Reflections on Colette's 'La Chatte'

It's been twenty years or more, but the pleasure is still green. I never enjoyed a book more. I read it through in a sitting; then read it again--then read it again. I've carried it around inside me since, as I have those special books that give me insight into the things I love--in this case, a man and a cat, and the utter sincerity and purity of their love for one another. Which, naturally, the woman in the story, the man's wife, resentfully tries to claim for herself by pushing the cat off a balcony--nine stories up, as I recall. The cat survives, but the woman--still not getting it--finds herself history. An amazing story, with the deepest appreciation of how men, meaning no harm, not even realizing that that's what they're doing, compartmentalize themselves, with sex here, and love way over there, in a way that women cannot fathom and instinctually feel threatened by--if that matters.

Anyway, I've been thinking: poor, hysterical, wrong-headed Camille Paglia. What's wrong with her is so simple, now that I examine the silly things she says about men and male sex: She doesn't have a clue about them, and she's too busy making up theories about them (her precious "psychology") to hear what they say about themselves. So, I was thinking, maybe somebody should just say, "Shut up, Camille, and listen. What you don't understand about men is all laid out in La Chatte. That's how men are." And then I thought--It's been twenty years--maybe I should just peek at the criticism to make sure it's all there, like I remember it: And the first three or four critiques I read, in English, all said something like, "It's a story about a woman's natural jealousy of a man (who won't grow up)'s persistent, infantile love of his cat." And, almost, I despaired. So I tried reviews in French--and there, maybe untranslatable, was la Chatte as I remembered it: Colette herself said, "Camille [l'épouse jalouse] heurte la pudeur d'Alain, une pudeur d'homme presque toujours plus délicate, plus sincère que la nôtre." Chew on that, Ms. P.