A Toast to the one and only Colette!

                             “When she raises her eyelids, it’s as if she were taking off her clothes”

Forget about Fifty Shades of Gray!  If you want to learn about love in all its forms, reread or discover for the first time the remarkable French novelist Colette (Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, January 28, 1873- August 3,1954). Married three times, mistress of powerful men and women, actress, writer, muse, and free spirit, Colette evokes love and pleasure set in the opulent Belle Époque before WWI.

At 20 Colette married the notorious 35 year old Parisian libertine, Henri-Gaulthier-Villars. He discovered her flair for writing and locked her in a room without food each day until she produced a required number of pages that became a series of racy books about French schoolgirls, the famous Claudine stories, which he then published under his own pen-name “Willy. “

Soon after, the adventurous Colette left him to explore life for herself. She performed in French music halls and embarked on a series of scandalous liaisons. She turned life into art, writing thrilling stories about love and the human heart set in the scandalous demimonde of the Paris she knew so well. Her work exposed the themes of love beginning and ending, money and class, the bittersweet alliance of age and beauty, betrayal and devotion. Her stories range from idyllic natural tales to dark struggles in relationships and love. Her style is a mixture of clever observation and intimate often explicit dialogue.

Cheri and the Last of Cheri may be her masterpieces. They tell the story of Lea, the greatest courtesan of the era, who falls in love with Cheri, a beautiful spoiled young man. Cheri and Lea are the loves of each other’s lives but time is their enemy, a subject Colette explores with candor and delicacy. Note: If you can’t get hold of the book, rent the wonderful film Cheri directed by Stephen Frears starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Lea and Rupert Friend (of Homeland fame) as Cheri.

Unlike Lea, Colette was fortunate to marry a devoted young husband, Maurice Goudeket, who cared for her until her death at 81. She is buried in Paris’ famous Pere LaChaise Cemetery along with Edith Piaf and France’s greatest writers and artists.

Here are just a few of Colette’s memorable quotes:

• To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.
• What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
• If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles.
• Time spent with a cat is never wasted.