By Johna Till Johnson
Freshly Pressed on the WordPress.com home page!
You probably knew this, but January 28th is the 140th birthday of the French writer Colette.
Colette, in costume…
Okay, you probably didn’t know that. You might not even remember who Colette is, though chances are, you’re familiar with at least one of her works.
And you’re probably wondering why you should care about her birthday, or her.
Let me take a step back. This year, Vlad and I have adopted a new tradition: We’ve selected a pantheon of personal heroes, and heroines—people whose spirits and lives matter to us—and are making a conscious effort to celebrate their birthdays.
Colette’s is the first, but there will be plenty of others.
So why did we select her?
Colette was in many ways a woman ahead of her time. She was a prolific and brilliant writer, and supported herself throughout her life with her creative endeavors.
Her work included fiction, journalism, and memoirs; a contemporary described her as “the best living writer in France”, though most of her work is unfamiliar to American readers.
In the U.S., she’s most famous for the novella Gigi, which became a Broadway play, and then a movie, starring previously-unknown actress Audrey Hepburn. (See? You’ve probably heard of the play or the movie, even if you’d forgotten who wrote it.)
In addition to being a writer, she was an actress, a dancer, and a businesswoman: She started a line of cosmetics that played off the phenomenal success of the main character of one of her early novels. This kind of “product merchandising” didn’t become commonplace until the middle of the 20th century—but Colette pioneered it early on.
Colette in her later years
Her accomplishments are impressive, and towards the end of her life she was recognized for them: She was admitted to the Belgian Academy of French Language and Literature (the French Academy refused to admit a woman), was the second woman in history to be made a grand officer of the Legion of Honor, and was the first woman to be given a funeral of state in France.
But her achievements weren’t the reason we selected her.
It was her spirit: astonishingly forward-looking (if somewhat unorthodox), determinedly hedonistic, down-to-earth, and above all, true to herself.
She believed in the value of physical exercise—at a time when most women were warned that athleticism would damage their “womanly organs” and undermine their femininity. And she had a remarkably healthy attitude toward exercise: She did it because it felt good and she enjoyed the play of her shapely muscles, not to burn calories. Although she kept in spectacular shape for much of her life, she strongly disapproved of the “cult of slimness” that was just beginning to emerge.
In fact, Colette was all about feeling good for its own sake, not to meet any outside standards.
She loved sunshine, gardening, and “digging in the good earth”. (She set up her gymnastics bars so she could exercise outside, thereby predating CrossFit by more than a century.)
She was an adventuress, spending several years working as a dance-hall actress (a profession anathema to well-brought-up young French girls). This was both a way to earn a living (imperative after her first marriage ended) and a way to gather material for her work.
And she loved good food, which she defined as steak, oysters, fresh cream, and anything “fresh out of the garden”. (Again, a strikingly modern perspective, entirely in tune with the current “real food” movement.)
Her love life was unconventional—though not necessarily any more so than that of her male peers. Presumably because she was a beautiful woman, though, it got—and continues to get—a lot of attention. (Really, people: Why does the fact that Erwin Schrödinger lived openly with his wife and his mistress not even merit a mention in his Wikipedia entry, while Colette’s entry covers her romantic history in depth before even mentioning her awards and honors?)
Colette’s last words: “What a beautiful life I’ve had.”
What was also unusual was her refusal to apologize for her romantic choices. She divorced her first husband for philandering, and when her second did the same, she seduced his son (thereby, unsurprisingly, causing the end of that marriage). Her third marriage—to a much younger man—endured until her death. (I don’t mean to shortchange her other significant relationship, a long-term affair with a French noblewoman that ended rather tragically.)
Her choices weren’t always wise—but they were hers.
And that’s the point of Colette—she did what made sense to her. She looked at life with clear eyes that saw through hypocrisy, and kicked convention to the curb when it didn’t suit her.
We’re honoring Colette by savoring steak and oysters with some friends and colleagues. We think she’d approve.
Happy birthday, Colette, and many happy returns… to Colette, and the upcoming heroes and heroines of 2013.
Vladimir Brezina (RIP) 
Johna Till Johnson
Wind Against Current 
I love this! What a romantic tradition- woman after my own heart.
http://socalmistress.wordpress.com/
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Thanks, Servilia! After checking out your blog (very interesting!) I think you might enjoy the Judith Thurman bio of Colette (“Secrets of the Flesh”). A related biography that I recently finished was “Wild Heart” (Natalie Barney), which you might also like. Together they paint a picture of turn-of-the-century Paris that’s really quite eye-opening….
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What a brilliant idea! And, what a wonderful way to start. Colette was one of the first female writers I discovered and fell in love with.
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Wonderful, Sophie! Glad to have struck a chord…
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Thank you for this hommage to Colette :)
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You’re welcome!
