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Break of Day
Colette began writing Break of Day in her early fifties, at Saint-Tropez on the Côte d'Azur, where she had bought a small house after the breakup of her second marriage. The novel's theme--the renunciation of love and the return to an independent existence supported and enriched by the beauty and peace of nature--grows out of Colette's own period of self-assessment in the middle of her life. A collection of subtle reflections about love and life, it is among her most thoughtful and stylistically bold works.
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
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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 103 reviews
May 12, 2008
Red, pink, blue, pimento, moths, cats, dogs, birds, sand, wind, sea, moon. This book is so full of incredible descriptions of our everyday world, its colors, its inhabitants, its smell and look and feel. These details make me want to open my eyes wider and to savor every experience. It makes me want to live more fully (not even sure what that would mean), to love more fully, to eat an omelette more fully...
It's about a woman at the age of fifty after her second divorce spending the summer in a French beach town vacillating between taking a lover or remaining single. Her dead mother is there to guide her in the form of letters, words, and actions remembered by her daughter. The story is small and not very dramatic. But it's amazing that what was written eighty years ago in such a different world, for women at least, and in another country is still fresh and pertinent today. It was wonderful that the descriptions of the sights and sounds or her little world could reach out to me today and make me feel so much, remember so much. It's like recalling my childhood and all the things that were wondrous to me then and making me feel this all over again.
I especially loved her descriptions of animals, her and her mother's tenderness and consciousness of them. For example in recalling her mother, "And I still see your light foot making a detour to spare a little grass-snake, stretched out happily on a warm path." To me this is appreciation of life, love of life. And this is most what this book seems about. Colette says, "Death does not interest me - not even my own." Of course I don't take her completely at her word, but at least for these 140 pages I truly believe her.
It's about a woman at the age of fifty after her second divorce spending the summer in a French beach town vacillating between taking a lover or remaining single. Her dead mother is there to guide her in the form of letters, words, and actions remembered by her daughter. The story is small and not very dramatic. But it's amazing that what was written eighty years ago in such a different world, for women at least, and in another country is still fresh and pertinent today. It was wonderful that the descriptions of the sights and sounds or her little world could reach out to me today and make me feel so much, remember so much. It's like recalling my childhood and all the things that were wondrous to me then and making me feel this all over again.
I especially loved her descriptions of animals, her and her mother's tenderness and consciousness of them. For example in recalling her mother, "And I still see your light foot making a detour to spare a little grass-snake, stretched out happily on a warm path." To me this is appreciation of life, love of life. And this is most what this book seems about. Colette says, "Death does not interest me - not even my own." Of course I don't take her completely at her word, but at least for these 140 pages I truly believe her.
April 10, 2024
oh Colette- I am rereading some of her books . this one is particularly gorgeous. Written in her middle age she buys a small house in St Tropez. She is so in love with her house and her garden the cats,the birds ,the descriptions are so elaborate and so vivid you can smell the herbs and the flowers and hear the waves . She also has a certain contentment with her age ,where she is and finally she is where she belongs. This is a very fine state i also am in love with my battered 1940`s house ,it has been waiting for me. I am planning to plant trees and shrubbery every year while i can and hope i can feel that satisfied rooted feeling that she felt too. such beautiful reads.
February 26, 2017
This is the quintessential book about nothing (really, nothing happens at all, and the climactic scene is an intense conversation in which Colette gets to be smug about being too old and powerful to give any fucks anymore). As with all Colette’s writing, her surroundings (St. Tropez this time!) are all-important, vividly depicted, and make you wonder how you tolerate your colorless existence. There’s the sun-soaked garden and swimming in the Mediterranean, fragrant evening air and simple meals and dancing. Excuse me while I weep at my cubicle.
Something I found interesting - this book is supposedly semi-autobiographical and to read it you’d develop the impression that Colette was elderly when it all happened. She was actually probably nearing 50, so that sort of dampens the fascination of a strapping 35-year-old falling in love with a much-older French lady.
Something I found interesting - this book is supposedly semi-autobiographical and to read it you’d develop the impression that Colette was elderly when it all happened. She was actually probably nearing 50, so that sort of dampens the fascination of a strapping 35-year-old falling in love with a much-older French lady.
