I only read Cheri. It is the story of a woman and her younger paramour. She is approaching middle age and must relinquish her lover to his marriage. It is likely the last such relationship she will have, given her age. Separation is very painful for each of them. This is a very rich depiction of middle-age desire and its complications. I will probably return to the End of Cheri at a later date. ( )

3.5 for Cheri & 3 for Last of Cheri. ( )

No shame in Decadence.

The next book on my shelf was Cheri and the last of Cheri which was translated from the French by Roger Senhouse in 1951. The two novelettes were originally published in 1920 and 1926 respectively by Colette. It is a simple story of a decadent lifestyle set either side of the first world war: a war that hardly intrudes on the lives of Cheri (real name Fred) and his lover Léa.

Cheri is16 years old when he is seduced by his mother's best friend Léa who is an ex courtesan; 43 years old and now wealthy in her own write. Cheri also is very rich and spends his days in luxurious living spending his money on motorcars, but keeping careful note of the money that he spends on his servants. We pick up the story six years later when Cheri's mother has found him a marriage partner. Edmée is a quiet sixteen year old girl from a wealthy family and Cheri is drifting towards his upcoming marriage. The story starts with a truculent Cheri just gotten out of Léa's bed and wanting to play with her pearls. They both realise that their relationship is coming to an end. Léa and Cheri are both obsessive about how they look, Cheri is described as a beautiful handsome youth and Léa is fighting a battle with her age. The weather in Paris is hot and their languorous lifestyle is brilliantly captured by Colette, the couple hardly ever seem to leave Léa's boudoir: their mornings are spent arguing, then kissing and making up. There are flashbacks of their six years together: a stay in Normandy when Léa tries to interest Cheri in boxing under the tutelage of Patron, and Cheri develops a body to go with his good looks. Cheri and Edmée are married, but after three months Cheri is still thinking about Léa and leaves home.

The last of Cheri picks up his story when he is 30 years old. He has fought in the war and is now back with Edmée, who has become a business woman and manager of a hospital. Cheri is still drifting through life, still thinking about Léa who has gone abroad, but is rumoured to be coming back to Paris. He is drifting inevitably to his own destruction, losing his good looks and not taking care of his health.

Colette captures the decadent lifestyle of a small circle of rich people living in luxury not far from the Bois de Boulogne. They seem unaffected by world events although the women are keenly interested in making money. Cheri survives in this hot-house lifestyle through his good looks and wealth, but his relationship with Léa has meant that while he has become skilled as a lover he has hardly grown up as a man. The champagne flows and the luxurious breakfasts and lunches keep on coming. Cheri says of his bride to be Edmée

Let her kiss the sacred ground that I tread on and thank her lucky stars for the privilege.

Léa thinks about old age:

She had a foretaste of the sinful pleasures of the old - little else than a concealed aggressiveness, daydreams of murder and the keen recurrent hope for catastrophes that will spare only one living creature and one corner of the globe.

The characters are not particularly nasty, but they are not very nice either and Colette does a good job in providing an interesting, well written, atmospheric story that holds the interest. Cheri is little more than a very rich and very spoilt brat, but we continue to follow his progress through a life that appears to be sliding away. The Last of Cheri is best read while suffering from eating or drinking too much, but don't leave it till the morning after. 4 stars. ( )

I don’t discount the themes of Chéri and it’s sequel, the End of Chéri. They’re present and interesting: the role of women in post-war France as it interplays with the waywardness of young men sent to war during their formative years only to return to an interwar society that seems to not need them anymore.

Indeed, Chéri’s story is something worth probing on. He’s the plaything of a much older woman in a way that stunts his maturity and leaves him vapid and self obsessed. The constant talk of his looks by women much his senior fuels his Dorian Gray-esque obsession with beauty.

When he returns from war, it seems everyone has moved on from the vapid obsession with beauty to the vapid obsession with money and status. His former lover has grown old and out of shape and worst of all to Chéri she’s happy and unbothered by her transformation.

All of that is interesting, but it doesn’t really come together until the final fourth of the book(s). Before then it’s a slog through Parisian bourgeois predilections. It may be the translation but the writing was overly clunky. Colette is moving far too quickly through dialogue and internal monologues in a way that doesn’t lend itself to story or themes. It didn’t leave me with a feeling of free flowing consciousness moving between thoughts and words, instead I was left lost and struggling to connect with what was written on the page. ( )

[This review is only for Chéri.]

Plot:
Léa has lived a full life as the lover of various rich men. Now that she has grown older herself, she has instead taken a young lover herself, Chéri. Chéri is the son of her friend Charlotte and almost 25 years younger than her. He is a petulant, aimless but beautiful man and Léa never expected to be with him for as long as they have. When he tells her that he will get married soon, Léa is surprised at how hard the news hits her. And Chéri, too, finds that life without Léa isn't quite what he expected.

Chéri is a beautiful written, insightful character study that I very much enjoyed to read. I am definitely looking forward to reading its sequel.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2021/11/05/cheri-colette/ ( )