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Thanks to your post, I’m beginning to like her too. And here’s a toast to modern Colettes out there – may your breed multiply a million-fold! :=)
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Yay! And I think you meant “our” breed… right??
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Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
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Thanks for reblogging! BTW, we spent quite some time the other day being entertained by your blog :-)
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Oh yes! Your post on the council cleanup was the absolute hit of a mother-daughter birthday party I went to on Sunday!! (All participants were over 18.)
Fellow readers: The post is here, be warned the content is a bit adult (though in no way obscene): http://oyiabrown.com/2012/10/26/councils-tidied-up-the-streets-prior-to-the-london-olympics/
Not safe for viewing at work, however!
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Johna, congratulations on FP for this great post! I was reading this the same day that I was reading the section of Julia Child’s “My Life in Paris” when she describes seeing Colette in a Parisian restaurant. Synchronicity. I have always been an admirer of Colette and you did her justice in your post. I didn’t know about her interest in gardening, though, so that is indeed an added bonus!
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Thanks, Composer! High praise!
Actually, she liked to garden for food… so it all comes down to her innate hedonism. ;-) But she describes how beautiful food looks (and smells) when it’s fresh, so she clearly has a strong esthetic sense, too….
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Thanks for sharing this information about such a remarkable woman. Going to go read the Wiki now.
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You’re welcome, and thanks for reading!
The wiki post seems to be somewhat obsessed with her love life. Admittedly it was a colorful one, but it’s only a piece of who she was…..I’ll be interested to know what you think!
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Its been a few days since I read it. Very interesting woman. Yes it paid a bit of attention to her love life but it conveyed the sense that it was a big part of who she was. Not in a negative way but it attested to the fact that she was a free thinker. She lived her life her way in a time when it was, quite frankly, dangerous for a woman to do that. I think it just hammered home how strong of a woman she really was.
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Very nice non-watery post, Johna. Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed — its the best way to be pressed after all. Personal heroes are important. Having some is helpful to remembering who we are or want to be. Thanks for the photo of the young Colette — I am familiar only with the older one — she was lovely then as well. I love the movie — Gigi — even though it is anachronistic now. The attitudes expressed in the movie would have gotten Colette up in arms, I think. I doubt it reflects the book — I don’t recall reading it. I read some short stories by Colette years ago, saucy and quaint is how I recall them. (BTW — was their a movie with Audrey Hepburn? I only know of the Leslie Caron one.)
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Thanks Frank! Depends on what you read–she definitely played up the “saucy” part, but some of what she’s written is disturbingly bleak and modern (not that those two go together necessarily).
As some of the earlier posters pointed out, the movie was indeed Leslie Caron–the play was Audrey Hepburn.
Here’s one for you, though: I don’t really know who Leslie Caron is (finally looked her up), so every time folks mentioned her I thought of Leslie Nielsen (guy from “Airplane”)… talk about cognitive dissonance!!!!!
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:)
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What an interesting woman, did you know her from her works or come across her another way?
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Great question. I had a vague idea who she was, and read Judith Thurman’s wonderful biography, “Secrets of the Flesh”. Then I went back and read as much of what she’d actually written as I could get my hands on….
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Great choice. I love reading about women like this of the past. There are a whole raft of them, but if you haven’t heard of Josie Morris, a frontierswoman, check her out.
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I hadn’t, and boy she does sound interesting! Thanks!
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This was great history and a nice look into all the facets that can make up the world of a writer. I didn’t know about Colette before, but I’m glad you brought me up to speed on a fascinating personality. :)
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Thanks for reading.. and posting.
One thing I find interesting is that writers’ biographies, even from dozens or hundreds of years ago, are increasingly relevant today, when so many of us make our livings by doing “knowledge work”. Back then, writing really was one of the few forms of “knowledge work”.
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Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! Woohoo! :-)
“Happy Birthday to you Colette! :-)
˜”*°•.˜”*°•.˜”*°•.★★.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜
¸¸.•*¨*•░H░A░P░P░Y░(¯`’•.¸ *♥♥♥* ¸.•’´¯) ░B░I░R░ T░H░D░A░Y░ (¯`’•.¸*♥♥♥*¸.•’´¯) Hope you enjoy YOUR special day!
║╚╦═╦═╦═╦╦╗ ║╚╦═╦═╦═╦╦╗ ║╚╦╦═╣╚╣╚╦╝╠═╦╦╗
║║║╬║╬║╬║║║ ║║║╬║╬║╬║║║ ║╬║║╔╣╔╣║║╬║╬║║║
╚╩╩╩╣╔╣╔╩╗║ ╚╩╩╩╣╔╣╔╩╗║ ╚═╩╩╝╚═╩╩╩═╩╩╩╗║
¸.•*¨*•.♪♫♫♪Happy Birthday .♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸ ♥Happy Birthday to youuuuu ♪♫•*¨*•.¸.•*¨*•♫
˜”*°•.˜”*°•.˜”*°•.★★.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜”
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Thanks for that beautiful scroll, Elizabeth! It reminds of those wonderful days when we spent many hours plotting graphs and drawing pretty pictures on a dot-matrix printer… ;-)
I notice that yours, too, are getting increasingly more elaborate…
And (of course) thanks for the congratulations!!