November 6, 2014
This is the first book I have read by Colette and I gather it is not regarded as her best. Published in 1928 when she was in her fifties and established in her fame, this has a poetical, stream of consciousness style, beautiful and original when applied to the landscape and climate of coastal Provence, to her passion for gardening and cats, but somewhat precious, at times tedious, when the theme is the nature of love, and her relationship with her mother.
There is a good deal of falsity here, although it is hard to say to what extent Colette is deluding herself or deceiving the reader. The book begins, ends and is punctuated with letters from her deceased "muse" of a mother, yet I believe that Colette edited these letters to suit her purpose and, despite repeated claims of her admiration, apparently found her mother impossible in real life.
In a blurring of autobiography and fiction, Colette claims to have given up love, but her innate sensuality belies this, together with the vanity which makes her unable to resist seducing and encouraging for long enough to cause havoc, her handsome neighbour Vial, despite plans to marry him off to a young painter called Hélène who is besotted with him, but devastated by the belief that Colette is his mistress, which again Colette does not deny. This triangular love affair appears to be completely fictional and may have been intended as a cue for Colette to explore love and renunciation, although it mainly serves to show her as egotistical and capricious. This romantic thread is impressionistic and ambiguous, perhaps in keeping with the novel's style, and so open to different interpretations, which could be a strength although it may leave the reader frustrated by its lack of development.
This novel needs to be read more than once to appreciate it fully. It encourages discussion, assisted by a knowledge of Colette's life. It told me little about relationships, but is memorable - if read in the original French - for its sensual evocation of nature - "un jour qui coule en instants bleus et or.... une tristesse de soleil" - and of cats in all their fascinating movements and moods. I like the little touches of wry humour as when a neighbour protests over Hélène feeding Colette's cat with moths burnt in a lamp. To paraphrase: "Why not?" Colette snorts. "They're made of fat and roasted. Naturally I wouldn't set out to grill moths for cats, but you can't stop them flying into lamps".
My four stars were given after a period of reflection with a sense of relief at having finished the book. The reading of it in French (as a second language) was an ordeal, with the striking, evocative passages of prose obstructed by frustrating paragraphs I found hard to understand without the aid of a English translation.
There is a good deal of falsity here, although it is hard to say to what extent Colette is deluding herself or deceiving the reader. The book begins, ends and is punctuated with letters from her deceased "muse" of a mother, yet I believe that Colette edited these letters to suit her purpose and, despite repeated claims of her admiration, apparently found her mother impossible in real life.
In a blurring of autobiography and fiction, Colette claims to have given up love, but her innate sensuality belies this, together with the vanity which makes her unable to resist seducing and encouraging for long enough to cause havoc, her handsome neighbour Vial, despite plans to marry him off to a young painter called Hélène who is besotted with him, but devastated by the belief that Colette is his mistress, which again Colette does not deny. This triangular love affair appears to be completely fictional and may have been intended as a cue for Colette to explore love and renunciation, although it mainly serves to show her as egotistical and capricious. This romantic thread is impressionistic and ambiguous, perhaps in keeping with the novel's style, and so open to different interpretations, which could be a strength although it may leave the reader frustrated by its lack of development.
This novel needs to be read more than once to appreciate it fully. It encourages discussion, assisted by a knowledge of Colette's life. It told me little about relationships, but is memorable - if read in the original French - for its sensual evocation of nature - "un jour qui coule en instants bleus et or.... une tristesse de soleil" - and of cats in all their fascinating movements and moods. I like the little touches of wry humour as when a neighbour protests over Hélène feeding Colette's cat with moths burnt in a lamp. To paraphrase: "Why not?" Colette snorts. "They're made of fat and roasted. Naturally I wouldn't set out to grill moths for cats, but you can't stop them flying into lamps".
My four stars were given after a period of reflection with a sense of relief at having finished the book. The reading of it in French (as a second language) was an ordeal, with the striking, evocative passages of prose obstructed by frustrating paragraphs I found hard to understand without the aid of a English translation.
