Earthly Paradise: Colette's Autobiography, drawn from the writings of her lifetime, by Robert Phelps

by Colette

The place of Colette among twentieth-century French writers of fiction is comparable to that of Proust. But Colette's high and certain rank in literature is determined equally by her autobiographical writings as by her novels: the imaginary characters of Cheri, Gigi, Claudine, et al. can only rival, but not excel, Colette's portraits of her family and her extraordinary friends and acquaintances, from Proust himself, younger than she, to Maurice Ravel, her collaborator for the opera L'Enfant et les Sortileges.
Drawn from some forty books of her non-fiction, Earthly Paradise may be described as the autobiography of her myth. It is a vivid, year-by-year revelation of a long, eager, courageous life; it is an extraordinary personal history containing scandals, marriages, motherhood, two world wars, abounding friendships; and it is a narration of the manifold stresses of a profoundly ambivalent nature. Her chronicles are tempered with suffering, self-control, work, discipline, and, above all, joy of life. "Look!" she once advised a young writer, "look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you..."
Colette believed that to be born sentient and watchful is a miracle, and that the earthly paradise around us is as awesome an index to heaven as we shall probably know. For Colette, there was always something worth looking at--whether the petals of an orchid, or the way Sarah Bernhart poured coffee, or her own heartbreak. This lifetime pantheistic homage was not so much a "message" as her own form of daily prayer. Colette seems destined to become one of those rare writers whose literary achievement is something grander: a personal myth incarnating a point of view in human culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Classics, France, Biography, LGBT, Biography Memoir

505 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

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

[Georgia Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books are takers. They get your time and leave you broke. This one left me richer. I return to it when I'm running low. But my first thought was "Am I the reader for this?" I hadn't read Colette before (I have since.) What would these excerpts from her prose give me? And what right would I have to judge them?

I'll tell you. They gave me joy. There is joy in Colette's relationship with her mother Sido, a woman she describes as ever flowering despite serious illness and other trials. There is the joy of French food demystified and mouthwatering. There is the joy of fortitude when a man running from the Nazis is told by a woman to hide in her bed. There is joy wherever this author looks.

Dip into or read it from cover to cover. Either way, I promise, you'll be sated.

[Arwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books I turn to when I'm out of sorts, to take comfort in Colette's deceptively simple essays about growing up in the countryside in France and the twists and turns her life took after. I'm fondest of the early part, as she writes ode after ode to her mother, a passionate gardener and amateur naturalist, peeling apart the layers of complexity she came to recognize as she grew up. Colette combines an exquisite sense of the natural world with a sometimes cruel, sometimes kind view of human nature. You come away seeing with clearer eyes of your own.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I checked this book out from the school library which still uses those cards attached to the back cover stamped with due dates. I like seeing the history. Above mine, only two: DEC 05 1995. JUN 12 1992. A forgotten author. On Goodreads, barely 100 ratings.

It's a strange, wonderful book. There's a lot in it. I love the World War II entries. The final Blue Lantern section. Sido and childhood. The descriptions of nature, flowers, the seasons, food. And the portraits, she gives a beautiful one of Proust. At the end of a dinner party:

Our host stood listening to me, in front of the Ritz colonnade. The silence of the night, and the mist cutting off our view of the square, surrounded Proust with a halo exactly suited to his decline and his prestige. With his top hat pushed back, a great lock of hair covering his brow, ceremonious and disheveled, he looked like a young and drunken wedding guest. The stifled light emerging from the entrance hall, and a white, theatrical reflection striking up from the cracked shirt front, highlighted his chin and the curving lines of his eyebrows. He greatly enjoyed my little barefoot-beggar-girl story, and when he exclaimed: "No, really, do you?" a smile I could not describe, a sort of youthful astonishment, remodeled all his features. As we finally took our leave of him, he stepped back, waved goodbye with one hand, and the darkness once more hollowed out the deep sockets of his eyes and filled with ashes the black oval of his mouth, gaping in its quest for air.

