Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we
Speaker 1: have part two of our episode on French author Collette
Speaker 1: Love and Passion and pain and Loss. We're all ongoing
Speaker 1: themes and her writing. And her writing also played a
Speaker 1: lot with gender and sexuality, including lots of portrayals of
Speaker 1: women and their physical desires and their pursuits of fulfilling relationships.
Speaker 1: Most critics consider Collett's portrayals of women to be the
Speaker 1: most interesting and the most fully realized, sometimes with her
Speaker 1: portrayals of men being criticized as seeming weak or one dimensional.
Speaker 1: Part one of this two part episode is highly recommended
Speaker 1: before getting into this one because it covers the first
Speaker 1: forty years of Collett's life, include her marriage to Ari
Speaker 1: de Jouvenel. We're picking up during that marriage today heads up.
Speaker 1: Today's episode includes Collette's sexual relationship with her sixteen year
Speaker 1: old stepson, and we will also have some brief mentions
Speaker 1: of suicide. So, as we mentioned in Part one, Colette's
Speaker 1: second husband, Rie de Jouvenelle, was a wealthy baron and
Speaker 1: during their marriage, he was elected to represent the Department
Speaker 1: of Cores in the French Parliament. Colette was writing fiction
Speaker 1: as well as writing for Lamatta, where Henri was a
Speaker 1: political journalist and editor. In addition to her writing, Colette
Speaker 1: was called on to host various officials and dignitaries and
Speaker 1: to visit them as well. This was all a big
Speaker 1: shift from what her life had been like before this point.
Speaker 1: Prior to their marriage, Alri had a reputation as a womanizer,
Speaker 1: and sometime during Colette's pregnancy with their daughter, he started
Speaker 1: having an affair with an other woman. Collette found out
Speaker 1: and was once again devastated, and this might have led
Speaker 1: to a pretty speedy end for their relationship, But then
Speaker 1: World War One began and in August of nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: Ari was called into active service in the military. Collette
Speaker 1: made a very brief for a into volunteering as a
Speaker 1: night nurse before transferring to the day shift and then
Speaker 1: traveling under forged identification papers to join her husband. And
Speaker 1: when we say this for it was brief, it lasted
Speaker 1: about a week before she asked to move to the
Speaker 1: day shift and then set off a verdant Soon she
Speaker 1: was writing about what she saw there, becoming one of
Speaker 1: the first women in Europe to report from the front.
Speaker 1: Her work was published at Demetta that was the publication
Speaker 1: that her husband edited, and she published at other journals
Speaker 1: and newspapers as well. Then this work was published as
Speaker 1: a collection called The Long Hours after the war was over.
Speaker 1: She focused a lot of her wartime writing on how
Speaker 1: the war was affecting women and children. This wasn't a
Speaker 1: subject that many other reporters were really covering. But this
Speaker 1: work is also lyrical, more sentimental, and sometimes even romanticized,
Speaker 1: especially when compared to writers who were focused more on
Speaker 1: the war's horrific and violent aspects. In Secrets of the Flesh,
Speaker 1: a Life of Colette, biographer Judith Thurman writes, quote, there
Speaker 1: is not a single corpse in any of her dispatches.
Speaker 1: There is anxiety, but no despair, hunger but no starvation.
Speaker 1: Some of this is probably a byproduct of where Colette
Speaker 1: was and what she personally witnessed, but it's also one
Speaker 1: of the running themes of her life. She often did
Speaker 1: not directly comment on or seemed to notice political crises
Speaker 1: or major world events unless they personally affected her. For example,
Speaker 1: most of what we talked about in part one of
Speaker 1: this episode took place during the Drefist affair, which we
Speaker 1: covered on the show as a two parter in one,
Speaker 1: and that was something that divided French society, and we
Speaker 1: didn't mention it because Collette's surviving writing never even mentions it,
Speaker 1: and we don't really know what her opinions were on it,
Speaker 1: although we do know Weallye, who she was married to
Speaker 1: at the time, was anti Semitic and anti Drefussar. On
Speaker 1: the rare occasion that Collette did directly comment on things
Speaker 1: like politics, her opinions didn't really align with what a
Speaker 1: person might expect based on what we have talked about
Speaker 1: in her life so far, like she took dance lessons
Speaker 1: and started publishing her work under her own name in
Speaker 1: preparation to leave her husband, and all of that ran
Speaker 1: contrary to what was expected of women. She tried to
Speaker 1: make a life for herself under her own terms, and
Speaker 1: one of the themes of her writing is that women
Speaker 1: should be able to feel fulfilled, including having sexual fulfillment
Speaker 1: in their lives. But she didn't think of herself as
Speaker 1: a feminist or advocate for political equality regardless of sex.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ten, she told an interviewer that she thought
Speaker 1: suffragists were disgusting and said they deserved quote the whip
Speaker 1: and the harem. After the war was over, Alrid de
Speaker 1: Juvenna traveled to Geneva as part of France's delegation to
Speaker 1: the Disarmament Commission, and Collett's role expanded at Lamenta. In
Speaker 1: addition to working as a theater critic, she became literary editor,
Speaker 1: including deciding which works of fiction Lomentin should publish. She
Speaker 1: also turned her attention back to writing fiction herself, which
Speaker 1: she had not done much of during the war. The
Speaker 1: result was Cherie, published serially and then as a book
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty. This is about an affair between a
Speaker 1: forty nine year old woman named Leah and a five
Speaker 1: year old man named Bread, known as Cherie. This follows
Speaker 1: their affair through to its necessary end, and the end
Speaker 1: of that affair leaves both of them heartbroken all the
Speaker 1: Collette originally envisioned this as a play. It became one
Speaker 1: of her best known novels, especially in France. That same
Speaker 1: year she was named Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor.