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Congratulations–I’ve had this amazingly surreal experience. Being Freshly Freshed is indescribably memorable and enjoyabl meeting so many new people.
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Thank you! And yes, that’s the best part….. meeting the new people! Congratulations right back at you!
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Yet another reason to admire Colette’s fearless and steadfast gaze:
“In Friday Afternoon, Neville Ward quotes Colette as saying this to a young writer: “Look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you.”
“Then he goes on to quote an admirer of hers:
“When we, in turn, watch Colette watching, we realize that, along with love and work, this is the third great salvation, or form of prayer, which we have been given. For whenever someone is seriously watching, a form of his lost innocence is restored. It will not last, but during those minutes his self-consciousness is relieved. He is less corrupt. He forgets he is going to die. He is very close to that state of grace for which Colette reserved the word ‘pure.'”
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oooooh nice! Yes, learning how to watch, unselfconsciously, is a great thing….
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Sounds like someone truly worth celebrating.
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She is, truly! Thanks for reading (and posting).
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Wonderful post, I love Colette, she was a woman ahead of her time with a strong sense of self and I am proud to be named after her! I even have a painting of her (print of course, not the original) done by Jacques Fernand Humbert in my dining room. Thank you for celebrating her!
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Very cool! Is it this one? http://artchive.com/web_gallery/J/Jacques-Fernand-Humbert/Colette-1873-1954.html ?
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Yes it is! It’s one of my favourite prints. I love it because I find it quite a contradiction ot her personality as a whole. Very soft, shy with her downcast eyes, demure and proper. It was done when she was quite young, 23 or so. Thanks for the reply!
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Wow, am I late to this party! Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed!
I saw this in my E-mail but didn’t get around to leaving an answer. I enjoyed this very much and was glad you did it. I did a similar thing last year for Women’s History Month and my readers really enjoyed it (I did Jane Addams, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and my maternal grandmother).
Nancy
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Thanks, and the party will keep going all year long… so you can’t be late! :-) It’s been an unexpected pleasure how many people want to celebrate Colette along with us….
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Thanks, learned something new!
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You’re most welcome!
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wow! I love your tradition to celebrate the birthdays of people who inspire you! I’m definitely going to start doing that :)
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Glad to hear it! We stole–er, borrowed–it from a wonderful book, “Relax, You’re Already Home” by a retired biologist and writer. He has some other great ideas in there, if you’re interested… And at any rate, I’m glad you like the tradition!
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Ahh I’ve been meaning to get my hands on a Colette book, and your pos has inspired me to find one! (Alas, I want the French versions, as I feel that reading French writers in Engish kind of subtracts their greatness, lol). A nice tribute to Colette!
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I’m so glad! And I’m jealous you can read in the original French! Agree that something is lost in translation–words and phrases have nuances and connotations that don’t survive the process.
Thanks for posting!
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She always fascinated me when I was much younger. Started reading a few of her books which i never finished. Thankyou for the wonderful post :)
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You are most welcome! I hope you add Colette’s work to the items you’re revisiting on your journey… love your blog!
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Thankyou :) yes I will :)
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Hey thanks for writing about this fantastic author! I love her. Her work is exquisite.
Her entry in Wikipedia may highlight her love life, but that might not necessarily be because of sexism. She celebrated love and sex. She wrote a lot about them. A passion for sex was obviously not her only characteristic but it was important for her work.
If Wikipedia didn’t write more about Shroedinger’s love life, it’s because he had a boring one. He may have lived openly with two women, but that doesn’t mean he was good at sex, terribly interested in it, or even a sensitive guy. Why write about his relationships if they weren’t that important to him? Just guessing. I know nothing about Shroedinger’s personal life. I’m still trying to figure out the cat in the box thing.
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Thanks for posting! And I’m happy someone replied to my snarky comment about Schroedinger.
I’ve got no insight into Schroedinger’s ability to be good at sex, but his love life was a pretty significant characteristic–he was denied a couple of jobs because he insisted on having both women with him, and it was considered scandalous. So it had a professional impact, not just a personal one.
And Zach Weiner, author of the comic strip SMBC, even implies (jokingly, of course) that his lifestyle affected his scientific worldview:
So I still find the notion that it’s not even worth a *mention* in his writeup a bit of a double-standard!
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Inspiring!
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Thanks!
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Reblogged this on Don't Touch The Marshmallows.