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April 3, 2025“A woman lays claim to as many native lands as she has had happy loves. She is born, too, under every sky where she has recovered from the pain of loving.”
The 1928 novella Break of Day is a contemplative book written by Colette, one of the most celebrated female authors of France, in a time of deep introspection and isolation during the latter years of her life. An experimental work that does not keep strictly to fiction or nonfiction, Break of Day twines the two in an artfully ambiguous narrative of such felt gentleness. The narrative, despite being so sparse as to be almost nonexistent, contains a wealth of emotion. Truly, between long passages of introspection, internal musings and remembrances, and gorgeously vivid descriptions of everything from human relationships to color to the dance of the salt air on the delicate summer plants, there are but a handful of scenes with any semblance of forward momentum. This novel has what feels like two and a half scenes of any distinguishable, memorable quality, and yet the prose is so filled with feeling and substance that the experience of reading Break of Day has yet to fade from my mind since turning the last page weeks ago.
“‘The worst thing in a woman’s life: her first man.’ He is the only one you die of.”
In this story, Colette, who is at once herself and yet also a fiction, is grappling with her decision to free herself from the cycle of romantic love, to cast off that ghost which has haunted her for the length of her life. A prominent aspect of this self-journey involves another ghost entirely, however, that of her deceased mother whose presence seems always with her. She shares snippets of letters penned by her mother and recounts tales and memories of this woman she so admired. Colette often compares herself to the ideals she saw within her mother, asking herself and her mother’s memory if Sido would be proud of her. These two ideas, a woman’s ongoing preoccupation with romantic love of one man or another as well as a woman’s admiration of her mother, make the novel. Colette is attempting to escape the constant desire to be in love, to be consumed by the heat and heartbreak of romance, in order to find the peace of a later stage of life.
“...An age comes for a woman when, instead of clinging to beautiful feet that are impatient to roam the world, expressing herself in soothing words, boring tears and burning, ever-shorter sighs--an age comes when the only thing that is left for her is to enrich her own self.”
Though she wishes to embody the contented self reliance and self assurance she so longs for not only for herself but also for her mother’s memory, it is not an easy transition. Colette cannot so simply do what she has set out to, cannot be what she believes came so effortlessly to the individualistic Sido. Despite her commitment to the task, Colette is still a woman of whom the desire to love and be loved is easily rekindled and not so easily ignored. A woman of passion and feeling, Colette’s descriptions of the all consuming nature of love and moments of passing beauty and connection seem to settle in the bones with the rightness of them, the truth of them.
“Giving becomes a sort of neurosis, a fierce egotistical frenzy. ‘Here’s a new tie, a cup of hot milk, a shred of my own live flesh, a box of cigarettes, a conversation, a journey, a kiss, a word of advice, the shelter of my arms, an idea. Take! And don’t dream of refusing unless you want me to burst. I can’t give you less, so put up with it!’”
And all throughout the book does Colette exhibit such a care for words, such an eye for detail and a skill for painting a moment vividly within the mind’s eye. She has the ability to dazzle the reader with almost every sentence, not, I think, out of a desire to simply impress one with her words but to so accurately share the experience of singular moments in time. Her descriptions of the summer landscape, of the small house she keeps near the sea and the animals who accompany her in this “lonely” pursuit of hers are bursting with the joy and perfection of life. Her ability to craft atmosphere, to transport the reader to a moment in time when the blue of morning is just seeping in through the windows, is unmatched in its mastery.
It is difficult to describe just how a novel that seems to do little beyond serve as a meditative jumble of thoughts has so unsuspectingly left such an impression, but I hope I was able to express at least enough to encourage someone else to consider reading Colette’s work. Break of Day is a slow book, but one that creeps up on you. And after it has, it stays there.
The 1928 novella Break of Day is a contemplative book written by Colette, one of the most celebrated female authors of France, in a time of deep introspection and isolation during the latter years of her life. An experimental work that does not keep strictly to fiction or nonfiction, Break of Day twines the two in an artfully ambiguous narrative of such felt gentleness. The narrative, despite being so sparse as to be almost nonexistent, contains a wealth of emotion. Truly, between long passages of introspection, internal musings and remembrances, and gorgeously vivid descriptions of everything from human relationships to color to the dance of the salt air on the delicate summer plants, there are but a handful of scenes with any semblance of forward momentum. This novel has what feels like two and a half scenes of any distinguishable, memorable quality, and yet the prose is so filled with feeling and substance that the experience of reading Break of Day has yet to fade from my mind since turning the last page weeks ago.