Speaker 1: After Colette had started publishing Cherry Alri's ex wife, Sarah,
Speaker 1: sent their son Bertran to try to convince Colette to
Speaker 1: persuade Enri to allow Sarah to keep using her married name.
Speaker 1: The de Juvenal name carried a lot of Prestigian influence,
Speaker 1: and Henri seems to have felt like Sarah was abusing
Speaker 1: that privilege and was annoyed about it. Bertran was sixteen,
Speaker 1: the same age that Colette had been when she met
Speaker 1: her first husband. Really, Collette seduced Bertran, and her behavior
Speaker 1: toward him, and her descriptions of all this are pretty
Speaker 1: manipulative and predatory. Bertron had a girlfriend his own age, Pamela,
Speaker 1: the sister of one of his school friends, when Colette,
Speaker 1: who was forty eight, started seducing him. This included giving
Speaker 1: him books from her library to read, and one of
Speaker 1: those books us Cherie about this affair between an older
Speaker 1: woman and a much younger man. She later said, quote,
Speaker 1: I invented Leah as a premonition. The biography we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier described the Villa of rose Ven, where Colette spent
Speaker 1: her summers, as quote a hotbed of Chicovian drama. During
Speaker 1: this time, Collette also passed letters back and forth between
Speaker 1: Bertrand and Pamela and used their relationship as the basis
Speaker 1: for Leblon abb or The Ripening Seed, which came out
Speaker 1: in That was also the year that Ari found out
Speaker 1: what was going on, either Colette admitted it to him
Speaker 1: or he caught them together. He was outraged and left
Speaker 1: Colette immediately. Ari had numerous affairs during their marriage, but
Speaker 1: his wife sleeping with his teenage son was obviously something
Speaker 1: very different from that. Bertrand described himself as horrified to
Speaker 1: have been the cause of all this chaos and strife.
Speaker 1: Given aure's position at Lamadon, Colette had to stop working
Speaker 1: there after a few months. She went to work at
Speaker 1: one of the publication's rivals, Le Journal, and she and
Speaker 1: Bertramp continued to have a pretty public relationship in Paris. This,
Speaker 1: of course, led to a lot of scandal and gossip,
Speaker 1: more connected to the fact that Bertrand was Colette's husband's
Speaker 1: son than their respective ages. Eventually, Bertrand's engagement was announced
Speaker 1: to Marcel Pratt, and Colette was extremely jealous and kept
Speaker 1: trying to convince him to stay with her instead, but
Speaker 1: Bertrand's wedding went on as planned. In Collette published a
Speaker 1: sequel to Sari called The Last of Schari the following year.
Speaker 1: In its after Years Apart, Schari returns to Leah and
Speaker 1: finds her older and heavier, and he's no longer attracted
Speaker 1: to her. He takes his own life at the end
Speaker 1: of the book, which is one of a number of
Speaker 1: suice sides in Colette's writing. By the time this book
Speaker 1: was published, Colette had met someone else, Maurice Gudiquette, who
Speaker 1: was thirty five. He had long been a fan of
Speaker 1: her work, and at first he found her really intimidating,
Speaker 1: but their relationship would continue for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: During that time, she would evolve from being thought of
Speaker 1: as a perpetual source of scandal, chaos, and controversial literature
Speaker 1: to a more mature and knowing woman whose long experience
Speaker 1: had given her perspective on things like love and loss,
Speaker 1: and also for having a deep love of fine things,
Speaker 1: including good food and wine, and taking joy in indulgence.
Speaker 1: She would eventually say of herself justue gourmet gourmand gluton
Speaker 1: or I am gourmet greedy gluttonius. We'll have more on
Speaker 1: her life. After a quick sponsor break before his death
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two, Marcel Proust had been widely regarded
Speaker 1: as France's greatest living writer. After that point, in a
Speaker 1: lot of people's opinion, France's greatest writer was Colette. As
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties progressed, Colette decided to sell the villa
Speaker 1: of Roseven that she and Missy had purchased so that
Speaker 1: she could purchase another place near Central Bay. She continued
Speaker 1: to both write and act, including a touring production of
Speaker 1: Sherry with herself in the role of Leah. She published
Speaker 1: a series of stories about her childhood called My Mother's
Speaker 1: House in nineteen twenty two. In ninety eight, she was
Speaker 1: named an officer in the French Legion of Honor, and
Speaker 1: a year later she published Sido, which was a memoir
Speaker 1: of her mother's Sidonie, who had died in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: We talked about how much she admired and aspired to
Speaker 1: be like her mother, and a lot of people had
Speaker 1: pointed out that like it took a while before she
Speaker 1: returned to the idea of her mother and her writing.