Great.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

(10/10) Far more than the memoirs of a half-remembered author, Earthly Paradise is a collection of memories and experiences that speak to every part of life with both sensual and intellectual brilliance. There's an erotic undercurrent to the most innocent of memories, supplied by Colette's lush prose and teasing hints as to the scandals of her life. And there's no shortage of witticisms, some of which I actually laughed at.

If you're interested in reading an autobiographical modernist narrative that deals with issues of memory and eroticism, I would reccomend Colette over Proust any day of the week. It's a couple thousand pages shorter, much more readable, and a lot kinder to everyone involved. Or maybe it's just the lack of dinner parties I prefer.

I came to this book via Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, and only belatedly realized that it's in part a compilation of Colette's various autobiographical works. I'm really interested in reading all of the books it draws on now, as well as Colette's fiction. So like any great book, this one just leads me to countless more books. Not that I'm complaining.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty)]

This is one of those books that calls for a raid on the stash:



January 6, 2020
I'm still working my way through this, but it's going to take me months, so I'm marking it "read" to get it off my currently reading list.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arwen and I met a boy named Boris on a train from the coast of Greece into Athens. Boris was a handsome, rakish kind of a lad, and he smoked a cigarette and traveled up and down the train talking to everyone on it. He asked Arwen what she was reading and she was reading Proust. She'd brought Proust on the trip because he was so heavy and chock full that one couldn't possibly finish him even on a six-week trip, so she'd only have to bring the one book. Boris told us that his father had been reading Proust his entire life. When he finished, he'd just open it up at the beginning and read it again.

I haven't gotten into Proust in the same way, perhaps just because he's a man. I know I've loved the few pages I've read and I want to read more. For me, though, the touchstone would have to be Earthly Paradise. I love the way Colette writes in this, in a friendly everyday manner, and I think that the focus on the quotidian helps me remember that the small things are the Tale (which may, after all, just be: you lived).

[Laura Yan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colette's writing is simply exquisite. As are her insights on life, love, sex, theater, flowers, animals, and of course, the incomparable Sido. This is a lesson in the beauty of observation, in poetic prose, in noticing and capturing what's so often overlooked. This is a book to be savored slowly, for the pleasure of language and of reading.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit I only read this because it features in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Disappointed there's virtually no lesbianism to be found within this 500+ tome - Amalia X on pg 397 is the only mention of dykery. Colette does write well, though, which makes it an enjoyable read.

[Krisette Spangler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This literary gem is the story of Colette's life told through essays she wrote throughout the course of her life. I particularly loved the essays from her childhood and WWII. Collette's writing is so vivid you can see, smell and taste what she is describing. This is an absolute treasure.

[Jan Morrison]

Again, rereading favorites. This collection of journal entries, letters and short pieces is my favorite Colette. Rereading it I notice I'm drawn to different sections than earlier reads. I love her descriptions of the countryside and her reflections on aging.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written excepts of Colette's life. Her descriptions of her mother are wonderful.

[Elan Durham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most lyrical collection of musings by one of France's most admired prose stylists.

[Briar Fleming · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Cassidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

well this was certifiably a slog. maybe this is how people feel when they’ve just finished a marathon? i read this for half a paragraph that was quoted in some other book i read 4 years ago that sparked the idea that ultimately became my thesis.

“…she is silent when she sews, silent for hours on end…she is silent, and she—why not write it down the word that frightens me—she is thinking.”- colette

it still gives me chills. she has a way of naming things that speaks directly to something deep within me. the way she writes about the natural world, her childhood, and the little bits of textile stuff was all incredibly compelling. unfortunately for me, the rest was just a challenge. this is a collection of disjointed writings from across her life and i really struggled with the lack of real narrative. i never found myself wanting to pick it up.

i’m not sure i can recommend this to anyone unless they’re a real colette-head, or maybe a franco-philo with a lot more patience than me. i’m glad i read it but more than that i’m glad to be done.

[Debbie Hoskins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going back about 30 years. I'm pretty sure this is the book. I remember the cover. Colette had a fascinating life and I was inspired by it in my early 20's.

[Sophie Houston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect. Utterly perfect.

