Gigi and The Cat by Colette Gauthier-Villars

Gigi and The Cat Reviews

• 
  Paul Bryant

  I saw the movie Gigi - it was made in the late 50s.
  
  
  
  There was this total gush of praise that flowed from the orifices of the critics :
  
  "Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere"
  
  "...Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total . . . Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned . . . distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production."
  
  And you remember it got like a billion Oscars. They had to get a truck it won so many.
  
  So I read Colette's original short story to find out what the hell is going on here. Because in the movie the story is so amazingly creepy, most of the characters in it would, if they were transported to contemporary Britain, either be in care (Gigi) or in jail for grooming a child for sexual abuse (Gigi's aunt and mother) or be on the Sex Offenders Register (Gaston and probably Maurice "Tank Evven for Leedle Grrls" Chevalier). Dig it - the mother and the aunt are training Gigi to be a - what was the polite word - courtesan. What's one of those? It's a high class call girl you rent by the month or year. So for the whole movie the aunt and the mother are trying to improve Gigi's posture and attitude and female accomplishments and be a bit less hearty and gawky and more seductive and like practise oral sex techniques on asparagus so that she can get a better customer and hence a better price when the time comes to launch her on the market (16th birthday? probably). The whole concept is ghastly, but in 1958 Hollywood and its audiences didn't bat an eyelid. Not one eyelid! It was just those saucy French .. c'est chic n'est-ce pas?
  (But you know, Hollywood likes on occasion to portray prostitution as an acceptable career choice for young women - check out Pretty Woman for instance.)
  
  So another one which proves that they thought very differently in the past - in 19th century France, but also, in 1958 America.
• 
  Fiona MacDonald

  'Gigi' was charming, humorous and wild, and 'The Cat' was painful and soul rejoicing. Two complete contrasts in story form, one about the fickle life of a young girl being groomed by her grandmother to be a courtesan who's only use is to marry money, and the second about the devoted love and affection one man has for his cat, at the expense of anything and anyone else. Really delightful, beautifully written stories.
• 
  Gabrielle

  Am I the only one who doesn't get skeeved out by "Gigi"? I do get skeeved out big time by Maurice Chevalier singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" because, well… duh! That's a pretty fucked up song… But the actual Colette novella (that I have read in French countless times - as Colette is one of my mother's favorite authors and her books were all over the house I grew up in - and in English for the first time just now) never struck me as creepy.
  
  Maybe it's my weird mix of French and Italian cultural heritage, or a healthy perspective on the social and historical setting of the story itself (or maybe I got into Anaïs Nin short stories way too young and a Freudian analyst would have a field day with my brain…), but I found "Gigi" to be a charming and comical, albeit rather unusual, coming-of-age story.
  
  Some potential spoilers ahead…
  
  Gilberte comes for a family of demi-mondaines; that's a fancy French way of saying high-class courtesans or kept women. These women were beautiful, educated, elegant and experts at entertaining men in every imaginable way (including, but not restricted to, sex). In return, said men would buy them houses, pay their servants, cover them in jewels and fancy dresses. While this was not the most reputable way of making a living, they were not considered prostitutes, but a social class unto themselves, and their lovers were invariably wealthy, often aristocrats or industrialists. Gigi (as her family affectionately call her) is being groomed for that life by her aunt Alicia, a retired courtesan of great fame. A family friend, Gaston Lachaille, is a fabulously rich but bored playboy who enjoys Gigi's company and slowly comes to realize that his fraternal affection for her is changing into something else.
  
  The story is a lot more about Gigi leaving childhood behind and becoming a woman than about the idea of her shaking up with an older man. In fact, Gaston fully admits to feeling uneasy about their age difference - not to mention that Gigi doesn't exactly make herself easy to get. Of course, that sort of gender relation is terribly dated, and no one in their right mind would condone a similar arrangement today, but again, this is the Belle Époque in Paris: age, love and sex were not viewed in our modern North American way at all... I also feel the need to point out that this is not "Lolita": Gigi actually rejects the lifestyle that her family encourages her to pursue in favor of *gasp* marriage and respectability! Not exactly what Humbert had up his sleeve for his little Lo…
  
  And let's not forget that beyond subject-matter, there is Colette's prose: beautiful, whimsical and disarmingly honest. Colette, not unlike Gigi, lived by her own rules and didn't care much for the sexual restrictions imposed on her by proper society. In some ways, Gigi is the proto-manic-pixie-dream-girl who shakes a male character out of the depression and boredom brought on my vacuous women and an empty and unfulfilling lifestyle. Interestingly enough, when the novella was first adapted for Broadway, Colette herself demanded that a young woman she had seen on the beach be cast in the title role: that young woman was Audrey Hepburn. Please don't let the PC rear-view mirror stop you from enjoying this little story… My only problem with it is that its too short! I wanted to know more about these women's lives and the society they lived in.
  
