ChériSéries
Cette série explore une histoire d'amour passionnée mais éphémère entre un jeune homme et une femme plus âgée. Avec une tendresse sincère et une perspicacité compatissante, elle sonde les complexités du désir, de la dévotion et du vieillissement. L'auteure brosse des portraits de personnages dans un style impressionniste unique, révélant les émotions humaines profondes et les préoccupations de la jeunesse et de l'âge mûr.
Ordre de lecture recommandé
- 1
- 1
Chéri
- 182pages
- 7 heures de lecture
Léa de Lonval, une courtisane de près de cinquante ans, est la maîtresse de Fred Peloux, surnommé Chéri. A mesure qu'elle éprouve le manque de conviction croissant de son jeune amant, Léa ressent, avec un émerveillement désenchanté et la lucidité de l'amertume, les moindres effets d'une passion qui sera la dernière. Pourtant il suffira à Chéri d'épouser la jeune Edmée pour comprendre que la rupture avec Léa ne va pas sans regrets. La peinture narquoise d'un certain milieu demi-mondain, l'analyse subtile de l'âme féminine, les charmes cruels de la séduction, l'humour un peu triste de la romancière, font de Chéri une des œuvres les plus attachantes et les plus célèbres de Colette.
- 2
La fin de Chéri
- 189pages
- 7 heures de lecture
Devenu plus vieux et plus sage, Chéri aspire toujours sa jeunesse perdue. À la fin de Chéri le jeune Chéri a quitté son vieillissante maîtresse Léa à la veille de son mariage. Pendant la guerre, il entre dans l'armée, et quand la guerre se termine, il retourne à Paris hanté par les souvenirs de sa jeunesse et de sa maîtresse bienveillante. Aliéné de sa femme, sa famille et son entourage, il fuit dans un monde imaginaire composé de rêves et le passé, un monde où il n'y a qu'une seule échappée...
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. "A wonderful subject [treated with] intelligence, mastery, and understanding of the least-admitted secrets of the flesh." ― André Gide
Colette's celebrated novels about an older courtesan and her young lover, now in a new translation and published in one volume. Colette’s Chéri (1920) and its sequel, The End of Chéri (1926), are widely considered her masterpieces. In sensuous, elegant prose, the two novels explore the evolving inner lives and the intimate relationship of an unlikely couple: Léa de Lonval, a middle-aged former courtesan, and Fred Peloux, twenty-five years her junior, known as Chéri. The two have been involved for years, and it is time for Chéri to get on with life, to make something of himself, but he, the personification of male beauty and vanity, doesn’t know how to go about it. It is time, too, for Léa to let go ofChéri and the sensual life that has been hers, and yet this is more easily resolved than done. Chéri marries, but once married he is restless and is inevitably drawn back to his mistress, as she is to him. And yet to reprise their relationship is only to realize even more the inevitability of its end. That end will come when Chéri, back from World War I, encounters a world that the war has changed through and through. Lost in his memories of time past, he is irremediably lost to the busy present. Paul Eprile’s new translation of these two celebrated novels brings out a vivid sensuality and acute intelligence that past translations have failed to capture.
Cheri the Last of Cheri
- 252pages
- 9 heures de lecture
The narrative explores the tragicomic love affair between Léa de Lonval, an aging courtesan, and her young lover, Chéri. Their passionate relationship faces turmoil when Chéri marries the much younger Marie-Laure, highlighting the complexities of love, desire, and societal expectations. Colette's nuanced portrayal of these characters delves into themes of aging, loss, and the bittersweet nature of romance, making it a compelling exploration of human emotions and relationships.