[Pan Ellington · Rating 4 out of 5]

rich, beautiful prose. and sensuous as f*ck. another read that made me feel as though i was dreaming...

[William Guerrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colette did not write an autobiography. But within her large body of work there is enough autobiographical material to enable this author to stitch together a sort-of autobiography. A pleasure to read.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book in parts and at other times was less engaged.
It was an excellent idea of Robert Phelps to collect together extracts of her writing to form a sort of life story. Unfortunately there are some failings in his execution of the idea: he has included too much; he hasn't made it completely chronological or completely thematic, so one is left confused about the sequence of her life; he has been inconsistent in the way he headed the sections.
Colette herself speaks of 'no narrative, just separate brush strokes and splashes of colour.' This leaves the reader feeling the lack of a narrative or an idea. It worked best for me in the early sections about her childhood and especially the later part when she is ageing. Other sections occasionally work as brilliant descriptions of fire or flowers, showing a personal response, but are a bit indigestible en masse.
Her ideas about human relationships seem superficial. Her style is journalistic.
It was annoying not to have a list explaining the initials used for the titles of books, so I couldn't work out where extracts were from.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent representation of Colette’s great writing. I read many of Colette’s books prior to reading earthly paradise so a lot was repetitive. I really enjoyed the new sections of the book . I wish again that the book had been available in French it always looses the author’s touch when transalated

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Lovely memoir of Colette; this autobio is an examination of Colette's life. Absolutely beautiful; delicious language. I greatly enjoyed this book

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written. Interesting, intelligent and courageous woman. I would expect that women readers will enjoy this more than the rest of us. Fourth star is for women readers, surely the majority.

[a.d. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extraordinarily dazzling look into the life of one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth-century. i do think that she could give proust a run for his money – and they were contemporary.
Earthly Paradise is a collection of Colette's writings, rather than a straightforward autobiography, and therein lies its singular significance: it is not merely an author telling us things about their life, but an intimate look, an almost character study ... the form, idea, content of Colette materialises through her stories, precise observations, journalistic pieces, fiction and poetic language. i find that to be a revolutionary concept – so, much credit also to the editor and the translators.

Colette is perhaps one of the most beautiful writers whose language is simultaneously sharp, sonorous and delicious. the way she describes a flower, the way she writes about a friend, about France during the world wars, all open a window into her own soul. She lived a truly unique life, and this book is the perfect mirror that holds its reflection with incomparable delicacy and accuracy.

[Juan Ramon Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s difficult to rate this book as it is a compilation of essays that are placed to create a memoir of Colette but I can say that it proved to be difficult to read. Colette is a writer that can paint with words and at times, though I appreciated the writing, I found myself reading words; details of encounters with notable figures and dialogue that I couldn’t decipher. Maybe it’s just me but it took me a while to even finish this book due to how hard the writing was to understand. Nonetheless, it was fascinating to read and understand the voice of this great French writer and maybe I will revisit this work in the he future and I will understand it better.

[Sofia Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! This is a collection of Collette’s non-fiction writings, compiled in a a sensible way to outline the story of her life. These works were not originally intended to be published in this format, which I would argue is important to understand and acknowledge.
I really enjoyed the sections that were centered around the themes of solitude and loneliness. Collette has a great way of describing these themes honestly. She describes them in a way that is not overwhelming positive or negative which I really appreciate.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her pen puts us where her eyes have been. Lavish and loving descriptions of flowers, sea, sand and sky. Of rooms, writing implements, paper, of faces, emotions- jealousy is well covered, of her mother but not so much about her men. She wrote about what was important to her. Not much about literature, except for immersion in Balzac, and given her addiction to writing, there wasn't much about that either.

[Jessica Whittemore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman can make the most mundane topic reveal itself as a scintillating and vital with her incredible writing style.

[☔ Mickey ☕]

hoping this one doesn't run out

[Rory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect introduction, incredible storyteller and a complete master of mingling an honest voice with beautiful prose

[Christina Manolescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even in translation, these are transcendent descriptions of life and nature