  My edition comes with another short story titled "The Cat", which I hadn't read before. It is about a young couple, Alain and Camille, who have unfortunately mismatched libidos. That... and Alain is really into his cat Saha, a gorgeous Russian blue female cat, who also passionately loves her master. Camille eventually becomes jealous of her new husband's pet. Now that can sound a bit trite, and jealousy between a woman and a kitty but when you know that the original French title (and word for "female cat") "La Chatte" can have another meaning, it suddenly makes a bit more sense...
  
  It actually reminded me of a cat I had years ago, who followed me everywhere, slept on the pillow next to me every night, cuddled me when I felt sad or sick. And then I got a boyfriend who started using the cat's pillow and all Hell broke loose... The cat refused the food the boyfriend gave him to try and make friends, peed on his backpack, the whole nine.
  
  But my personal experience in possessive cats didn't endear either Alain or Camille to me: I found them both rather insufferable, and while the story is an interesting study of jealousy, I didn't like it as much as "Gigi".
  
  4 stars for "Gigi", and 2 for "The Cat".
• 
  Rhys

  I have just become a Colette fan! This has surprised me because I always assumed she was one of those boring "indoors all the time" writers, prissy and fussy and obsessed with curtains and relationships. But in fact her prose style is luminous, crepuscular, dreamy and yet precise. She more closely resembles Nabokov than Jane Austen. True, her thematic concerns are mostly domestic but she elevates them with her unusual perspectives and lyrical language.
  
  I began reading this volume on a whim thinking I would throw it over a hedge after a few pages, but I found myself quickly hooked. 'Gigi' is a good little story, but 'The Cat' is superb, one of the best novellas I've ever read in fact, and probably the best about a cat. It has a darker undercurrent to it than I might have expected. The eponymous cat ruins a new marriage and the end result is about a mismatched couple floundering about in a sea of chaos while seeking the status quo. There is even an attempted assassination. This is visceral stuff of a brutal nature that can't be disguised by the perfume of the background flowers. I misjudged Colette! She is the real thing: a brilliant author.
  
  Let this be a lesson to me for the future.
• 
  Lady Drinkwell

  My four stars are for the cat rather than Gigi. I knew the story of Gigi but I felt rather uncomfortable with the light tone in which the story of a 15 year old girl getting together with a man she called "tonton" (Uncle) was written. Other than that it was rather fascinating to read about the life of French courtesan and the politeness, manners and fastidiousness which surrounded what was essentially prostitution. I adored the Cat however, with its spectacular descriptions of a newly married couple in a long hot Parisian summer. Collette did an excellent job of showing how passion disappears and relationships break down as the husband gradually comes to see things in the wife that irritate and repulse him. The Cat, however, is eternally beautiful, elegant and mysterious as cats are and is the real object of his affections, which spurs the young wife to jealousy. I have not read Colette before but she seems to be a specialist in depicting diverse forms of love.
• 
  Anthea Syrokou

  French writer Colette creates stories that are bold, unique and, at times, laced with scandal. The first story, Gigi, is about a young girl’s journey to become a courtesan and her rebellion against the adults in her life who raise her with strict rules. It is rather a controversial read for this reason, but also in regards to the age difference between a particular suitor and the young Gigi. Although the story didn’t peak my interest entirely, what did jump out immediately is the author’s impeccable and clever writing style which drew me into the scenes quickly. I felt that I was sitting at one of the sofas having tea in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. I was so engrossed in the story because of how beautifully it was written.
  
  Gigi is an interesting short story and although I was intrigued due to the writing, once I began to read the second story in this edition, The Cat, I was in reading heaven. Colette’s writing style is so real, honest, and eloquent that I wanted to savour every word. Her observations on human behaviour and her ability to draw out the idiosyncrasies—the rather neurotic behaviour of the characters is brilliantly done. The story is set in Paris, perhaps in the 1930s, and focuses on the protagonist Alain and his soon-to-be wife Camille, but the main protagonist seems to be the cat herself, a Russian Blue called Saha, or rather she is the driving force for the upheaval around her. Alain is an only child brought up in a well-to-do family and it seems that he is treated like an earl in his mother’s house where maids are always on hand, and he spends his mornings languorously having his breakfast in the manicured garden where flowers are in full bloom due to his mother’s devotion to tending the garden. Everything is pressed, cleaned and presented to him wrapped with a bow it seems, including his silk pyjamas and his slippers. I felt that he is clinging to his childhood—a time when it was just him and his cat Saha, spending long hours in each other’s company.
  