“‘The worst thing in a woman’s life: her first man.’ He is the only one you die of.”
In this story, Colette, who is at once herself and yet also a fiction, is grappling with her decision to free herself from the cycle of romantic love, to cast off that ghost which has haunted her for the length of her life. A prominent aspect of this self-journey involves another ghost entirely, however, that of her deceased mother whose presence seems always with her. She shares snippets of letters penned by her mother and recounts tales and memories of this woman she so admired. Colette often compares herself to the ideals she saw within her mother, asking herself and her mother’s memory if Sido would be proud of her. These two ideas, a woman’s ongoing preoccupation with romantic love of one man or another as well as a woman’s admiration of her mother, make the novel. Colette is attempting to escape the constant desire to be in love, to be consumed by the heat and heartbreak of romance, in order to find the peace of a later stage of life.
“...An age comes for a woman when, instead of clinging to beautiful feet that are impatient to roam the world, expressing herself in soothing words, boring tears and burning, ever-shorter sighs--an age comes when the only thing that is left for her is to enrich her own self.”
Though she wishes to embody the contented self reliance and self assurance she so longs for not only for herself but also for her mother’s memory, it is not an easy transition. Colette cannot so simply do what she has set out to, cannot be what she believes came so effortlessly to the individualistic Sido. Despite her commitment to the task, Colette is still a woman of whom the desire to love and be loved is easily rekindled and not so easily ignored. A woman of passion and feeling, Colette’s descriptions of the all consuming nature of love and moments of passing beauty and connection seem to settle in the bones with the rightness of them, the truth of them.
“Giving becomes a sort of neurosis, a fierce egotistical frenzy. ‘Here’s a new tie, a cup of hot milk, a shred of my own live flesh, a box of cigarettes, a conversation, a journey, a kiss, a word of advice, the shelter of my arms, an idea. Take! And don’t dream of refusing unless you want me to burst. I can’t give you less, so put up with it!’”
And all throughout the book does Colette exhibit such a care for words, such an eye for detail and a skill for painting a moment vividly within the mind’s eye. She has the ability to dazzle the reader with almost every sentence, not, I think, out of a desire to simply impress one with her words but to so accurately share the experience of singular moments in time. Her descriptions of the summer landscape, of the small house she keeps near the sea and the animals who accompany her in this “lonely” pursuit of hers are bursting with the joy and perfection of life. Her ability to craft atmosphere, to transport the reader to a moment in time when the blue of morning is just seeping in through the windows, is unmatched in its mastery.
It is difficult to describe just how a novel that seems to do little beyond serve as a meditative jumble of thoughts has so unsuspectingly left such an impression, but I hope I was able to express at least enough to encourage someone else to consider reading Colette’s work. Break of Day is a slow book, but one that creeps up on you. And after it has, it stays there.
December 26, 2021
I honestly think this was one of the top 5 or 10 books I read this year. I’m too near. But it’s a beautiful book- sentences that make you put the book down and stare at the ceiling….above all, Colette doesn’t moralize….what she does do is have a belief in life and how to enjoy it with dignity…there’s a right way to die, to love, to enjoy your tangerine trees, to enjoy saying goodbye to youthful desire. Wisdom. A book that could change you. I’m afraid of time…it never stops….Colette has her qualms with it but she is attuned to the rhythms of it, the sky at noon, the break of day, the hour before dusk….these are the measures of her soul….Sunday morning (watch out the world’s behind you!):
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.
Man, how can people not love to read?! I feel blessed to have these books and musics and art in my life…they, honestly, help me get through. One foot, another foot….yeah, in the end you die but so many people, writers wanted to talk to us through time….
”oh jake we could have had such a damned good time together.”
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.
