The Pure and the Impure

Colette herself considered The Pure and the Impure her best book, "the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography." This guided tour of the erotic netherworld with which Colette was so intimately acquainted begins in the darkness and languor of a fashionable opium den. It continues as a series of unforgettable encounters with men and, especially, women whose lives have been improbably and yet permanently transfigured by the strange power of desire. Lucid and lyrical, The Pure and the Impure stands out as one of modern literature's subtlest reckonings not only with the varieties of sexual experience, but with the always unlikely nature of love.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 09/30/2000
ISBN: 9780940322486
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.47lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.01w x 0.60d

Review Citations: New York Times 11/12/2000 pg. 40
Vogue 12/01/2000 pg. 258
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2000 pg. 168