Cheri and The Last of Cheri

by Colette, Roger Senhouse (Translator), Judith Thurman (Introduction)

Overview

Two volumes of Colette's most beloved works, with a new Introduction by Judith Thurman.

Chéri, together with The Last of Chéri, is a classic story of a love affair between a very young man and a charming older woman. The amour between Fred Peloux, the beautiful gigolo known as Chéri, and the courtesan Léa de Lonval tenderly depicts the devotion that stems from desire, and is an honest account of the most human preoccupations of youth and middle age. With compassionate insight Colette paints a full-length double portrait using an impressionistic style all her own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374528010
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	10/10/2001
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.35(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Born in 1873 in France, Colette was the author of many acclaimed novels noted for their intimate style. Colette titles from FSG include Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, and Chance Acquaintances, The Complete Claudine, Chéri and The Last of Chéri, and The Complete Stories of Colette. She died in 1954.

Judith Thurman is the author of Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire; Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller, winner of the National Book Award for Autobiography/Biography; and Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette. A staff writer at The New Yorker, she lives in New York City.

Reading Group Guide

Questions for Discussion

1. What did you discover about Colette's life by reading Judith Thurman's introduction? Why might Colette have opposed suffragettes while applauding women who were financially independent? How did the knowledge of Colette's later affair with her stepson affect your reading of Chéri?

2. Discuss the novel's theme of physical beauty. Does a woman's power lie in her appearance? When it comes to aging and the laws of attraction, do equal standards exist between men and women?

3. In the novel, power is also derived by showing no desire: both Léa and Chéri are careful not to reveal their feelings for each other. Do you think this is the way most couples experience a relationship? Would Léa and Chéri have stayed together if they had talked of love sooner, or did uncertainty keep their relationship alive?

4. Do Madame Peloux and Madame Marie-Laure (Edmée's mother) have similar approaches to parenting? Are they good mothers?

5. What did Patron, the boxer, try to teach Chéri about being a man? What does Chéri seem to believe about the differences between men and women? Why does his femininity vex Léa?

6. To what extent does Léa act as a surrogate mother for Chéri? Is it good for wives and girlfriends to behave maternally toward their men?

7. What are the other effects of the age difference between Chéri and Léa? How does age give Léa an advantage over Edmée?

8. How does Desmond's club reflect France's cultural history during this time period? What was symbolic about the sale of Léa's home (to Americans, no less)?

9. What does Chéri mean when, on page 263, he says that he is chaste while the rest of the world is mired in deception? Is he right?

10. In terms of mood, tone, and storytelling, what shifts did you notice between Chéri and The Last of Chéri? How did your impressions of Chéri change between the opening scenes of Chéri and the closing scenes of The Last of Chéri?

11. Does Léa's life appeal to you? Who is her twenty-first-century equivalent?

12. Would Léa have married Chéri, given the chance? Would their marriage have been happier than his marriage to Edmée? What is the difference between Léa's financial power and Edmée's?

13. What pain is Chéri trying to relieve in the closing scene of The Last of Chéri? Do his actions mean that Léa "won"?

14. What distinctions did you notice between Chéri and the film? What might Colette have said about the production? What made Michelle Pfeiffer ideal for the role of Léa?

15. Which of Colette's novels had you read previously? How does Chéri echo Colette's other portrayals of men as lovers?

Editorial Reviews

Everything that Colette touched became human . . . She was a complete sensualist; but she gave herself up to her senses with such delicacy of perception, with such exquisiteness of physical pain as well as physical ecstasy, that she ennobled sensualism to grandeur.” —The Times

“Chéri is her masterpiece.” —Michael Straight, The New Republic

“Dramatic and moving . . . [Chéri] endears itself to the reader partly because of its subject, but more because of the manner of its telling.” —The New York Times

From the Publisher