Our club reading weeks often given me the excuse to revisit favourite authors; more often than not it’s Agatha Christie, who was so prolific during the 20th century; but today I’m returning to one of my most beloved authors – the wonderful French writer Colette.

As I’ve no doubt mentioned here before, I first read her in my early 20s, during a voyage of literary discovery when I came across and devoured so many of the authors who changed my way of looking at, and thinking about, the world. Colette’s reputation has probably risen and fallen over the years, at least in countries outside her native France, but she’s possibly become better known nowadays following the recent film of her life. I have a shelves full of her works, as you can see, and I was very happy to find that her “Sido” was first published in 1929… 😀

My Colette collection…

Many of Colette’s works were what would now be called autofiction, but “Sido” is actually a work of memoir, containing as it does three pieces looking back on her family – the titular work, “The Captain” and “The Savages” (my edition also contains “My Mother’s House”, first published in 1922) “Sido” is translated here by Enid McLeod, and although short is a quite beautiful and lyrical reminiscence of her past.

Colette starts by setting her mother firmly in her landscape; the house and the garden are central to Sido’s existence, her country life one that she loves, and her relationship with Paris wary. She surveys her territory, the elements that surround her and is the fixed, central point in Colette’s life. Sido battles with the elements, tends her loved ones, garden and animals, and is capable of praise or criticism, whenever it’s needed. Her daughter regards her with awe and, it’s very clear, misses her when she finally marries and leaves for the City of Light.

She knew that I should not be able to resist, any more than she could, the desire to know, and that like herself I should ferret in the earth of that flowerpot until it had given up it secret. I never thought of our resemblance, but she knew I was her own daughter and that, child though I was, I was already seeking for that sense of shock, the quickened heart-beat, and the sudden stoppage of the breath – symptoms of the private ecstasy of the treasure-seeker. A treasure is not merely something hidden under the earth, or the rocks, or the sea. The vision of gold and gems is but a blurred image. To me the important thing is to lay bear and bring to light something that no human eye before mine has gazed upon.

“The Captain” is a pen-portrait of Colette’s father, Sido’s second husband and a man who obviously adores his wife. A war-hero, he lost his leg fighting in the Second Italian War of Independence and worked as a tax collector in village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, where the family lived and Colette was born. As seen through the young girl’s eyes, he’s defined by his passion for Sido, and although the latter rules the roost around the home, The Captain is always treated with respect.

As for the savages, Colette’s brother and half-brother, her portrayal of them is tender and moving, particularly as one was no longer with them when she wrote this piece. She looks back on their childhood, their games and fights and differences and closeness. And poignantly she relates a recent meeting with the one grown brother and how he had not necessarily taken the path expected, although both siblings were still close. It’s as powerful a piece as the other two and evidence, if it were needed, of what a superb writer Colette was.

The three pieces collected here as Sido are such beautiful, evocative pieces of writing that I found myself transported back nearly 100 years while I read them, to rural France with its village life and closeness to nature. Colette herself always had a strong attachment to the animal and vegetable world (something I recognised in the first book of hers which I read, “Break of Day”); and that stayed with her even during her long life living in cities.

I’ve seen it reported that Colette idealised her past, tweaking her memories to present things as she wanted to remember them; well, that’s perhaps something we all do to an extent. Whether she did or not, “Sido” is a gorgeous, lyrical work which conjures up her past, her family and a lost way of life – totally unforgettable and a perfect re-read for the #1929Club!