Man, how can people not love to read?! I feel blessed to have these books and musics and art in my life…they, honestly, help me get through. One foot, another foot….yeah, in the end you die but so many people, writers wanted to talk to us through time….
”oh jake we could have had such a damned good time together.”
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
August 17, 2017
Reading Break of Day for the second time, 11 years later, I liked it better. I had more patience for the appropriately laconic pacing and enjoyed the prose more. Whether it's because I'm older or was just in the mood for something unhurried, I can't say. It's like a soup that's been simmering on the stove all day... better for the time and care taken to reach its point.
My only complaint, such as it is, was with the last quarter or so, which felt tacked on. Her mediation on her mother fits with the theme of a woman reflection on maturing into middle age, but its presence adds very little to the narrative excepting bulk. Without it, the novella would hardly have justified its own volume, yet it treads ground that Colette was covering over and over during this time period: another tribute to her mother.
Maybe in another decade I'll feel differently.
My only complaint, such as it is, was with the last quarter or so, which felt tacked on. Her mediation on her mother fits with the theme of a woman reflection on maturing into middle age, but its presence adds very little to the narrative excepting bulk. Without it, the novella would hardly have justified its own volume, yet it treads ground that Colette was covering over and over during this time period: another tribute to her mother.
Maybe in another decade I'll feel differently.
April 13, 2024
Rosalega töff pælingar, þurfti samt að lesa hana allt of hratt (fyrir skólann) svo ég náði ekki öllu. Colette eyðir svolitlum tíma í sveitinni eftir seinni skilnaðinn sinn og er þessi bók einhvers konar uppgjör/sættir við ástina. Mikið um fallegar náttúrumyndir og áhugaverðar pælingar um það að eldast. Hún hugsar um sjálfa sig sem rithöfund og mátar sig við móður sína og bréfaskriftir hennar. Afskaplega kúl femínískur texti um hvað það er að vera kona á þessum tíma, sérstaklega þá fráskilin kona, kona sem skrifar, miðaldra kona, dóttir, tvíkynhneigð kona en líka lífvera sem tengist í stærra samhengi jarðar.
Mjög erfiður texti, smá eins og að reyna að lesa Joyce nema bara á frönsku, en mæli samt með!
--
Annar lestur: vá vá vá !
Mjög erfiður texti, smá eins og að reyna að lesa Joyce nema bara á frönsku, en mæli samt með!
--
Annar lestur: vá vá vá !
September 1, 2014
This novel, rich in layers, is filled with calculated beauty. If you prefer a more “traditional” plotline/story arc, then this isn’t for you. The subtext within these pages is not profound for profundity’s sake; it’s thoughtfully crafted and elegantly composed.
March 28, 2013
On dirait que Colette a fait un bouquin avec les digressions charmantes dont elle agrémente ses romans le reste du temps... Souvenir poignants de sa mère, émoi devant les couleurs de la nature, la vie des animaux... sauf que là ce n'est pas le décor, c'est le livre. Une autre façon de présenter la naissance du jour, c'est de dire que c'est une version déstructurée de "la retraite sentimentale" : ah qu'il est bon, après une vie d'amours tumultueuses, de se retirer à la campagne, de découvrir les joies simples du jardinage, de la contemplation de la nature, du compagnonage avec les animaux, de la fréquentation popotte des voisins... et je n'y suis absolument pour rien si le voisin taiseux et fier s'est mis à en pincer violemment pour moi, allant jusqu'à me préférer à une jeunesse qui lui était tout acquise...
Alors non, malgré la beauté de son titre, je ne conseille pas "la naissance du jour", malgré des virtuosités d'expressions "la fenêtre s'ouvrait sur le grand vivier vert du ciel", que je n'arrive pas à retrouver, comme toujours dans un roman mal construit.
Alors non, malgré la beauté de son titre, je ne conseille pas "la naissance du jour", malgré des virtuosités d'expressions "la fenêtre s'ouvrait sur le grand vivier vert du ciel", que je n'arrive pas à retrouver, comme toujours dans un roman mal construit.
