Rating: 
Summary: A Fiercely Intelligent & Pleasurable Biography
Review: "Secrets of the Flesh," Judith Thurman's superb life of Colette, guides the reader with great assurance through a wealth of complex material. Thurman won a 1983 National Book Award for "Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller." A gifted literary biographer, as sure-handed as her subject, she never conflates the life with the work or allows her admiration to interfere with an informed and delicately balanced critique of Colette's uniqueness."Like all those who never use their strength to the limit," Colette once wrote, "I am hostile to those who let life burn them out." Fiercely disciplined, hugely productive, the author of "Gigi" and "Chéri" lived 80 years and produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction, memoirs, journalism and drama. She married three times, had male and female lovers and for a time supported herself as a mime, dancing semi-nude in music halls throughout France. When she died in 1954, she received the first state funeral the French Republic had ever given a woman. Colette is a strikingly elusive writer. Packing her books with delicious clothes and furniture and ravishingly attractive people, she delivers pleasures that most "women's writers" only promise. But her prose is rarely straightforward or transparent, and her characters -- captured at the height of their beauty or in beauty's humiliating decline -- maintain a mocking, self-protective reticence. Colette, Thurman says, was "remarkable among modern writers -- perhaps the great women in particular -- for a sense of self not vested in her mind." Maybe female writers have simply had to think harder in order to carve out space within ideologies that would otherwise have shut them out. She drew inspiration from entertainers, courtesans, an aristocratic Parisian lesbian subculture and the fin de siècle gay aesthetes whose "fetish worship of human beauty" she shared. She admired the bravery of lives lived on the sexual edge, the consciously chosen tastes and prejudices, the risk of physical danger. Her understanding of gender was far ahead of its time; her treatment of sex between generations can still make us uneasy. Courting dissatisfaction in love, Colette's characters nonetheless do so within one of the most satisfactory physical worlds ever depicted (who under the pseudonym Pauline Réage wrote "Story of O") remarked that Colette never neglects to describe her heroines' meals or the comforts, grand or shabby, of their bedrooms and bathrooms. Her interiors have the plenitude of gardens, and she writes magnificently of food, flowers and animals -- not analytically but, as Thurman says, "from the point of view ... of the child first 'sorting out' her paradoxical instincts and experience." A less happy immaturity was the intellectual and moral passivity that allowed her to publish in pro-Vichy, anti-Semitic journals during the Nazi occupation, even as she fought devotedly (and successfully) to keep her Jewish third husband from being deported. It's one of the great virtues of Thurman's biography that she deals unsparingly with Colette's tin ear for moral principle, locating her complacencies within contemporary French social history and popular opinion. "Secrets of the Flesh" is a fiercely intelligent and accomplished book and -- using the words with all due weight -- an immense pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: A Fiercely Intelligent & Pleasurable Biography
Review: "Secrets of the Flesh," Judith Thurman's superb life of Colette, guides the reader with great assurance through a wealth of complex material. Thurman won a 1983 National Book Award for "Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller." A gifted literary biographer, as sure-handed as her subject, she never conflates the life with the work or allows her admiration to interfere with an informed and delicately balanced critique of Colette's uniqueness. "Like all those who never use their strength to the limit," Colette once wrote, "I am hostile to those who let life burn them out." Fiercely disciplined, hugely productive, the author of "Gigi" and "Chéri" lived 80 years and produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction, memoirs, journalism and drama. She married three times, had male and female lovers and for a time supported herself as a mime, dancing semi-nude in music halls throughout France. When she died in 1954, she received the first state funeral the French Republic had ever given a woman. Colette is a strikingly elusive writer. Packing her books with delicious clothes and furniture and ravishingly