  The pages were perfumed with beautiful descriptions of the scented flowers and this ideal garden that was so precious to Alain, through the use of such beautiful prose that I felt as though I was part of this charming ideal setting that meant so much to the character. Long hours were spent musing idly at every detail of his feline companion which immediately highlighted the strong and reciprocal bond he shares with Saha.
  
  However, we also immediately realise that Camille is not equally included in this relationship that he shares with his cat. Camille represents danger to this safe cocooned world he has built around his cat—a type of chaos which challenges his neat, autonomous world which is in opposition to her wild, dissolute ways. I could feel the trepidation he felt when Camille entered the garden in his childhood home. This apprehension is portrayed in such a clever yet disturbing way. Amongst this ideal garden setting lurks a threat that it could all change irrevocably. I could also feel the fear slowly turning into resentment as each scene unfolded. His marriage seems to be fragile from the onset due to such oppressive feelings. Alain’s apprehension keeps growing when the newly-weds move to a Parisian apartment. It seemed that his obsession with his cat represented his desire to hold on to his childhood, but also his fear of change and having responsibilities as an adult—the cat is his safe world where he is king of the castle.
  
  Overall this was a beautiful story with dark undertones. I could not get enough of the beautiful sentences which always carried an underlying message and the emotionally charged relationship described. Colette was a very gifted and astute writer and I immensely enjoyed her writing, and the way she brought out the many nuances in these complicated and flawed characters.
• 
  Sara Jesus

  Sempre tive uma imensa curiosidade em ler algo de Colette. A sua figura provocativa despertou-me a atenção, desde que assisti o filme de 2018, protagonizado por Keira Knightley. Estas novelas servem de uma boa introdução à sua obra. Demonstram a sua capacidade satírica e o modo inteligente como construí os seus diálogos.
  
  Em "Gigi" é narrado a historia de uma jovem de 16 anos que recusa a seguir as expectativas da sua familia, não aceitando envolver-se com um homem mais velho. "The cat" explora a relação de um casal à beira da ruptura, servindo para criticar os casamentos por conveniência.
• 
  Samantha

  This novella I read mainly because I wanted to know the differences it had with the movie, GiGi, which is one of my favorite films of all time. I relate a lot to Gigi being the only daughter in a family of all women. The book and the movie are essentially the same, entire dialogues taken out directly from the story. The only main difference is that in the film, the screenwriters delightfully and delicatly omitted the fact that yes, this is a story about a family of courtesans. But these are not your Moulin Rouge courtesans, they are respected women who were a class unto themselves. MGM thought right that the film wouldn't be received well had that one detail not been omitted. The film and the book have their differences, but essentially the message is the same, Gigi is the same precocious dreamer. It would be interesting to have the film remade in an even more true representation of this novel, and really depict the Victorian courtesan's lifestyle.
• 
  Kate

  The Cat is the most marvelously creepy novella in the world. A must-read for any young lady who is engaged to the heir of a declining silk emporium and is slightly worried that a) his family and servants look down upon her and b) he is perhaps too into his cat.
  
  Alain, the protagonist of The Cat, is really, really into his cat. He is also emotionally about 7 years old: he is completely comfortable living in his ancestral home and allowing himself to drift around being cosseted by servitors. The narrator's casual references to his having had mistresses jar because he seems a decade or two too young to be thinking about sex. And yet he marries Camille, a lusty young wench with whom he appears to have nothing at all in common. Colette beautifully delineates the gradual rotting of their menage.
  
  Gigi is also creepy, but is less wonderful. If I could rate these novellas separately I would give The Cat five stars and Gigi three.
• 
  Kaethe

  My daughter will be appearing in Gigi this spring, if winter ever leaves us, so I thought I'd read it. Meh. Based on these two stories, I feel towards Colette what I feel towards Wharton: indifference and a little boredom. Sure, yes, turn-of-the-twentieth-century romantic pairings were hard due to the tremendous inequality of the sexes and the awkward courtship customs of the time. But even knowing the financial importance to an entire family, I just can't feel that teenage student Gigi seducing a wealthy man twice her age is a happy ending. Let alone pretending it is a bit of cleverness on her part. The idea makes my skin crawl. Certainly it doesn't feel like comedy to me.
  
