Shortly after I was old enough to peruse the magazines and newspapers that came to the houses of older family members, I discovered the wonders of the Columbia House Record Company and the Quality Paperback Bookclub via their advertisements.
Both of these catalogue businesses offered tantalizing deals to new members to draw them into the fold, and I spent countless hours assembling my personal selections as an imaginary new member. I dreamed of joining and filling orange crates and bookshelves with records (then cassettes, then CDs) and books, assembling another me.
In my first apartment, long before I could afford to have a cable subscription, I did join the bookclub, with their 6 books for $1 deal. (Honestly, I could not afford to belong, but I still loved receiving the catalogues in the mail, and eventually I did fulfill my membership commitment. It was the grown-up version of the Scholastic Book Club, a highlight of my young bookish life.)
The regular QPB newsletters arrived with a small catalogue of new and classic selections and, on the back of the envelope (at least, as I remember it), was a blue-inked line-drawing of a woman’s head.
It looked like the photograph on the back of my old copy of Chéri (1920) and The Last of Chéri (1926). That image was my first acquaintance with Colette.
She didn’t seem real, this disembodied head, and I was in my later teens and it hadn’t fully become real to me yet that people who spoke other languages wrote books in other languages, books that I might find interesting if only I could read them. (We did study French fiction in French class in high school, but Camus not Colette, and Saint-Exupéry not Chéri.)
Even though I don’t remember being curious about this woman on the envelope at the time, for a couple of decades now, the contents of this little Everyman’s hardcover (a translation by Roger Senhouse) have been on my TBR. So #1920Club was the perfect excuse to finally and properly make the acquaintance of Léa and Chéri.
Now that I am more Léa’s age than Chéri’s, I wonder what I would have made of this love story as a younger reader.
Surely I would have taken note of passages like this: “Léa, rocking herself gently to and fro, glanced occasionally at Chéri, who lay sprawled on a cool cane settee, coat unbuttoned, a cigarette dying between his lips, a lock of hair over one eyebrow.”
He sounds like the quintessential bad boy, like someone out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. And I probably would have overlooked the cigarette, the image of consumption and wizening; I probably would have focussed on the lock of hair.
And I probably would have taken the ill-effects that Edmée suffers in response to Chéri as no reason to question his desirability: “Intoxicated by the scent which Chéri used too much of, she began to droop like a rose in an overheated room.”
This kind of observation could have served as evidence of Léa and Chéri being destined for one another instead, of Edmée’s weakness and unsuitability. Let her droop while Léa thrives. (Note: These imaginings, these assumptions assigned to my younger reading-self, have little to do with Colette’s plot.)
I wonder, would I even have taken note of the question one of these women asks Chéri: “What you call love…isn’t it possible that it may be, really, a … kind… of alibi?” Even without all the hesitancy expressed in the ellipses, it seems like an unformed challenge that I would have dismissed before I properly understood what she was saying.
One element of the story that I feel confident I’d’ve been just as curious about then as I am now though? The description of the ‘housemaid’s coffee’, a drink “made with creamy milk, well sugared slowly re-heated, with buttered toast crumbled into it and browned till it formed a succulent crust”. Isn’t that a cozy treat? It should be trending online with all the sourdough bread these days.
In between these two volumes (yes, I read on – I had to learn of their fates), Colette wrote and published The Ripening Seed (the only other of her books I’ve read) whose theme is also relevant here. If only I lived a little closer to Kaggsy, I might raid her Colette shelves and see if she ever writes about anything other than being-in-love and not-being-in-love. Not that she needs to, in order to keep my interest: she does have a knack.
Thanks to Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book for hosting #1920Club and for encouraging me to read such a longtime shelf-sitter.
It’s a special kind of joy to read about these book clubs. I remember salesmen coming to our school with encyclopedias and abridged, illustrated classics. We couldn’t really afford the books but my parents bought me a set of paperbacks one time. Treasure Island, The Children of Captain Grant, Little Women, Robinson Crusoe, A Captain at Fifteen, and Good Wives. I still have them and leaf through them every once in a while. 😀
I’m yet to read Colette! so I think there’s a lot to look forward to.
You’ve touched on another idea that’s attached to these buying groups, too: sets! Sometimes Columbia House would have sets of Greatest Hits and QPB would reprint certain classic authors’ works (I remember a set of Isak Dinesen books that I wish were still on my shelves). That was a huge part of the appeal, their matching! There weren’t as many boxed sets in stores then either (and often you couldn’t get those because you already owned one of the items in the box, so that would be wasteful of course) so these sets garnered from other sources were that much more amazing! I had to look up two of the titles in your set, the Jules Verne novels. He wasn’t someone I read as a kid, only later when crossing off some books on classics lists, so I tend to forget how prolific he was! Did you read through the set as a kid, or were there any that stopped you up?