attractive people, she delivers pleasures that most "women's writers" only promise. But her prose is rarely straightforward or transparent, and her characters -- captured at the height of their beauty or in beauty's humiliating decline -- maintain a mocking, self-protective reticence. Colette, Thurman says, was "remarkable among modern writers -- perhaps the great women in particular -- for a sense of self not vested in her mind." Maybe female writers have simply had to think harder in order to carve out space within ideologies that would otherwise have shut them out. She drew inspiration from entertainers, courtesans, an aristocratic Parisian lesbian subculture and the fin de siècle gay aesthetes whose "fetish worship of human beauty" she shared. She admired the bravery of lives lived on the sexual edge, the consciously chosen tastes and prejudices, the risk of physical danger. Her understanding of gender was far ahead of its time; her treatment of sex between generations can still make us uneasy. Courting dissatisfaction in love, Colette's characters nonetheless do so within one of the most satisfactory physical worlds ever depicted (who under the pseudonym Pauline Réage wrote "Story of O") remarked that Colette never neglects to describe her heroines' meals or the comforts, grand or shabby, of their bedrooms and bathrooms. Her interiors have the plenitude of gardens, and she writes magnificently of food, flowers and animals -- not analytically but, as Thurman says, "from the point of view ... of the child first 'sorting out' her paradoxical instincts and experience." A less happy immaturity was the intellectual and moral passivity that allowed her to publish in pro-Vichy, anti-Semitic journals during the Nazi occupation, even as she fought devotedly (and successfully) to keep her Jewish third husband from being deported. It's one of the great virtues of Thurman's biography that she deals unsparingly with Colette's tin ear for moral principle, locating her complacencies within contemporary French social history and popular opinion. "Secrets of the Flesh" is a fiercely intelligent and accomplished book and -- using the words with all due weight -- an immense pleasure.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for those enamored with Colette's work!
Review: As a long-time reader and admirer of Colette's writings, I thoroughly enjoyed Judith Thurman's "Secrets of the Flesh", an accounting of Colette's life. This biography attempts neither to villefy Colette nor raise her to sainthood, but shows her to be very human, a real woman who became one of France's greatest writers. It is interesting to discover how autobiographical her writings and stories were. As an added bonus, the picture of Colette on the cover is totally mesmerizing.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for those enamored with Colette's work!
Review: As a long-time reader and admirer of Colette's writings, I thoroughly enjoyed Judith Thurman's "Secrets of the Flesh", an accounting of Colette's life. This biography attempts neither to villefy Colette nor raise her to sainthood, but shows her to be very human, a real woman who became one of France's greatest writers. It is interesting to discover how autobiographical her writings and stories were. As an added bonus, the picture of Colette on the cover is totally mesmerizing.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to ruin Colette, but this book does
Review: Colette has been one of my favorite writers for a very long time, and I have read her work in both French and English. Not only has this author managed to make her sound like a very unpleasant person, but the translations of her writing are so poor that she sounds like a bad writer too. The author tries to use 1995 American slang for phrases written in 1905 French, and it just doesn't come off. Also, much of the translation is of a very mechanical nature and fails to convey any of the real flavor of the original. Within a very short time of starting this book, I got the feeling that the author heartily disliked her subject. She also fails utterly to express the extraordinary role Sido, Colette's mother, played in her life; to convey the lush sensory evocations that make her prose so unique; and to show the color and verve of this amazing woman's life. Instead we get a plebeian laundry list of all the people Colette met and when and where, regardless of how tiny their role was in her life--but the writing of several of her novels is glossed over lightly or omitted altogether. I am terribly sorry that so many readers who have not read Colette yet now will never do so because of this poor biography.