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Thanks for reblogging!
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Pingback: Candida Mandarino is a French Novelist | CanMar
Thanks for writing about this. In a world that is lacking strong female role models it’s great to hear about them.
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K.M.–thanks for reading, and posting! And yes, strong female role models are always to be appreciated.. we’ll have a few more this year, as well as some iconoclastic men.
I LOVE your blog, by the way. Your post “Love is Eternal” literally brought tears to my eyes… and a smile to my lips. Thank you!
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Thank you. That one was very personal to me. I really enjoyed writing it. I’m glad you liked it. :)
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What a nice celebration of Colette. What a great idea to invite us to her birthday party! :-) And to educate us about her! It’s so nice to learn something new…
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Wow, thanks for reading this post too! We appreciate your reading and posting!
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Thank you for this introduction to a formerly unknown person who has been glancing off me for most of my life. Well-written article. Well done.
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Thanks!
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I always enjoyed Colette’s short stories. When I was young, I read them in French. Couldn’t do that today, but I loved her style. She was, to me, the quintessential French writer :-)
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Thanks, Marilyn! I’m jealous, I’ve never been able to read French (though I’ve studied it for years, and used to have a killer accent). Hm… maybe I need to re-learn the language?
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Great post – thank you!
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Thanks!
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Pingback: Aspen tree and maiden of the rock | Yellow strings
Colette (one of my favorites) and Anaïs Nin (“the” favorite) birthdays this year… love the celebration of both these birthdays!
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Yes, Anais Nin! My “power chick” team of women writers includes Colette, Anais Nin, Simone De Beauvoir, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and (newly added) Natalie Barney. What a bumper crop of fabulous women the last century produced!!
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Great collection! What about Jean Rhys?
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Certainly her romantic history—as well as of course her writing, which I do like quite a bit—would seem to qualify her for inclusion ;-)
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Loved reading about Colette, someone unknown to me till I read this post about her.
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Shail:
What champagne says, below!
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Must reads: Cheri and the Last of Cheri!!!!
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Okay, so (trick question): Which do you like better, and why?
(Trick question because there is no “right” answer…) :-)
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i don’t remember but probably the ending because i love a good tragedy.
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What a great theme and Colette is a great first pick. I knew very little about this person and have enjoyed reading her history. Thanks.
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Thank you—glad you enjoyed it and learned about her from it!
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Simply amazing! Thank you for this great post! I also thank you for stopping by my blog. Come by anytime!
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We sure will! And thank you for coming by here! :-)
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I enjoyed reading that! Especially : “And that’s the point of Colette—she did what made sense to her. She looked at life with clear eyes that saw through hypocrisy, and kicked convention to the curb when it didn’t suit her.” Definitely words to live by! Thank you for an enjoyable read :)
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And thank you for visiting and commenting!
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Johna, This is a fabulous post about an incredible woman. I was familiar with some of the Colette basics, but you “kicked it up a notch” and sparked my curiosity. Thanks! And congrats on the FP – richly deserved. All the best, Terri
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On behalf of Johna, thanks so much, Terri! So glad this post resonated with you :-)
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Didn’t know you’re an FP JUNKIE. Thumbs up, pal.
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It happens when you least expect it… Thanks!!
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Colette ou “Madame Colette” est intemporelle et a su user de la langue française avec un talent extraordinaire et plein de saveurs.
Je vais demander qu’une messe soit célébrée à Paris à Saint Roch pour le soixantième anniversaire de sa mort.
J’habite à Paris et passe souvent dans ce quartier où elle a elle-même vécue et nous sommes originaires de la même région, la Bourgogne, qu’elle chante avec cet accent rocailleux, qu’avec nos grands-parents.
Merci pour elle pour ce bel hommage.
Natacha Dorival.
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Colette ou “Madame Colette” est intemporelle et a su user de la langue française avec un talent extraordinaire et plein de saveurs.
Je vais demander qu’une messe soit célébrée à Paris à Saint Roch pour le soixantième anniversaire de sa mort en cette année 2014.
J’habite à Paris et passe souvent dans ce quartier où elle a elle-même vécu, et nous sommes originaires de la même région, la Bourgogne, qu’elle chante avec cet accent rocailleux, qu’avaient nos grands-parents.
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Colette or “Madame Colette”, pass threw all ages, and knew how to use the french language with a extraordinary talent, ant tasty words.
I will ask a celebration for her, for her 60th dead birthday anniversary.
I live in Paris and spent a lot of time crossing this place where she used to live, and we’re coming both of us from the same country, “Bourgogne”, that she sing with this “rocky accent”, that use to have our grandparents.
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Natacha,
So wonderful! I thought of her again this year. I’m glad she is still celebrated, by someone with such a connection.
Thank you very much for posting this. So wonderful!
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