I loved this set! I had two other sets.. I don’t really remember much about one of them… I know that it was my only boxed set, four books, stories. And that’s it. I have no idea how it got lost or what happened to it. Strange. The other set was a collection of fables by Felix Maria de Samaniego. Those books went through fire and water (not all of them survived) – they were not only read but served as notebooks, as sketchbooks, grade books… I still own most of them.
Going back to the classics set – I did read them all, but Alcott’s two books were my favorites and were reread very often. Verne a couple of times, maybe. Crusoe and Treasure Island a bit more often. Alcott, especially the first book, was an absolute favorite – I lived it. I was constantly trying to get my sisters go to picnics or to join my club, to start our own newspapers… They would try, but they’d had a hard time sharing my enthusiasm and it would all end soon. I still long for a kind of Pickwick Society! XD
Yes! There were a couple of other books I read as a girl in which the characters made newspapers and I fell in love with the idea too. No issue getting all the kids in the house involved, because I was an only child, but I never finished the papers either…turns out they’re a LOT of work, right? Also, it’s very hard to form a club without siblings to draft (especially in a very small town). But I did have a Pickwick Club with one special girlfriend, although I was clearly the more enthusiastic member on our roster. I reread Little Women many times, but only up to one certain point in the book and then I just stopped (you will guess the part) and turned back. With other books I could simply skip chapters I didn’t want to reread, but that didn’t work in this instance. I was in my twenties when I finally reread properly and finished, but not until a couple of summers ago did I finally finish the whole series. Now I’d like to read some of her other books (I’ve read one, but I can never remember which).
A lovely story about how you discovered Colette. I have read very little of her, but absolutely loved what I have read. She is on my list of people I must explore more of.
Thanks, Ali. Yes, I know that list…it’s ever-lengthening, rarely shortening, isn’t it.
That’s a wonderful book in which to first encounter Colette! Love and life are her subjects, and I’m particularly fond of her later works when her subject really becomes herself. Her responses to nature are wonderful too. You have so many treats to come!
I’m glad you approve. 🙂 Have you seen the recent film “Colette”? Or is it too much of a subject of interest for you to want to see it?
Exactly. I can’t watch anyone else’s interpretation of my Colette!!
I don’t have that issue (yet?) with her, but I do feel that way sometimes too, so I get it.
I loved reading your story about the book and record clubs! I had a similar experience as a boy in Britain, with a different book club whose name I can’t remember now, but my parents would never let me join because they thought it was a scam—you got very cheap books up front, but then they started inundating you with quite expensive ones. I defiantly joined when I was old enough to be able to afford it, and soon discovered that, although it wasn’t exactly a scam, those costs did add up quite quickly, and I quietly cancelled it after six months or so. But I did have some beautiful hardback editions of classic books, which I enjoyed almost as much as the fantasies I’d been having about them for years earlier.
Was that the Folio Bookclub by chance? I didn’t even know that existed until much later, or I would have coveted them too!
As it is, I still enjoy looking at them in second-hand shops. And I still remember yearning for their reissue of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (maybe 10 years ago) — so striking!
In these cases, you had two years to fulfill your membership requirements and could often do so via the “sale pages” at the backs of the catalogues (which were still expensive, especially with the shipping issues, but not as costly as the newest and most tempting items), so it was a good experience overall. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, I think the catalogues worked as recommendations in much the same way that social media does now, bringing new listening and reading into my awareness.
I loved this. And you have all of Colette ahead of you. Lucky!
Thank you! I’m looking forward to them. (When I can get to the library once more.)
I thought about Cheri for #1920Club but decided I had enough lined up already. But I’m glad you did! We have a copy of it (and also Ripening Seed) we’ve had forever & one of these days…
I never belonged to QPB but, like many a budding intellectual, I did join the Book of the Month club to get my copy of the compact OED (with magnifying glass!) My dad did belong to the QPB, though, and I have a bunch of their books around.
That coffee drink, though–that doesn’t appeal. Buttered toast in coffee. Not for me!
For some reason Google login is working again when I comment.
Hahaha, Mister BIP is with you on that score. No soggy anything, anywhere near a bevvie. Doesn’t even matter if it’s someone else’s cup!
Ah, I think that was an American thing? The deal with the magnifying glass? The QPB paper quality and bindings were actually pretty sweet. I had to sell my Forster set at some point, and I still miss it.
There’s been some WP updates, so maybe they’ve crosses that bug off their to-do list: phew!
I have fond memories of the Columbia House program too-I never joined, but I recall their flyers in the mail, with little postage stamps of each album one could affix to the order form 🙂 I didn’t even realize they had a book component!
Yeah, those little “stamps” were so much fun. And, as with other kinds of choices, making the list was a huge part of the experience, as was anticipating that first glorious shipment.