September 3, 2019
Masterful descriptions of the setting, sounds, images. However, the people who appear in the setting are less interesting, somehow they come across as only physical descriptions. The whole thing comes across as more of a diary/journal than a novel and, despite the fact that I am the same age as the central character and like many of the same things, there was no sense of 'connection'. Quite honestly, I found the people in the book, including the narrator, terribly boring and self-centred. Still worth the read for the descriptions/setting.
October 11, 2012
Lyrical; delicately lush. Rather dull storyline (although I appreciate her frank honesty regarding love, loss, and the feminine) but glittering with beauty. I picked up an English translation at a used book store in Seattle; I'd like to try a hand at her works in the original French. The English is so lovely that the original French must be exquisite.
March 1, 2008
I pretty much just love Colette, and this is my favorite thing she wrote. Maybe I related so well because I was having relationship problems when I read it, but I still find the writing lovely and insightful and empowering.
February 2, 2024
so insanely gorgeous, every page was dripping with beautiful prose
the relationship between mother and daughter is so well formed in this, it made me think of lady bird but in the sense that they are both great examples of mother/daughter relationships not in an aesthetic sense (this is much more beautiful to me, and i really like lady bird!)
cant wait to read more colette
also you can tell this translator GETS it
the relationship between mother and daughter is so well formed in this, it made me think of lady bird but in the sense that they are both great examples of mother/daughter relationships not in an aesthetic sense (this is much more beautiful to me, and i really like lady bird!)
cant wait to read more colette
also you can tell this translator GETS it
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October 31, 2024Voor iemand die even afstand wil nemen van de liefde, schrijft Colette in dit boek verbazingwekkend veel over liefde.
Misschien kan ik me over twintig jaar meer overgeven aan de langzame stijl met veel adjectieven. Wie weet ben ik dan ook beter geworden in het vinden van persoonsvormen in ellenlange zinnen.
Misschien kan ik me over twintig jaar meer overgeven aan de langzame stijl met veel adjectieven. Wie weet ben ik dan ook beter geworden in het vinden van persoonsvormen in ellenlange zinnen.
January 28, 2025
Un acquerello crepuscolare.
Un periodare delicato, ricci vocaboli e punteggiatura preziosi, ma che scorre leggero e non particolarmente doloroso.
Un periodare delicato, ricci vocaboli e punteggiatura preziosi, ma che scorre leggero e non particolarmente doloroso.
July 1, 2024
El nacer del día es una novela de la propia experiencia de la autora tras romper su segundo matrimonio. En ella, Colette se asienta en la Provenza francesa en mitad de la campiña para despejar su mente y reflexionar acerca de su vida. Saca conclusiones sobre la independencia que necesita tras liberarse del amor y nos narra, de una forma discontinua y casi inconexa, su verano en la Provenza.
Sin duda para mí es un libro filosófico, para nada me situé ante una biografía o una historia común con un nudo y desenlace. Es como una colección de pensamientos de la autora que se van ordenando según le van surgiendo con las horas de los días.
La evolución se muestra en cómo Colette percibe el amor en ciertas escenas de la breve obra. La autora sólo quiere que asistamos con mente abierta a sus pensamientos, no le interesan los protagonistas y antagonistas sino las ideas que podamos sacar del sufrimiento que ella siente.
En la independencia encontraremos el verdadero amor.
Sin duda para mí es un libro filosófico, para nada me situé ante una biografía o una historia común con un nudo y desenlace. Es como una colección de pensamientos de la autora que se van ordenando según le van surgiendo con las horas de los días.
La evolución se muestra en cómo Colette percibe el amor en ciertas escenas de la breve obra. La autora sólo quiere que asistamos con mente abierta a sus pensamientos, no le interesan los protagonistas y antagonistas sino las ideas que podamos sacar del sufrimiento que ella siente.
En la independencia encontraremos el verdadero amor.
October 21, 2016
I love reading books that are translated from another language to English. I also love reading books that speak of someone living a quiet, peaceful, authentic life in a little village. Break of Day is by French author Colette, translated to English and tells of either her life or based on her life as she lives in a little village in the Cote d'Azur in her later years.
I loved the writing which was lyrical, beautiful and a little like Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. I loved to live through her eyes as she gardens and speaks to her cats. As she has a quiet night at home in her cottage or a night out with friends on the coast.
