that makes me glad for the relationships I have with my soulmate, friends, family, and myself. The biggest lesson I learned from these stories was to be sure to love yourself and find ways to make your life fulfilling.
May 19, 2018
These two novellas were pure joy to read. Colette’s writing is intimate, sensual, absorbing, flowing. She creates spaces full with sensations, sketches of people, closely observes their faces, movements, emotions, moods. She tosses aside conventional mores - her women are courtesans, free to marry or not marry, they make and invest their own money, live their sexual lives as they want. An older woman can keep a beautiful boy as a lover; Colette is not afraid to write about men as sex objects, possessed by their women.
The two novels are separated by six years. Chéri describes the ending of the relationship between Léa, an older but still beautiful courtesan at the end of her sexual carreer, and Chéri, a young, supremely beautiful but shallow man. They have long lived and loved together, but Chéri must get on with his young life, and must marry. As they try to deal with the separation, they realize it meant more than they thought - but it was doomed as they were at different points in their lives and they must let go.
The Last of Chéri takes place after World War I. Chéri has been to the war, and is trying to fit in, live his married life, but is increasingly alienated from his wife, mother and the new, changed world. He is young, but a relic, more and more caught up in a past life that cannot be brought back. Léa has moved on - she abandoned herself to old age, corpulence, no more need for face powder, stays and hair dyes. She accepted the time of her life and set out to enjoy it. Chéri - he is younger. He is cursed.
The characters are pretty shallow and self-centered - but superbly observed and layered. Apart from Chéri, most significant characters are women, and mostly old women, as Chéri increasingly finds comfort in their company. The interactions, the dialogue are both petty and genius at the same time, the characters unfold through their words, expressions, movements. The atmosphere is decadent, feminine, sensual, and declining, showing a glory of a bygone era and beauty.
To be honest, the story does not really matter. I could just get lost in the writing. This was the most I enjoyed just prose flowing effortlessly, languishing, but never boring or difficult. I loved it, and will be reading more of her work.
The two novels are separated by six years. Chéri describes the ending of the relationship between Léa, an older but still beautiful courtesan at the end of her sexual carreer, and Chéri, a young, supremely beautiful but shallow man. They have long lived and loved together, but Chéri must get on with his young life, and must marry. As they try to deal with the separation, they realize it meant more than they thought - but it was doomed as they were at different points in their lives and they must let go.
The Last of Chéri takes place after World War I. Chéri has been to the war, and is trying to fit in, live his married life, but is increasingly alienated from his wife, mother and the new, changed world. He is young, but a relic, more and more caught up in a past life that cannot be brought back. Léa has moved on - she abandoned herself to old age, corpulence, no more need for face powder, stays and hair dyes. She accepted the time of her life and set out to enjoy it. Chéri - he is younger. He is cursed.
The characters are pretty shallow and self-centered - but superbly observed and layered. Apart from Chéri, most significant characters are women, and mostly old women, as Chéri increasingly finds comfort in their company. The interactions, the dialogue are both petty and genius at the same time, the characters unfold through their words, expressions, movements. The atmosphere is decadent, feminine, sensual, and declining, showing a glory of a bygone era and beauty.
To be honest, the story does not really matter. I could just get lost in the writing. This was the most I enjoyed just prose flowing effortlessly, languishing, but never boring or difficult. I loved it, and will be reading more of her work.
May 29, 2010
When Cheri came out, according to the Judith Thurman biography, there were people who objected to it on the basis of the characters being "worthless" and Colette said that they should think of them in the category of realistic stories of the poor, for who could be poorer than Lea and Cheri? This I think is quite true. The world they know, all they are aware of, is purely materialistic, hedonistic, and competitive. Game-playing, one-upmanship and the pursuit of money and momentary indulgences consume their lives. It does not show where Lea and Charlotte came from originally, but likely wherever it was, was no better than what they've achieved. And of course Cheri, as Charlotte's son, has had no reason to think there is anything else nor does he seem to have the capacity to notice a deeper reality. In the second, the real love that Cheri and Lea found, so alien to their environment and so awkward and insupportable that it ended their relationship, destroys Cheri completely, along with his inability to adjust to the complete vanishing of the world he was raised in behind the barrier of war and its aftermath.
November 14, 2010
Una storia d'amore dove tutto ciò che viene detto non fa che nascondere mille altre parole non dette. Dove ognuno dice ciò che non pensa e non fa ciò che dice.
