About La Vagabonde, novel by COLETTE
La Vagabonde is a novel by the French writer COLETTE, published in 1910. The story follows the journey of Renée Néré, a young woman leading an independent life far from the social conventions of her time. The narrative revolves around her life as a music hall artist, her loves, passions, and doubts.
The novel explores the quest for freedom of its main character, who rejects the traditional roles society seeks to impose on her as a woman. La Vagabonde also delves into themes of solitude, romantic disillusionment, and the complexity of human relationships. Through Renée’s portrait, Colette offers a reflection on the feminine condition and alternative life choices, while highlighting the emotion and sensuality of her characters.
The work is characterized by an elegant and intimate writing style, blending autobiography with fiction. La Vagabonde is thus a poignant novel about emancipation and human emotion.
About Colette
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, known as COLETTE, is a 20th-century French novelist who was also an actress and journalist. She symbolizes her era with her description of French society during the “Belle Époque”. Her literary creation earned her a remarkable place in French literature and made her known abroad.
She was born on January 28, 1873 in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye,Burgundy, France) to Jules Joseph Colette, a Captain, who became a tax collector following disability due to a war injury, and Sidonie Landoy, known as Sido, from a mulatto family from Martinique.
She had a happy childhood and received a secular education. Her mother Sido was a convinced feminist and atheist. She taught her to observe nature, particularly in the garden of the house. Very early on, she read the classic literature and took French and style lessons from her father.
As a teenager, she met Henry Gauthier-Villars, an unrepentant seducer, nicknamed “Willy”. They married on May 15, 1893.
Willy was a very influential music critic and a prolific author of popular novels thanks to a network of “ghost-writers”. He also owned a publishing house in his name in Paris. He introduced his wife to the literary and musical salons of the capital where she caused a sensation with her strong, gravelly Burgundian accent (she rolls her “R”).
Noticing his young wife’s writing talents, Willy used her as a ghostwriter. It was in 1895 that he encouraged her to write her school memories published under the name of Willy, the first volume of which, “Claudine at school”, was followed by a series of “Claudines”.
In 1902, she was one of the first to cut her hair. She freed herself more and more from her husband’s guardianship. They separated in 1906 and divorced in 1910.
To earn a living, she began, with the encouragement of the mime Georges Wagne, a career as a music hall performer presenting oriental pantomimes. She would perform at the Théâtre Marigny, at the Bataclan in Paris and also during a tour in France. This part of her life would inspire her novel “La Vagabonde”.
With her friend Mathilde (Missy), daughter of the Duke of Morny, who performed with her on stage, she frequented the places of sapphic love, fashionable at the time. Missy offered her the villa Rozven in Brittany where she spent her summers until her death.
She married Henry de Jouvenel, a politician and journalist in 1912. The latter encouraged her to write articles and essays for the newspaper “Le Matin” of which he was editor-in-chief. With him, at the age of forty, she had her only daughter, Colette Renée de Jouvenel, known as Bel Gazou, who was raised in Corrèze by her paternal grandmother.
Colette became the mistress of her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel, aged 17 in 1920, a relationship that lasted five years and inspired her book “Le blé en herbe”. Colette and Henry de Jouvenel divorced in 1923.
In the musical field, she collaborated between 1919 and 1925 with Maurice Ravel for his work “L’enfant et les sortilèges” for which she wrote the libretto.
At the beginning of 1925, she met Maurice Goudeket, her third husband, married in 1935, sixteen years her junior. During the German Occupation, she took refuge with her husband in Corrèze where she joint her daughter, but after a few months she returned to Paris with Maurice who was arrested by the Gestapo for his Jewish origins. He was released in 1942 thanks to Colette and her network of Parisian friends.
In 1945, Colette was unanimously elected to the Académie Goncourt, of which she became president in 1949.
In 1953, she was made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.
She died on August 3, 1954 in Paris in her apartment near the Palais-Royal. France granted her a state funeral; she was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
In all of Colette’s work we find her keen sense of observation of nature, human feelings and weaknesses always described with lucidity and indulgence in a lively and original style. Very prolific, in addition to her publications of articles and essays in newspapers, she published more than twenty novels and collections of short stories. Through the diversity of her subjects, her freedom of tone, her modernity, she occupies a special place in French literature.
