Claudine Married by Colette

Regular readers of this blog might remember that I recently read Claudine in Paris by Colette, and although I didn’t much take to Claudine, I continued the series with Claudine Married.

Claudine isn’t any more likeable in this story. After a whirlwind courtship with her much older uncle by marriage, Claudine and Renaud married, then spent several years travelling and living out of suitcases. Back in Paris, Claudine fell in lust with the wife of a friend, Rezi, and supported by Renaud, started an affair with her. Claudine then, hypocritically in my opinion, had a major hissy fit when she discovered that Renaud and Rezi were also having an affair.

There was a particularly nasty little scene at the beginning of the story when Claudine and Renaud visited her old school at Montigny on their honeymoon, where Renaud gave young schoolgirls sweets in exchange for kisses, then watched them sleep. Claudine’s recognition and acceptance of Renaud’s attraction to very young girls, as well as her own sexual attraction to them made me uncomfortable. Perhaps things were different back then, but in my opinion, that still doesn’t make them right.

Not much more to say about this one, really. The only thing I preferred about Claudine in this story was that she ‘owned’ her emotions and behaviour more than she did in Claudine in Paris, possibly because she was slightly older and more mature this time around.

If you’re wondering why I read these books when I clearly didn’t enjoy them, it was because I was on holidays with a very limited supply of reading material. I could have re-read something else, I suppose, but I hadn’t enjoyed any of the other books I’d taken with me enough for that either.

I’ll probably give Colette a miss in future.