[.ca] Cheri (ISBN 009942276X)

Very classic, richly layered, and readable.:
Cheri is a novel about a young Frenchman whose mistress, an older woman, indulges him and instructs him in the arts of love and life until he marries. Cheri is remarkably child-like right up to the eve of his marriage and beyond. After the marriage to a suitably aged young woman, he longs for his old mistress's pampering, her familiar apartments, and the life they shared there. I found the book a wonderful story and a rich, redolent escape from the realities of our modern world. It takes the reader back to a time just before WWI, when life moved a bit slower. The way Colette writes, slips the reader into a place easily imaginable; comfortable as one's own sofa.