  That the newlyweds in The Cat are so miserable is no surprise. But if the publishers were looking for a cheap image to slap on the cover, couldn't they at least have found one of a Russian Blue, which is what the cat in the story is?
  
  Library copy
• 
  Christine

  I'm I the only one who is grossed out a bit by Gigi? Maybe it's because I can't get the creepy song out of my head. I know it's a different time period and all, and that she is being raised to be a mistress. But ick! She's 16! How old is he?
  
  Now, The Cat. I love that story, especially the ending where Camille makes some very good observations. The Cat is where it is at.
• 
  Adam

  "The Cat" is excellent.
  
  "Gigi" is outstanding.
  
  Both novellas have a thrusting inevitability to them but are simultaneously packed with suspense. The vivacious characters jump off the page. The prose is witty.
  
  Colette is definitely a writer I shall read more of.
• 
  Abbie | ab_reads

  3.5 stars
  
  A bit underwhelming, but The Cat was particularly entertaining and I enjoyed Colette's insight into the sexual politics between men and women in 19/20th century France!
• 
  George Ilsley

  This volume has two shorter works from the celebrated Colette.
  
  
  Gigi is the most well-known of these two works, and apparently I have read it before since I knew everything that was to happen from the first paragraph. The writing is clever, and a little droll. As another reviewer here points out, Gigi is only 15 when she is being groomed for marriage to the kindly rich bachelor friend. But this reflects the times — as I like to point out, Jane Austen's
  Emma was only 13 when their wealthy neighbour Mr. Knightley, age 29, fell in love with her. They wait a few years and then it is a big love story.
  
  
  The Cat is the second, longer tale in this volume. What a strange beast! The writing lacks the compressed wit of Gigi, and the plot . . . is incredible. However, there is a cat, so there's that. Basically bought this book because there was a story called The Cat, so it is a little ironic that it was the disappointment of the two.
  
  4 stars for the writing in Gigi, 2 stars for the cat in The Cat, average 3 stars.
• 
  Suvi

  What a delight to read Colette again after so many years! Her writing is both spirited and lyrical, clever and beautiful. It's almost as if it's a concrete manifestation of her character.
  
  These two novellas are very different, and some would say it's odd that they are collected together, but they actually compliment each other. First is Gigi, a bubbly, funny, and witty story about a young girl who is being trained to be a courtesan. There's love that goes beyond what others want and subverts expectations. (There's also a 1958 musical, a visually gorgeous but ultimately empty Hollywood version with one of the most creepiest songs I've ever heard. So let's just forget it.)
  
  The second story, The Cat, on the other hand is about love that sours. It's like the night version of the first one: sensual, dreamy, and stagnant. The protagonist wants to linger in his childhood and loves his cat more than anything else, which results in a hot Parisian summer simmering with jealousy and bitterness.
  
  
  

  "You can, at a pinch, leave the face till the morning, when travelling or pressed for time. For a woman, attention to the lower parts is the first law of self-respect."
• 
  Suzanne

  Of the two novellas in this volume, Gigi is the more famous story and impressive, among other things, for the amount of information Collette could convey through just dialogue. However, I think I enjoyed The Cat more, which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. A spoiled young man, a sensuous young woman, a new marriage. It’s not going well. And the bride has a rival.
  
  The writing is fabulous. Collette was a master prose stylist. Probably some credit has to be given to the translators here (Roger Senhouse and Antonia White), but I’ve always loved Colette, no matter who was translating her words.
  
• 
  Jane

  Oh Gigi, why did I wait so long to meet you?
  
  It is many years since I met the wonderful Claudine, and I really should have sought you out back then.
  
  Paris at the turn of the century was always going to be wonderful, but it was the people who made this trip so special.
  
  Your family was marvellous, and I was particularly entranced as I watched your Great Aunt Alicia, a courtesan of the old school, try to mould you in her own image. I shall remember so many of your exchanges with a wry smile.
  
  She only wanted what was best for you but, of course, you grew up in a different world. You were much too bright for that and I always knew that you would follow your own heart.
  
  The greatest pleasure was watching you grow from a schoolgirl into a young woman ready to step into a wonderful future.
  
  I’m only sorry that we had just sixty pages together. They were such beautiful pages, and they just flew by.
  
