Comments on: Histoires de Parfums 1873 Colette ~ fragrance review

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:34:01 +0000

That would work!

By: ceelouise

ceelouise — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:21:06 +0000

I love Colette; she is one of my favorite writers to read in French. (Admittedly one of the few writers I read in French. It is my second language and I much prefer reading in English!) I agree, I think of jasmine in relation to her. I think of Pure Poison!

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:46:14 +0000

Nice quote, thanks!

By: moon_grrl

moon_grrl — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:02:42 +0000

I would totally buy a Gertrude Stein fragrance!

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:18:26 +0000

LOL…I would too. JeC was a bit too tame for me.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:17:55 +0000

They haven’t done any in the series lately…but that would be cool!

By: Zazie

Zazie — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:36:58 +0000

You are right in a way: appearence counts a lot for writers. Luckily, it seems not to count for writers gravitating outside the blatantly commercial areas…

What I gathered from the ensemble of Colette’s books (Ididn’t read her biographies, nor critical works, so I might be saying something obvious or, even worse, very wrong), is that at some point she started to feel trapped in this travesti role, as she felt she became bound to “perform”… and as she felt trapped in many other ways in some of her relationships and activities. I had the feeling she started to question her own beauty and choices, mixing self-confidence with fragility in a very modern way , with an approach that deeply resonates with me… Hey, what am I saying?this is a perfume blog…And HDP Colette is not my sort of perfume !!!

By: Dzingnut

Dzingnut — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:10:02 +0000

Wonderful review Robin! I have a huge volume of Colette’s works, and read and re-read it for years … I love the dialogue in Le Chat, where Alain tells Saha (his beloved Russian Blue cat) that, after she is gone, “any woman can have me, but never another cat”.

By: mals86

mals86 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:46:06 +0000

One perfect limousine!

I’d probably buy a Gertrude Stein, unsniffed…

By: Bela

Bela — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:23:06 +0000

That was true at the time: writers used to slog away in their garrets and their works spoke for them. These days, most people who get published have to be at least photogenic and preferably very attractive so crowds flock to see them on their book tours, etc.

Colette was a performer as well as a writer so she was in the public eye. And, yes, she was considered very beautiful. She didn’t just have beauty, she had charm, which is a much rarer commodity.