A review by moh
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
4.0
ETA: By way of background, Colette was my first literary crush, so the less savory aspects of who she was hit me hard when I first heard of them. And Colette's romanticizing of relationships between middle-aged adults and people in, or barely out of, their teens reads as a lot creepier at 57 than it did at 14. I also suspect I'd be, at a minimum, uncomfortable with the Claudine stories if I reread them now, but as a teenager they gave me breathing room I couldn't give myself. Long before I came out to myself, I loved that a woman decades older than my grandmother had written these gorgeous, meticulously detailed stories about queer girls and women.
I have a great deal of admiration for this complex, impressively well-researched biography. There's a breadth to it that gives a thoughtful portrayal of the world Colette lived in, her music hall career, friendships, loves, family, queerness, sensuality, relationship to her own body, pragmatism, and her vocation. I also learned a lot about Provence and Paris between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s, and I was happily surprised to learn about Colette's blissful fat acceptance nearly a century before the phrase was in use. But in many ways, Colette was a dick, and I appreciate how much Judith Thurman let Colette's words and documented actions stand on their own without obvious censure or adulation. In particular, her portrayal of Colette's “good people on both sides” collaboration with fascists, and unwillingness to see beyond the husband and friends directly harmed by Hitler and Mussolini's rise to power, seems prescient in light of today's false equivalencies and hand-wringing over why we can't all just get along. (In case I'm being unclear, there is never a wrong time to punch nazis.) And I find it interesting that Colette demanded bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and the right to work outside the home but viewed feminism with disgust. I don't think I'm doing anything like justice to Secrets of the Flesh. It's been a few days since I finished it and, though I'm very much enjoying what I'm reading now, I keep thinking about this biography.
I have a great deal of admiration for this complex, impressively well-researched biography. There's a breadth to it that gives a thoughtful portrayal of the world Colette lived in, her music hall career, friendships, loves, family, queerness, sensuality, relationship to her own body, pragmatism, and her vocation. I also learned a lot about Provence and Paris between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s, and I was happily surprised to learn about Colette's blissful fat acceptance nearly a century before the phrase was in use. But in many ways, Colette was a dick, and I appreciate how much Judith Thurman let Colette's words and documented actions stand on their own without obvious censure or adulation. In particular, her portrayal of Colette's “good people on both sides” collaboration with fascists, and unwillingness to see beyond the husband and friends directly harmed by Hitler and Mussolini's rise to power, seems prescient in light of today's false equivalencies and hand-wringing over why we can't all just get along. (In case I'm being unclear, there is never a wrong time to punch nazis.) And I find it interesting that Colette demanded bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and the right to work outside the home but viewed feminism with disgust. I don't think I'm doing anything like justice to Secrets of the Flesh. It's been a few days since I finished it and, though I'm very much enjoying what I'm reading now, I keep thinking about this biography.