  So now we much say goodbye, but please know that you will always have a place in my heart and that I wish you happiness always.
  
  
• 
  Gitte

  If he’s getting married, he’s no longer interesting.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Beginning: Don’t forget you’re going to Aunt Alicia’s.
  
  Gigi, 2 stars
  I had high expectation for this one as I’ve got a soft spot for classics with untraditional heroines. Here we have a young girl trained to be a courtesan who surprises her family by her alternative approach to love. It sounds like a winner, but it felt too short for such an interesting subject. I liked Gigi, though. She amused me in all her childishness and the story was a fun quickie.
  
  I put on a martyred expression – like this – as if I was bored to death with every luxury under the sun. I had the time of my life.
  
  The Cat, 5 stars
  What a lovely little surprise this one turned out to be! So untraditional, fun and touching. It’s about a man who has a cat he cares deeply for and a fiancé he doesn’t care that much for. When they marry, the wife becomes very jealous of the cat. And she should in fact be jealous, because our hero loves the cat more than he loves his wife (if he loves her at all).
  
  It’s not often you read a story like this! It made me laugh out loud all the way home from Berlin. If you’ve ever preferred cats to people or have been jealous of your boyfriend’s goldfish, you must promise me to read this novella – you won’t regret it!
  
  For more reviews and book talk, stop by my blog
  The Bookworm's Closet
• 
  Nicholas Whyte

  
  https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3223605.html
  
  The book by the great French feminist writer Colette is very short. It's recognisably the same story as the film, with some of the same jokes and lines, though there is no Honoré - completely invented for the film, and I guess to an extent for Chevalier. Gigi is explicitly not yet sixteen years old; obviously Hollywood could not go near there. Gigi's mother, completely invisible in the film, makes a few appearances in the book (the father has been long absent):
  
  "As for her features, no one could yet predict their final mould. A large mouth, which showed beautiful strong white teeth when she laughed, no chin to speak of, and, between high cheekbones, a nose – ‘Heavens, where did she get that button?’ whispered her mother under her breath. ‘If you can’t answer that question, my girl, who can?’ retorted Madame Alvarez."
  
  It's a succinct sketch of Paris in 1899 from the point of view of women trying to get by in a man's world.
  
  I got it in combination with a slightly longer book by Colette, La Chatte/The Cat, about a young woman who discovers that her new husband loves his cat more than he loves her. None of the characters in this story is pleasant, including the cat, but it's well told, and reminiscent of a notorious recent Reddit thread.
• 
  David

  This has to be my favorite Colette that I've read so far. Tight clean writing, simple in scope yet highly moving. Gigi is my favorite of the two, but both are quite well done. Words that resonate long after the cover is closed.
• 
  sasha

  I appreciate the array of cat noises which ranges from: ‘Me-rrang!’ ‘Mouek, mouek mouek. Ma-a-a-a…. Ma-a-a-a’ and ‘m’hain’
• 
  hannah

  if you’re stuck in a love triangle with your husband and his cat, leave the husband.
• 
  Suli Scatchard

  My introduction to Colette’s writing and I’m very keen to read more. I think her prose is stunning - it’s very clean and tight, yet opulent. This helped transport me to the decadent world of high society in Gigi and The Cat. “During the most ambiguous hour of the short night, he rested in that provisional tomb where the living exile sighs, weeps, fights and succumbs, and from which he rises, unremembering, with the day” - ugh, stunning!
  
  Gigi
  I found the heroine of this story to be absolutely charming and endearing, albeit perhaps leaning towards an early “manic pixie dream girl” vibe in regard to “breaking” the spell of Tonton’s long string of toxic relationships with women. I wouldn’t have thought so to be honest if it wasn’t for the underlying edginess I felt in regard to the way Gigi was groomed for a courtesan life, as Tonton references her age often. Even when trying to consider the different context of the period, there was still something that made me twitch seeing Gigi so against the marriage initially, her not being allowed to make other female friends and the way she is so concerned about being covered in the tabloids like his previous lovers. Also, the fact that she previously calls him “Tonton”, although I’ve also seen some mention that this is a play on his name as opposed to her viewing him as an uncle figure (I hope so!). In addition, Gigi being surrounded by female figures who are essentially training her to become the perfect courtesan juxtaposed with her endearing childish traits. Nonetheless, beautiful prose, but at times could be an uncomfortable read.
  