Una storia che sin dalle prime pagine del libro indurrebbe a pensare si tratti di una storia di una notte e via e solo con stupore scopriamo che va avanti da sette anni.
E quelle pagine che a noi sembrano l'inizio non sono che l'inizio della fine.
Niente è come appare, eppure il lettore (il lettore del 2010 o già di quei tempi?) già sa tutto, già sa dove quell'amore (difficile da ammettere) andrà a parare.
Un amore così non può avere lunga vita, deve finire, non è giusto, non è vero.
Eppure ci sembra di vederla Nounoune innamorata come ragazzina, che ama come una donna, destinata all'infelicità perchè ha scoperto e ammesso di amare...
che tristezza questa storia...
Una storia che sin dalle prime pagine del libro indurrebbe a pensare si tratti di una storia di una notte e via e solo con stupore scopriamo che va avanti da sette anni.
E quelle pagine che a noi sembrano l'inizio non sono che l'inizio della fine.
Niente è come appare, eppure il lettore (il lettore del 2010 o già di quei tempi?) già sa tutto, già sa dove quell'amore (difficile da ammettere) andrà a parare.
Un amore così non può avere lunga vita, deve finire, non è giusto, non è vero.
Eppure ci sembra di vederla Nounoune innamorata come ragazzina, che ama come una donna, destinata all'infelicità perchè ha scoperto e ammesso di amare...
che tristezza questa storia...
August 12, 2024
Really loved the first book, as alluring as it is haunting. second book, not so much but still good!
January 19, 2016
Chéri ***
Un libro che mi ha lasciata abbastanza indifferente: in poco più che cento pagine assistiamo alla passione tra Chéri e Lea e la vediamo arrestarsi a causa di forze maggiori, lui si sposa e lei parte, lui è in difficoltà, lei torna e lui torna da lei ma...una trama degna dei migliori feuilleton.
In una Parigi frivola e fuori dalla righe, in salotti lussuosi e in compagnia di donne dalla morale discutibile o forse figlie di una vita alla ricerca di passioni e divertimenti come solo le cortigiane osavano vivere, Lea, bella e ricca cinquantenne, racconta la sua passione per il bel venticinquenne Chéri: un sentimento corrisposto e travolgente che dura da ben sette anni ma che verrà rovinato dall'inevitabile matrimonio di lui ma soprattutto dal passare del tempo.
Il tempo, il peggior nemico dell'uomo, è soprattutto il peggior nemico di Lea che dovrà farci i conti molto presto, il tempo passa in fretta ma quando si è ancora nell'età della giovinezza nessuno sembra farci caso; e Chéri proprio quando deciderà di dar retta al cuore si troverà davanti all'inevitabile verità.
E' un romanzo che a dispetto della trama frivola è tutt'altro che leggero o spensierato, è cosparso da una nube di tristezza e di malinconia e i protagonisti ne sono l'esempio lampante.
Lea è sicuramente il personaggio che più affascina, incanta con l'intelligenza e la prontezza nel ribattere; Chéri invece, ad eccezione del finale, mi è parso apatico, oltre la bellezza non fuoriesce null'altro che oziosità e prepotenza.
La fine di Chéri **
Scritto sei anni dopo il primo volume, La fine di Chéri è ancora più immerso in un'atmosfera cupa. Se nel libro precedente succede tutto in fretta in questo volume la situazione è agli antipodi, non succede assolutamente nulla e da spettatori guardiamo la nuova vita di Chéri trascorrere in solitudine, lentamente e direi anche inutilmente: intere pagine di paturnie, di dubbi, di cocente curiosità e di banalità, il protagonista altro non fa che ripensare al passato con sguardo malinconico e assente. Forse è proprio per questo che il volume non mi è piaciuto, talmente noioso da costringermi a saltare alcuni paragrafi per arrivare in fondo.
Lo stile di Colette è più maturo e ma anche più frenato, nel precedente volume mi è parso che tutto fosse sì frettoloso ma soprattutto ricco di brio; a tratti però, cosa che ho riscontrato in generale, si fa confusionario e caotico.
In una Parigi frivola in cui i sentimenti non fanno di certo da padroni anzi, vengono considerati meno che niente, non sono riuscita ad entrare in sintonia né con Lea, che non mi ha trasmesso nulla al di fuori di una tiepida compassione, né con Chéri che nel secondo volume ha confermato la pessima opinione che mi ero fatta sul suo conto, debole e senza carattere.
