Here is a young heroine with a keen, socially observant eye who is shockingly, innocently, perfectly coquettish. Despite its popularity, it must have ruffled some feathers at the time -- this novel acknowledges high-school age girls as being sexually aware (however limitedly so).
Something about the girls' little idiosyncratic communication tics really get at the amusement inherent in being a teenage girl. There are some hilariously concise descriptions of such occurrences as barely stifled laughs, conspiratorial glances, and little gloaty "I know something" dances.
Although this is a predecessor of such dreck as the Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars series of YA books, its heroine is admirably self-aware and while she may come across as shallow, it's made clear that she is diamond-sharp and as introspective as she is aware of the motivations and designs of those around her. Claudine is bitingly funny and simply charming. ( )
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.
"La collaboration de Willy et Colette Willy ayant pris fin, il devenait indispensable de rendre à chacun la part qui lui est due et de remplacer la signature unique de ce volume par celles de Willy et Colette Wily. Des raisons purement typographiques ont voulu que mon nom fût placé avant celui de Colette Willy, alors que toutes les raisons, littéraires et autres, eussent éxigé que som nom prît la première place" WILLY
Dedication
First words
En haut d'une maison neuve, on m'ouvrit un atelier vaste comme une halle, pourvu d'une large galerie à mi-hauteur, tendu de ces broderies de Chine que la Chine exécute pour l'Occident, à grands motifs un peu bâclés, assez belles.
- Et pourquoi cesserais-je d'etre de mon village?
'The eleven o'clock postman brought nothing. If Farou didn't write last night before going to bed, it's because he'd had a late rehearsal.'
La maison était grande, coiffée d'un grenier haut.
The door that opened to me on the top floor of a new building gave access to a big, glass-roofed studio, as vast as a covered market.
Quotations
Last words
Je n'en suis qu'à étancher une soif optique de pureté dans les transparences qui l'évoquent, dans les bulles, l'eau massive, et les sites imaginaires retranchés, hors d'atteinte, au sein d'un épais cristal.
As one pretended to read and the other to sew, their sole desire was to refrain from speech, and allow those inner reserves, which the man had not dared to affront, to subside and sink to rest, relying on silence to foster their frail, new-born security.
Mais peut-être ne retrouvera-t-elle pas sa subtilité d'enfant, et la supériorité de ses sens qui savent goûter un parfum sur la langue, palper une couleur et voir - "fine comme un cheveu, fine comme une herbe"- la ligne d'un chant imaginaire.
'Neither a hero, nor yet an executioner ... A little pain, a little pleasure ... That's all I shall have given her, that and nothing else ... nothing ...'
I can only use the word to quench an optical thirst for purity in the transparencies that evoke it - in bubbles, in a volume of water, and in the imaginary latitudes entrenched, beyond reach, at the very centre of a dense crystal.
A semi-autobiographical exploration of Colette's childhood, her relationship with her mother, feelings for nature, and first experience with love and sex.
Haiku summary
▾Book descriptions
No descriptions found.
▾Library descriptions
'Claudine's House' is a tender and heartfelt portrayal of childhood and memory, creating a series of snapshots of the innocence of provincial life.
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Wikipedia in English
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Something about the girls' little idiosyncratic communication tics really get at the amusement inherent in being a teenage girl. There are some hilariously concise descriptions of such occurrences as barely stifled laughs, conspiratorial glances, and little gloaty "I know something" dances.
Although this is a predecessor of such dreck as the Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars series of YA books, its heroine is admirably self-aware and while she may come across as shallow, it's made clear that she is diamond-sharp and as introspective as she is aware of the motivations and designs of those around her. Claudine is bitingly funny and simply charming. (