at four o’clock i have my lukewarmness, at five i have my abyss
Colette's the Pure and the Impure, first published in 1932, is 4.75 x 8 x 0.5 inches and 184 pages.
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Can you believe: this is bébé’s first Colette? I’ve heard great things, of course—but the thing I was so into, that no one told me, is that she is so authoritative and so wrong! And also, she is right, sometimes. But less frequently than she is wrong. She’s always declaring, with such potent confidence, which I invariably loved, and found myself like oh no no no twice as much as I was like oh yes yes yes.
She seems like she’s having a thought, writing it down, not checking it twice. And I really I feel she’s forgotten one thing to next, swinging from extreme to extreme. Or is she just making an earnest argument in favor or extremes, in fear of the lukewarm, the lukewarm being the only thing to avoid.
As example: it seems that people have come to the general consensus that our sense of smell is the most animal of our senses, the most tied to deep unknowable subconsciousness and lost memory. And here comes Colette:
And, while I haven’t abandoned the accepted wisdom, I’m also like, yeah totally, isn’t it simply the most aristocratic to sniff? With a firm, precise little whiff? Or is Colette just sophisticated and drawn to appealing things, so I trust her? Of course.
But then she also rephrases something long-held in ways that shined new insight:
Anyway, I read this whole book because my friend texted me this page:
Man, Colette has a discomfort with happiness! I guess I could have written that above, of the woman who knows her daily hour of abyss. But Colette accepts happiness when it comes with the specificity of a person delivering it (the particular sauce). And I’m charmed by a discomfort with happiness, until the specific flavor of the happiness just overwhelms. Happiness from a tangy green chili sauce is not the same as a syrupy barbecue. Sauce is my toddler’s current primary demand for his meals, and mostly he means pesto, especially when he says hot sauce. But his first sauce, very French: a lemony roux, on a trout. A sauce, in which, I’d choose to be served up.
I’m really interested in adopting a signature pen color, namely green, but I can’t find one. Does this mean I don’t have enough going on in my life? You would think so, but that just isn’t true right now. And if you have recommendations of a bright emerald-y shade, let me know.
I emailed a restaurant about the scent of the candles they use to line the floor of their long dark scary hallways to the bathroom. It’s Wild Fig by Keap. Not sure I’ll get it… I think mostly I liked emailing with my nosiness.
And, finally, thank you to Sydney who started it all with a photo of my favorite page.