Gigi and Selected Writings (A Signet Classic)

This is the actual story "Gigi" not the film version and it is charming. It is a novella (a short story/book) and takes about 2 - 3 hours to read. Just about everyone knows the story so I won't go there. Collette's characters are sympathetic, especially Gigi, and well written and her imagery is really in top form. This was her only "comedy". It's a small book that literally fits in your pants pocket so you can read it on the train going to work. It's a good investment at a good price.

Gigi was really about a time, a place and a way of life that is no more--the Belle Epoque and the demimonde of Paris.The "demimonde" or twilight or half-world, was the domain of paid courtesans, not prostitutes, but professional "artistes" who made their living as the paid companions of rich men. They often were dancers or actresses and didn't marry--"We never marry in our family" states Gigi's mother. The Belle Epoque ended with World War One and saw the revitalizaton of Paris by Hausmann and others, creating the city's magnificent architecture that we still love today. Gigi is a young girl of 16. She falls in love with a rich gentlemen of 33, Gaston. But contrary to custom, she wants something quite different that her family has planned for her. This reflects the idealized dream that Colette had of love with a much older man. She herself pursued this dream disastrously by marrying the highly unsuitable Willy, and also assigned her alter-ego Claudine the same but happier dream in her Claudine novels.Read this for the wonderful evocation of Paris in the gay 90's, and realize that it has little to do with the musical--this is about a way of life that has passed, along with horse drawn carriages, laced hourglass corsets, and women's hats the size of cartwheels.

I love the way Colette writes, her descriptions and words just take me back to that period of time, turn of the century Paris. She gives flavor to the book making us feel what the Parisian culture was like at that time. I totaly love Gigi. I've watched the movie first which is why I bought the book in the first place. I like the book because it describes more of the affair and courtesan stuff which the movie sugars up to give it a G rating. I just wish that Colette could've had Gigi go be Gaston's arm ornament at some party like Gigi did in the movie.

The books of Collette all seems to whisk you right into the world of turn of the century Paris (GiGi). For those who think a relationship between a 16 year old and a 33 year old odd, it most certainly is by today's standards, but not for 1900 - try to think that quite a few women were groomed for marriage or to be courtisans as soon as they were old enough back then. Perspective is required when reading historical fiction, and Collette's works are some of the finest.