  The Cat
  This novella frustrated me- but that’s a compliment. At first, I bought into the scene of young and out-of-touch lovers about to become married, where one perhaps is weirdly obsessed with his cat. I thought perhaps this was going to be a novella on growth in the same way Gigi was, and letting go of childhood as we have to embrace the unknown (Saha being some symbol of his comfortable childhood he is eager to hold on to, Camille being the modern and unknown). Did not expect this to take on a darker theme but enjoyed it that more as a result. I liked the ever growing creepy undertone, particularly the ambiguity of the ending. Saha was definitely my favourite character in this, and whilst at first I thought Camille was jarring (which admittedly she remains being so), I became washed over with sympathy throughout, which made things complicated once she does what she did to Saha. Loved the complexity of Camille, and the descriptions of her and Paris.
  
  Loved the exploration of Alain, as I had just assumed he would be a superficial, entitled guy who fundamentally loves his pet. Seems somewhat charming enough. However, seeing the way he constantly criticises Camille, the discomfort I felt whenever he hyperfixated on her looks, his prudishness and downright lack of self-awareness made my blood BOIL! The part where he returns to his childhood home to get coddled by the entirety of the household whilst for a different character could be seen as endearing, I found weirdly chilling. Clearly, this was somebody who had married for the sake of doing so, but fundamentally was still a child. Spooky stuff.
  
  I have proper beef with Alain, if I see him, it’s on sight. Even if he likes animals.
• 
  Nathan

  Completely and utterly delectable, perfectly emotional, tumultuous, vibrant, comedic, and I'm just absolutely in love with Colette
• 
  Fifi

  Really didn't like this book, so unbelievably boring! Would have given it 1 star but the joke about the laudanum/suicide made me laugh and I felt bad for Saha but other than that nothing about either story was entertaining or interesting in the slightest.
• 
  Cátia Vieira

  Colette was an actress, a journalist, a mime and a writer and was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. In other words, she was a fucking badass.
  
  'Gigi and The Cat' includes two novellas: 'Gigi' (1944) and 'The Cat' (1933). I really loved 'Gigi'. I thought it was very well-written and thought-provoking. The main character, Gigi, is a very funny and wise young girl who struggles with what is expected from her, from a woman. I laughed a lot as well because Colette is very ironical.
  
  On the other hand, 'The Cat' wasn't as good as 'Gigi'. In this novella, the author criticized marriages of convenience, which happened quite often in the beginning of the last century. I thought it was really amusing because the male character is obsessed with his cat and ignores his spouse completely which leads to a few small tragedies. I liked the plot and what it discussed but the writing wasn’t so bold. Maybe I should have begun with 'The Cat'.
  
  In spite of this, I think Colette must be read. She was a brilliant woman and she had a singular voice.
  
  For more reviews, follow me on Instagram: @booksturnyouon
• 
  Eric

  Quite a difference between the two stories in this volume. Gigi the world-famous, Gigi the character that transcends so many art forms to exist in our collective consciousness as one of the more memorable popular creations of the 20th century, began her life in this tiny, undistinguished tale. The seeds of greatness are there, but are smothered in an unimaginative & ultimately dreadfully disappointing series of events. On the other hand, The Cat, a much longer piece, is a masterpiece of condensed character development, relationship exploration, subtletly & suspense. Colette masters the voices of her characters & the tensions between them in building the pitch-perfect construction of a union that rises to a fevered crescendo before its inevitable dismal fall. The Cat is the thing here that makes me want to pursue more of Colette's voluminous body of work.
• 
  Tracey

  Adult fiction. This title was suggested to me by goodreads; I thought it might make for an interesting bookclub read but have no desire to revisit it. I read gigi and skimmed through "the Cat"--the back cover says that they are both love stories but it means tragic romance. 15 1/2-year old Gigi's mother, grandma and aunt are pushing her into the family tradition of courtesanship, though she clearly isn't ready to; in the end she relents. In the Cat, a woman's jealousy over her husband's beloved cat causes her to try to kill the animal (it miraculously survives the 9-story fall) and thus ends their imperfect marriage.
• 
  Baz

  Gigi is a long short story about a young untamed girl being groomed to attract a suitable well-bred well-off gentleman. The Cat is an unconventional novella about a love triangle between a young man, his new wife, and his cat. The love affair with his cat drives a wedge between them, but what’s really going on? The simplicity of the premise in both stories is all Colette needs to show off her psychological prowess when it comes to the power dynamics between men and women in love and lust. Her authority on social, political and economic disparities is always compelling. As ever the writing is light, lush and sensual, containing an evergreen freshness that makes Colette such a joy to read.