Chance Acquaintances and Julie de Carneilhan

Author: Colette

This is the first that I've read anything by Colette, and the first thing I noticed was the tone; it reminded me a bit of Camus. Maybe it's just because they're both early 20th century French writers, but I certainly did not expect the writer of Gigi to display similarities to the writer of The Stranger and The Plague. Don't get me wrong; this was a pleasant surprise, as Camus is one of my favorite authors.

Chance Acquaintances is written in first person, and the description of the character's thoughts made me immediately identify with the main character. The plot is a little meandering, though.

Julie de Carneilhan was, I thought, even better, although Colette's third person descriptions of the main character's thoughts were sometimes confusing and distracting. The plot of this novella is more interesting than that of Acquaintances, and so it was able to hold my attention better throughout its length, twice that of Acquaintances.

The cover tells you nothing about the book, by the way. I dislike these random-art-on-the-cover budget classics. Well, I like that they're cheap trade paperbacks, but I'd rather they left the cover blank than to put something so meaningless on it.