Mitsou and Music-Hall Sidelights by Colette

Mitsou and Music-Hall Sidelights Reviews

• 
  Eric

  Why has this been out of print in English (or at least the United States) for so long? "Mitsou" is a novella about an actress during the first World War while "Music-Hall Sidelights" is a collection of sketches from the world of the musical theater at the dawn of the motion picture.
  
  Colette's writing in this period varies widely from the divine The Vagabond to the abysmal Minne and this collection is something of a lost treasure. The writing of "Mitsou" occasionally touches on the brilliance of the former. "Music-Hall Sidelights" occasionally has the tone of the Dialogues de Bêtes but at its best captures some of the weariness of Vagabond as well. (It may even be that the narrator of the first few stories is our Renée Néré, but not in the more literal sense of it being an actual sequel.)
  
  It's a shame that this book seems to have been forgotten. These aren't masterpieces, but they are delectable bites of fiction perfect for a rainy afternoon at a beach house or a long train ride. They're also something of an end of an era for Colette in which every novel had an "Annie", a "Claudine", an admirer, and a distant patriarchal authority.
• 
  K.

  Rachel rice powder