Colette by Julia Kristeva (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews159 other letters, she adopts a "naughty" tone with overt references to Hugo's "dickybird" and requests more sex with him (62). Nonetheless, she attacks Hugo more than once, in one retaliatory letter calling him a "monster" and a "rascal" (104). Finally, Drouet can be very compassionate, an admirable trait best illustrated in letters that try to comfort Hugo over the loss ofhis children. Larson has skillfully translated the text and has meticulously pointed out in her notes the difficulties oftranslating certain insidejokes and puns, not to mention slang that has all but disappeared or has changed in usage since Drouet first wrote the letters. In addition to the excellent overview of Drouet's life Larson presents in the introduction, her supplements to Blewer's notes forAnglophones who might be lacking in knowledge about nineteenth-century politics, literature, and culture are very helpful, as is the glossary of Hugo's works and contemporaries . In conclusion, this collection of riveting letters beautifully renders the colorful, ifnot often tragic, life ofan actress turned correspondent. It will surely intrigue feminist scholars interested inthe plightofthe single working-classwoman in the nineteenth century. Courtney SullivanWashburn University Kristeva, Julia. Colette. Jane Marie Todd, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Pp 448. ISBN 0-231-12896-7. $37.00 (Cloth). Pp [i]-ix; 521. ISBN 0-231-12897-5. $20.00 (Paper). Julia Kristeva's trilogy on female genius concludes with this final volume devoted to the life and writings ofone ofthe twentieth century's most renowned French women writers, Colette. While Kristeva's first two volumes, focused respectively on philosopher HannahArendt andpsychoanalyst Melanie Klein, are characterized bytheir emphasis on the historical horror and collective anxiety that are descriptive of much ofthe century just past, this volume turns instead to the world ofwriting and to love. The reader may well ask with Kristeva herself: why Colette? As Kristeva puts it in her introduction: '"Finally, a Frenchwoman, after Hannah Arendt and Melanie Klein!' some of my readers exclaim approvingly, relieved to hear Colette's name announced. ? genius, Colette?' others protest. 'Well then, it's the genius ofan outdated and bygone France, and one we prefer to forget!'" (1). Yet for Kristeva the choice of Colette as her third exemplar of female genius is anchored in the fact that Colette found "a language to express a strange osmosis between her sensations, her desires, her anxieties . . . and the infiniteness ofthe world" (1). The entire book is Kristeva's complex interwoven analysis ofthe ways in which Colette's life andwriting are inextricably bound and thus define female genius. The text is divided into ten well-organized chapters. In Chapter l,"Why Colette? She Invented an Alphabet," Kristeva lays the groundwork for Colette's importance within the sphere offemale genius, while Chapter2, "Life orWorks?" considers the problems ofhow to deal with the co-mingling ofbiography, autobiography , and 'fiction' within Colette's oeuvre. Chapter 3, "Writing: Tendrils of 1 60Women in French Studies the Vine," takes us directly inside the writing world ofColette, while Chapter 4, "Who is Sido?" brings us Kristeva's informative examination ofthe relationship, so critical in Colette's life and in her writing, between mother and daughter. Following this focus on the maternal, Kristeva turns her attention in Chapter 5, "Depression, Perversion, Sublimation," to Freudian psychoanalytical concepts in Colette, including an excellent discussion of melancholia and a provocative analysis ofthe writer's relationship with her father. Chapter 6 presents an imaginative discussion of "The Metamorphic Body: Plants, Beasts, and Monsters," and is followed by Chapter 7's central questions ofreal-life "Men and Women, Pure and Impure." Chapter 8, titled "ALittle PoliticsAll the Same," deals with the delicate question ofColette's actions or lack thereofduring World War II, and the penultimate Chapter 9, "Still Writing, Between Balzac and Proust," focuses on Colette's own attempts to situate her writing within a French tradition. The final chapter—aptly titled "Is There a Feminine Genius?"—not only concludes Kristeva's work on Colette but also attempts to bring closure to the entire trilogy. In Kristeva's words: "The genius ofwomen from the last century has invited us not to elude the question and to consider this: concerns about the...