Break of Day

Sir, You ask me to come and spend a week with you, which means I would be near my daughter, whom I adore. You who live with her know how rarely I see her, how much her presence delights me, and I'm touched that you should ask me to come see her. All the same, I'm not going to accept your kind invitation, for the time being at any rate. The reason is that my pink cactus is probably going to flower. It's a very rare plant I've been given, and I'm told that in our climate it flowers only once every four years, Now, I am already a very old woman, and if I went away when my pink cactus is about to flower, I am certain I shouldn't see it flower again. So I beg you, Sir, to accept my sincere thanks and my regrets, together with my kind regards. -- Sidonie Colette This charming letter from "Sido" --- mother of the most celebrated female writer in France --- to Colette's second husband begins "Break of Day". But forget about the husband. Within sentences, Colette pierces your heart with the ultimate news of her mother: "A year later she died, at the age of seventy-seven." "Break of Day" is many things, but above all, it's a love letter from Colette to Sido. And that was a stunning departure for Colette in 1928, for she was just coming off the huge success of her Claudine series and her two Cheri novels. In the first, we follow the sensual awakening of a young girl. In the second, a younger man has a long affair with an older courtesan. Not terribly shocking stuff --- child prostitution wasn't outlawed in France until 1909 --- but not discussed in public, and thus very racy reading. Colette was a powerhouse. She published fifty books. She was a marketing wizard, with chocolate and cosmetics bearing her name. And, in 1954, she was the first woman in France's history to be given a state funeral. So by l928, Colette --- like our latter-day Madonna --- needed no last name. She was a brand, and her product was sex. But here she asks a remarkable question: Who obsesses a woman most --- her mother or her man? We're trained by habit and media to think only of the man, the night, the perfume, the champagne. And then there's reality. As women hit their 50s and "the change" frees them from an insistent awareness of reproduction.... but this is beyond me. So I turn to Colette. Problem: memoir or novel? The catalogue says fiction, but "Break of Day" doesn't even seem like writing. Page after page, you feel you're reading the diary of a season in Colette's life. Here she is, awake early, writing in a notebook "until the smell of the sea warns me that that the hour when air is colder than water is at hand." Here she is, fending off worshipful guests. Here she is, in the closest thing to an ongoing story, dealing with a young man who has no chance of becoming her lover --- trying to pair him with a young woman who's smitten with him. Here she is, on every page, delivering a bon mot: "I no longer ask for anything except

I really wish that this book was availible here. I found it in a used book store last year. I read about it in a women's rights manual during high school. Reading the article I searched frantically for Break of Day, as I hope others have done or will. Break of Day works delicately on all your senses. Awakens your nose to the smells of Colette's own gardening. She has you listen to her interesting and sometimes not so captivating friends. Your eyes and hands caress a world of animals, friends, ex-husbands, and nature. Break of Day has you kneeling in the dirt and breathing the air of the coast. This book is about being alive and knowing beauty.