Voto finale: 2.5
Un libro che mi ha lasciata abbastanza indifferente: in poco più che cento pagine assistiamo alla passione tra Chéri e Lea e la vediamo arrestarsi a causa di forze maggiori, lui si sposa e lei parte, lui è in difficoltà, lei torna e lui torna da lei ma...una trama degna dei migliori feuilleton.
In una Parigi frivola e fuori dalla righe, in salotti lussuosi e in compagnia di donne dalla morale discutibile o forse figlie di una vita alla ricerca di passioni e divertimenti come solo le cortigiane osavano vivere, Lea, bella e ricca cinquantenne, racconta la sua passione per il bel venticinquenne Chéri: un sentimento corrisposto e travolgente che dura da ben sette anni ma che verrà rovinato dall'inevitabile matrimonio di lui ma soprattutto dal passare del tempo.
Il tempo, il peggior nemico dell'uomo, è soprattutto il peggior nemico di Lea che dovrà farci i conti molto presto, il tempo passa in fretta ma quando si è ancora nell'età della giovinezza nessuno sembra farci caso; e Chéri proprio quando deciderà di dar retta al cuore si troverà davanti all'inevitabile verità.
E' un romanzo che a dispetto della trama frivola è tutt'altro che leggero o spensierato, è cosparso da una nube di tristezza e di malinconia e i protagonisti ne sono l'esempio lampante.
Lea è sicuramente il personaggio che più affascina, incanta con l'intelligenza e la prontezza nel ribattere; Chéri invece, ad eccezione del finale, mi è parso apatico, oltre la bellezza non fuoriesce null'altro che oziosità e prepotenza.
La fine di Chéri **
Scritto sei anni dopo il primo volume, La fine di Chéri è ancora più immerso in un'atmosfera cupa. Se nel libro precedente succede tutto in fretta in questo volume la situazione è agli antipodi, non succede assolutamente nulla e da spettatori guardiamo la nuova vita di Chéri trascorrere in solitudine, lentamente e direi anche inutilmente: intere pagine di paturnie, di dubbi, di cocente curiosità e di banalità, il protagonista altro non fa che ripensare al passato con sguardo malinconico e assente. Forse è proprio per questo che il volume non mi è piaciuto, talmente noioso da costringermi a saltare alcuni paragrafi per arrivare in fondo.
Lo stile di Colette è più maturo e ma anche più frenato, nel precedente volume mi è parso che tutto fosse sì frettoloso ma soprattutto ricco di brio; a tratti però, cosa che ho riscontrato in generale, si fa confusionario e caotico.
In una Parigi frivola in cui i sentimenti non fanno di certo da padroni anzi, vengono considerati meno che niente, non sono riuscita ad entrare in sintonia né con Lea, che non mi ha trasmesso nulla al di fuori di una tiepida compassione, né con Chéri che nel secondo volume ha confermato la pessima opinione che mi ero fatta sul suo conto, debole e senza carattere.
Voto finale: 2.5
March 26, 2023
7/10
Chéri scratched a Dorian Gray part of my brain—a despicable and haughty man who everyone says is soooo beautiful, all told through luxurious and descriptive prose. However, I couldn’t refrain from applying some of my 21st-century sensibilities to the relationship between Chéri and Léa. Reading about how Léa watched Chéri grow up when she was the same age as his mother, only for them to begin an affair when he was in his early 20s….idk, felt kinda icky. I get that they’re subversive and French and blah blah blah. Still icky. HOWEVER—I did enjoy how Colette played with power dynamics and gender roles between the two characters.
The End of Chéri has a lot more depth. We’re post WW1, the Belle Époque is winding down, and Chéri can’t find his place in this changing world. His existential crisis, exacerbated by PTSD, turns Léa less into a person and more into a link to the glamorous past that he’s heard about from his mother and her friends. Chéri is consumed with nostalgia for an era he just missed, a sentiment similar to the current youth culture’s fascination with vinyl records, Y2K fashion, and anything else that connects them to a “simpler/more aesthetically interesting” time.
