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COLETTE AND HER LOVE FOR CATS.

Monique — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 10:54:47 +0000

A WRITER LOVES HER CAT.

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which…I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.” ― Colette

Why is it that so many writers of today and in the past, like Colette for example, love cats so much? We can find so many photos of writers pictured with their cats. Is there a special relationship between this proud animal and a writer? Is it because they can keep you company, sitting on top of your desk, while writing. Are they inspiration givers or do they give the needed distraction while having a writers blog?

Colette (1873-1954) the famous French writer wrote more than 50 novels. She has bought her famous grey Chartreuse cat in 1926 at a cat show where she fell in love with the cute animal. She was so in love with her “Chartreuse” that the novel “La Chatte” (the cat) written in 1933 was based on her.

A NOVEL “LA CHATTE”

La Chatte is a short novel about a love triangle involving three persons. Camille Malmert, her husband Alain Amparat and his Chartreux cat Saha. Camille loves Alain, but Alain loves his cat. A cat he has known all his life. Saha comforted him through childhood. You could easily say he is more of a cat person, than a person person.

The story in the novel is about a person named Alain. Alain marries with Camille but they don’t have a place to live. They end up living in the flat from a friend which makes Alain very unhappy. Alain has problems leaving the memories of hi youth behind and living anywhere but in home he grew up in creates a feeling of unrest. His cat Saha – that still lives in the flat with them home – plays a central role as the representation of his childhood. Alain is obsessed with the cat leading to great frustration of Camille. At some point she can’t take it anymore and she pushes Saha of the balcone. Fortunately for Alain the cat survives but this tragedy disrupts the harmony of their marriage. He decides to leave Camille and moves back in with his mom.

It is said that the character of Alain is in fact based on Colette’s real brother. Saha the cat has been based on Colette’s own cat “La Chatte”, the Chartreux cat.

Could we conclude that for many persons and not just for writers, a cat gives us safety, comfort and brings back the cosiness of our own childhood?
‘

“Time spend with cats is never wasted” — Colette

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CHARLES BAUDELAIRE ~ EVENING

Monique — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 16:31:27 +0000

Evening

Jakub Schikaneder – circa 1900

“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,

The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,

The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,

And the moon rise and turn them silver.

I shall see

The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;

And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,

I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,

And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”

Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

Nikolai Pimonenko, Evening

1900

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MARCEL PROUST ~ THE MULTIPLICATION OF WORLDS

Monique — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:52:18 +0000

“Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists…”

Marcel Proust

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EDGAR DEGAS ~ MY ARTIFICIAL HEART

Monique — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:51:45 +0000

“And even this heart of mine has something artificial. The dancers have sewn it into a bag of pink satin, pink satin slightly faded, like their dancing shoes.”
― Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

The Entrance of the Masked Dancers, c. 1884.

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THE NEED OF A WOMAN

Monique — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 12:38:50 +0000

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

― Anaïs Nin

Portrait of Anne
André Lhote – 1930

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ANIMALS OF THE SEA

Monique — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 20:12:43 +0000

Animals of the Sea

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”

Lord Byron

Animals of the Sea

Odilon Redon – 1910

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CHARLES BAUDELAIRE ~ ON LIFE AND POETS

Monique — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:56:40 +0000

“The beautiful is always bizarre.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“An artist is a kaleidoscope endowed with consciousness…an ego athirst for the non-ego, and reflecting it at every moment in energies more vivid than life itself, always inconstant and fleeting. The poet is like those wandering souls who go looking for a body, he enters as he likes into each man’s personality. For him alone everything is vacant…The man who loves to lose himself in a crowd enjoys feverish delights that the egoist locked up in himself as in a box, and the slothful man like a mollusk in his shell, will be eternally deprived of. He adopts to his own all the occupations, all the joys and all the sorrows that chance offers.”

Charles Baudelaire

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ANAIS NIN ~ I AM SO TIRED…

Monique — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:54:17 +0000

“I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don’t say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you.”

Anais Nin

Photo Carl van Vechten (1880-1964)

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IRENE NEMIROVSKY ~ A GOODBYE

Monique — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:30:30 +0000

“Adieu,” he said, “this is goodbye. I’ll never forget you, never.”
She stood silent. He looked at her and saw her eyes full of tears. He turned away.
At this moment she wasn’t ashamed of loving him, because her physical desire had gone and all she felt towards him now was pity and a profound, almost maternal tenderness. She forced herself to smile. “Like the Chinese mother who sent her son off to war telling him to be careful ‘because war has its dangers,’ I’m asking you, if you have any feelings for me, to be as careful as possible with your life.”
Because it is precious to you?” he asked nervously.
Yes. Because it is precious to me.”

Irene Nemirovsky – Suite Francaise

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ANAIS NIN ~ ON WRITING

Monique — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:54:33 +0000

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you
do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write,
because our culture has no use for it.”
Anais Nin

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