I did get a little lost in the middle as she wrote about a young woman who was in love with a man who was her lover but that's OK - I'll just read it again.
I loved the writing which was lyrical, beautiful and a little like Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. I loved to live through her eyes as she gardens and speaks to her cats. As she has a quiet night at home in her cottage or a night out with friends on the coast.
I did get a little lost in the middle as she wrote about a young woman who was in love with a man who was her lover but that's OK - I'll just read it again.
December 12, 2012
Between two and three stars. I'm starting to really like Colette; reading her feels like having a long conversation with a whimsical, observant friend, the sort of conversation you might have on that friend's back porch on a warm summer evening. Even so, the extensively-recorded struggles with Helene and Vial grew tiresome, making even the enjoyable parts drag a bit.
August 30, 2014
I hated it. This is a self-indulgent work of an elderly lady in the twilight years of her sexual career. I think Colette wrote many excellent books over a long and distinguished career but this little book is well worth passing over.
April 3, 2007
A great memoir. Although, her mother was the more interesting character.
November 14, 2015
Lushly descriptive.
March 8, 2016
Le style de ce roman m'a fait penser un peu à Marguerite Duras.
February 23, 2019
Absolument magnifique.
« Imagine-t-on, à me lire, que je fais mon portrait? Patience: c’est seulement mon modèle. »
Tsé.
« Imagine-t-on, à me lire, que je fais mon portrait? Patience: c’est seulement mon modèle. »
Tsé.
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February 14, 2020Excellent read. Colette, comme toujours, écrit d'une si belle façon
March 2, 2022
Possibly my favourite Colette novel. Situated on the stunning côte d'azur, this novel manages to be both profound, and also the equivalent of a sumptuous, no expenses-spared holiday to the South of France, complete with wine, sunshine, blue twilight and young French artists swimming in the sea. A delight to read.
April 13, 2023
2 stars purely because it talks about gender roles in an interesting way for a 1928 novel. hated it though- so BORING. definition of no plot, no vibes.
December 18, 2025
2,5 sur une bonne journée
July 21, 2023
Qué bonito y qué talento. Cada párrafo es un poema
June 20, 2022
Bien avant que le terme "autofiction" n'ait été inventé, Colette publiait en 1928 ce roman où coexistent personnages fictifs et réels, se mettant elle-même en scène dans sa demeure estivale de Provence et mélangeant habilement des éléments autobiographiques et complètement fabulés avec une histoire de renoncement à l'amour et de symbiose avec la nature.
Sans ligne directrice ou récit clair, La Naissance du jour est un roman contemplatif où l'autrice débute en relisant les lettres de sa mère décédée, comparant les mots de cette maman tant aimée à son propre vieillissement, Colette étant maintenant bien ancrée dans la cinquantaine au terme de son second divorce.
J'ai tellement aimé l'écriture style flot de conscience, réfléchie, élégante et si précise. C'était d'une beauté débordante de nature tranquille, de lenteur appréciative, de refus calme mais solide des émotions fortes liées à un potentiel nouvel amour. C'était mon premier Colette, et j'espère que ce ne sera pas le dernier; cette romancière a brisé bien des plafonds de verre et normes sociales à son époque, et La Naissance du jour est loin d'être son roman le plus populaire. Ça promet.
Sans ligne directrice ou récit clair, La Naissance du jour est un roman contemplatif où l'autrice débute en relisant les lettres de sa mère décédée, comparant les mots de cette maman tant aimée à son propre vieillissement, Colette étant maintenant bien ancrée dans la cinquantaine au terme de son second divorce.
J'ai tellement aimé l'écriture style flot de conscience, réfléchie, élégante et si précise. C'était d'une beauté débordante de nature tranquille, de lenteur appréciative, de refus calme mais solide des émotions fortes liées à un potentiel nouvel amour. C'était mon premier Colette, et j'espère que ce ne sera pas le dernier; cette romancière a brisé bien des plafonds de verre et normes sociales à son époque, et La Naissance du jour est loin d'être son roman le plus populaire. Ça promet.
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