Mentally filing under “would’ve made great essay material during my degree”
Chéri scratched a Dorian Gray part of my brain—a despicable and haughty man who everyone says is soooo beautiful, all told through luxurious and descriptive prose. However, I couldn’t refrain from applying some of my 21st-century sensibilities to the relationship between Chéri and Léa. Reading about how Léa watched Chéri grow up when she was the same age as his mother, only for them to begin an affair when he was in his early 20s….idk, felt kinda icky. I get that they’re subversive and French and blah blah blah. Still icky. HOWEVER—I did enjoy how Colette played with power dynamics and gender roles between the two characters.
The End of Chéri has a lot more depth. We’re post WW1, the Belle Époque is winding down, and Chéri can’t find his place in this changing world. His existential crisis, exacerbated by PTSD, turns Léa less into a person and more into a link to the glamorous past that he’s heard about from his mother and her friends. Chéri is consumed with nostalgia for an era he just missed, a sentiment similar to the current youth culture’s fascination with vinyl records, Y2K fashion, and anything else that connects them to a “simpler/more aesthetically interesting” time.
Mentally filing under “would’ve made great essay material during my degree”
May 12, 2016
Technically two novels, but each one reads as half a story, which kinda reminded me of Knut Hamsun's The Wanderer (which is also made up of two short novels written years apart: Under the Autumn Star + On Muted Strings) where the second novel doesn't really feel like a sequel but a second half that completes the first, so really you need to read both back to back. First of all, this book isn't gunna be for everyone: the story, the style it's written in, the fact that you can say that basicly nothing happens in it. Basicly nothing happens, there's Chéri's affair with an older woman, brooding, taking, brooding, a little bit of drug taking and more brooding. But between all this, there are things i enjoyed. I liked the writing and the phrasing throughout, i also liked the dark humour which was very subtle. Also near the end of the book something i wasn't expecting happaned, against all odds (because basicly nothing happened) i realized that i really did care about Chéri and felt sorry for him, felt his disenchantment.
It's a very french book, and a enjoyable one at that.
It's a very french book, and a enjoyable one at that.
August 9, 2009
Warning: these two novels, collected in one volume, albeit translated by the same person, do not read the same. I felt in "The Last of Cheri" that I was being cheated of both a sensual and spiritual element of the story that would explain Cheri's actions at the end. Well, I suppose it serves me right for not reading the two in French myself, as another reviewer here on goodreads did.
But don't not read these novels, either. Colette is a master of human psychology, especially the power plays in a love affair, a marriage, and the relationship between parent and child. The Stephen Frears film uses Colette's own dialog to create dramatic tension, and with its beautiful sets, surrounds us with the beauty of pre-WWI France, at least as experienced by the grossly rich.
What's missing from the film is the content of the second book, the description of Paris in the Age of "Anxiety." Her term, by the way, not the one I learned when I studied "The Great Gatsby."
But don't not read these novels, either. Colette is a master of human psychology, especially the power plays in a love affair, a marriage, and the relationship between parent and child. The Stephen Frears film uses Colette's own dialog to create dramatic tension, and with its beautiful sets, surrounds us with the beauty of pre-WWI France, at least as experienced by the grossly rich.
What's missing from the film is the content of the second book, the description of Paris in the Age of "Anxiety." Her term, by the way, not the one I learned when I studied "The Great Gatsby."
June 14, 2013
Sorry, Colette, I just can't complete this glorified chick lit whose only saving grace is that it was written in the early 20th century and set in glamorous cities in France. I couldn't care less about the inane and superficial characters of Cheri and Lea--excessively concerned with everyone else's bank accounts and what they are wearing and what villa or hotel they last visited. This didn't pass my 50 page test. So very disappointing, and it sounded so exciting--a romance between an older woman and a younger man that seems to have run its course. I really wanted to like it, but there's no there there. "Cheri" just proves what I have always known from my experience as a voracious reader--rich people make boring and lousy protagonists. Colette should just stick to writing memoir, because the characters from her real life in "My Mother's House" and "Sido" are so much more interesting and substantial than any of the fictional characters I have seen her invent in her novels.
December 11, 2013
You have to love Colette for the ability to mix sensuous description with poignantly tragic emotion. It's doom, but pleasantly related. The mix is disturbing in many ways, which I think is intentional and interesting. It's not something you can really feel sorry for, at the same time that you do.
April 3, 2013
Romantico, retrò... Deliziosa lettura: serve un divano,una luce calda, possibilmente qualche candela, tè caldo ed un pomeriggio libero!