Rating:
Summary: For the educated reader
Review: Colette is not an easy person to like, and this biography is dense and thick with information and literary interpretation, meaning that it's not an "easy" or quick book to read. That said it is an accomplished, thoughtful book. Judith Thruman is an excellent writer and I personally was engrossed -- I really couldn't put this book down. But it is not for everyone. It is for those interested in Colette or at least in her milieu. Thurman gives a vivid sense of the time Colette lived in, and a persuasive look at her motivations, personality, and contradictions. She shows those of us who love Colette's writing that it is possible to enjoy a writer's books without necessarily admiring that person's life and deeds. It is a facinating dicotomy: how can a person, Colette, or anyone else, be so senstitive in her writing life, yet so insensitive to those who actually surrounded her? It is a question to which there is no answer, yet one which Thurman beautifully illustrates.
Rating:
Summary: For the educated reader
Review: Colette is not an easy person to like, and this biography is dense and thick with information and literary interpretation, meaning that it's not an "easy" or quick book to read. That said it is an accomplished, thoughtful book. Judith Thruman is an excellent writer and I personally was engrossed -- I really couldn't put this book down. But it is not for everyone. It is for those interested in Colette or at least in her milieu. Thurman gives a vivid sense of the time Colette lived in, and a persuasive look at her motivations, personality, and contradictions. She shows those of us who love Colette's writing that it is possible to enjoy a writer's books without necessarily admiring that person's life and deeds. It is a facinating dicotomy: how can a person, Colette, or anyone else, be so senstitive in her writing life, yet so insensitive to those who actually surrounded her? It is a question to which there is no answer, yet one which Thurman beautifully illustrates.
Rating:
Summary: A feast for those who can't get enough of Colette
Review: Colette is one of those authors whose life is as fascinating as her writing, and this book ably describes the former, also containing many wonderful photos. Colette's uniquely sensitive yet unsentimental way of experiencing life has been a source of inspiration to me since I first discovered her as a preteen. One moment she can be devastated by the suffering of an animal, or write with exquisite insightfulness about the insecurities of her unconventional friends; the next she can swear off a failed marriage or friendship without a hint of pity (or self-pity). This book was very satisfying from the standpoint of her personal and family history, and contained extensive information about her long-standing affair with her teenaged stepson, which, while perhaps her most problematic moral transgression, certainly made for interesting reading. While the book was far less occupied with conveying the brilliance of Colette's writing, for that one need only go to the source. There is so much to learn from Colette's life; despite facing considerable hardships, she managed to thrive and celebrate all that she found beautiful and fascinating in nature, the theater, humanity -- really any topic to which she turned her magnificent vision. Betrayal was a major theme in her relationships, and the way that she survived and even exploited repeated psychic wounds, ultimately finding peace with a kind and compatible partner, is instructive and inspiring. She will always have a very special place in my heart, and I thank Ms. Thurman for making her more accessible.
Rating:
Summary: A feast for those who can't get enough of Colette
Review: Colette is one of those authors whose life is as fascinating as her writing, and this book ably describes the former, also containing many wonderful photos. Colette's uniquely sensitive yet unsentimental way of experiencing life has been a source of inspiration to me since I first discovered her as a preteen. One moment she can be devastated by the suffering of an animal, or write with exquisite insightfulness about the insecurities of her unconventional friends; the next she can swear off a failed marriage or friendship without a hint of pity (or self-pity). This book was very satisfying from the standpoint of her personal and family history, and contained extensive information about her long-standing affair with her teenaged stepson, which, while perhaps her most problematic moral transgression, certainly made for interesting reading. While the book was far less occupied with conveying the brilliance of Colette's writing, for that one need only go to the source. There is so much to learn from Colette's life; despite facing considerable hardships, she managed to thrive and celebrate all that she found beautiful and fascinating in nature, the theater, humanity -- really any topic to which she turned her magnificent vision. Betrayal was a major theme in her relationships, and the way that she survived and even exploited repeated psychic wounds, ultimately finding peace with a kind and compatible partner, is instructive and inspiring. She will always have a very special place in my heart, and I thank Ms. Thurman for making her more accessible.
Rating:
Summary: Colette's life is fascinating
Review: Colette's life makes this a 4 star , she is so interesting that I have to recommened this book. I found it a good read.
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