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July 26, 2025I've wanted to read Colette and particularly Chéri and The End of Chéri for years. It's one of those books I've had on my shelf in one edition or other for so long, it's as if I've already read it. There's also Colette's mythical reputation and one's attendant aspirations for Love! Beauty! Freedom! It could be this familiarity and the expectations that came with it, and probably where my brain is at the moment, but I wasn't as taken with the book as I would have liked. Still, it was a pleasurable read with some truly rapturous moments. The dialogue and inner commentary were especially luminous, though there was some getting used to on my part with the turns of phrase and overall liveliness of Colette's style. Judith Thurman, in her introduction to this new translation by Paul Eprile, writes "I have never wanted to read Colette in English because she has never sounded like Colette. Finally, in this volume, she does. Eprile inhabits her." I have no other reference, so I'm taking her word for it, but there is indeed a manner and rhythm that feel distinct from works that have been anglicized in the course of their translation to English. Colette's famous sensuousness pervades the two novellas especially Chéri. The unbridled access to the intimacies not only between lovers but of closely held truths is kind of mortifying but it's impossible to look away. In Colette's boudoirs, love is a battle and whoever exposes their feelings loses. Anything goes to gain the upper hand, if it's by exploiting desire, or landing a choice insult, or even an unexpected show of kindness. Perhaps predictably, I found myself more interested in the women than Chéri himself. Aging courtesan Lea de Lonval is confronted with her mortality when her time with Chéri must come to an end. In The End of Chéri, the superior sequel, the women in Cheri's life find purpose in post-war France even as he becomes increasingly isolated from this new age. I thought the final chapters dragged a bit, though I'm careful not to dismiss Colette's drawn out narration of Cheri's decline as she mourns an era forever lost to war and time.
February 14, 2022
As ever a beautiful sensual read i always go back to read Colette-
April 13, 2020
5 stars for Cheri, 3 stars for The Last is Cheri.
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April 27, 2023What a disappointment! I am utterly fascinated by Colette as a person, and the 2018 film about her life is one of my all time favorites, if not THE all time favorite, but it appears I just don't jive with her writing in a way that can't be blamed on bad translation. The prose is simply too vague and intuitive for my taste, and it severely impeded my ability to connect to any of the characters, or even to follow the plot. To me, it suffers from an excess of showing, not telling, and I found myself frequently rereading passages over and over again with no idea of what Colette wanted me to be able to infer from a particular gaze or other minute gesture. Normally I love character-driven fiction, but this is too far for me.
Appreciate the author and can tell it's an objectively good piece of writing, it's just not to my taste. I really do prefer the excesses of the 19th century's prose to the more minimalist stuff that came after.
Appreciate the author and can tell it's an objectively good piece of writing, it's just not to my taste. I really do prefer the excesses of the 19th century's prose to the more minimalist stuff that came after.
May 7, 2013
Lui mi ha molto infastidito con quell'indolenza, quella voglia di "non far nulla" e l'ossessione per la bellezza spesso solo fine a sè stessa.
Lei, l'amante, mi è sembrata vuota e poco incisiva, personaggio di sfondo in una vita che aveva bisogno di lei solo per potercisi rispecchiare e vedere sè stesso sempre più bello, giovane e desiderato.
L'altra, la moglie, è stata l'unica che apparentemente succube, è stata in grado di ritagliarsi un ruolo di protagonista nella propria vita, ha cambiato marcia rispetto al marito ed è partita, lasciandosi dietro la bella ma inutile zavorra di uomo che aveva sposato!!!
Nel complesso però il libro non mi ha preso e troppo spesso mi ha infastidito ed irritato.
Peccato perchè prometteva bene...
Lei, l'amante, mi è sembrata vuota e poco incisiva, personaggio di sfondo in una vita che aveva bisogno di lei solo per potercisi rispecchiare e vedere sè stesso sempre più bello, giovane e desiderato.
L'altra, la moglie, è stata l'unica che apparentemente succube, è stata in grado di ritagliarsi un ruolo di protagonista nella propria vita, ha cambiato marcia rispetto al marito ed è partita, lasciandosi dietro la bella ma inutile zavorra di uomo che aveva sposato!!!
Nel complesso però il libro non mi ha preso e troppo spesso mi ha infastidito ed irritato.
Peccato perchè prometteva bene...
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