Speaker 1: After her mother's death, Colette and Maurice struggled financially after
Speaker 1: the Great Depression started in Maurice had been a pearl merchant,
Speaker 1: and his business had already become a lot less profitable,
Speaker 1: in part because the fashion world was turning toward costume jewelry.
Speaker 1: He eventually gave up his pearl business and started selling
Speaker 1: things like used washing machines. Then, in nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: Colette broke her fibula. She developed ulcers around her cast,
Speaker 1: so doctors removed it much earlier than they normally would.
Speaker 1: Colette later developed arthritis, which was progressively disabling and painful,
Speaker 1: and Maurice believed this break and how it was treated
Speaker 1: were a factor. Colette tried many different treatments for this condition,
Speaker 1: including thermal baths, acupuncture, and during the nineteen forties X
Speaker 1: ray treatments, some of which caused burns on her stomach
Speaker 1: and legs. In ninety two, Colette published a Plezzier or
Speaker 1: These Pleasures, which would later be revised and republished as
Speaker 1: The Pure and the Impure. She later described this as
Speaker 1: the closest she would ever come to an autobiography, and
Speaker 1: included a lot of her thoughts on love and passion,
Speaker 1: especially in terms of same sex relationships. That included an
Speaker 1: account of the ladies of Longcotland, who we covered on
Speaker 1: the podcast back in that one made a return to
Speaker 1: people's feeds in as part of an episode or a
Speaker 1: pot sort of a playlist of all of our favorites.
Speaker 1: She also continued to appear on stage, including another portrayal
Speaker 1: of Leiah in a production of Sherry, although by this
Speaker 1: point she was visibly older than the character that she
Speaker 1: was portraying. She also opened a beauty institute in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two, where she made and sold perfumes and cosmetic treatments.
Speaker 1: She framed this as giving other women the power to
Speaker 1: enhance and preserve their beauty and stave off aging, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought the whole idea was way
Speaker 1: beneath the right or of such national stature. The institute
Speaker 1: only lasted for about a year, though it seems like
Speaker 1: she more or less just kind of lost interest in
Speaker 1: Collette and Maurice got married in a civil ceremony. They
Speaker 1: had been together for about a decade, and he was
Speaker 1: forty five and she was sixty two. Their decision to
Speaker 1: get married at this point was at least ostensibly a
Speaker 1: practical one, not necessarily a romantic one. They were planning
Speaker 1: a trip to New York and they'd heard that the
Speaker 1: hotels might not rent them a room together if they
Speaker 1: were not married. This relationship seems to have been happy,
Speaker 1: stable and loving. Maurice later said of it, quote, I
Speaker 1: set myself gently by the side of this woman whom
Speaker 1: life had so wounded, and I did so with the
Speaker 1: firm determination of proving to her that fidelity was not
Speaker 1: an empty word. Year by year she grew more persuaded
Speaker 1: of this, and her last books bear witness to a
Speaker 1: serenity that she would not otherwise have acquired. The year
Speaker 1: Collette and Maurice got married, Ari de Juvenell died, and
Speaker 1: the year after that Colette published My Apprenticeships, which is
Speaker 1: both the story of how she became a writer and
Speaker 1: a look at her relationship with her first husband, Arigotie Viler,
Speaker 1: also known as Really. He had died back in one
Speaker 1: This is pretty scathing and its treatment of him. Her
Speaker 1: reputation of a writer was continuing to grow. In ninety six,
Speaker 1: she was named Commander in the French Legion of Honor.
Speaker 1: By that point, Adolph Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany.
Speaker 1: The Nazi Party had been made Germany's only legal political party,
Speaker 1: and had passed discriminatory laws restricting virtually every aspect of
Speaker 1: Jewish people's lives and stripping them of German citizenship. Tensions
Speaker 1: were escalating in Europe and in Asia, and Italy had
Speaker 1: invaded Ethiopia, but as was the case with so many
Speaker 1: other major events, Collette didn't really seem to pay much
Speaker 1: attention to any of it. This was true even after
Speaker 1: Paris fell to the German army in nineteen forty, after
Speaker 1: which the French government moved to Vichy and began collaborating
Speaker 1: with the Nazi Party, And it was true even though
Speaker 1: Maurice Gutiquet was Jewish. But then on December seven, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the United
Speaker 1: States made its formal entry into World War Two. The
Speaker 1: French resistance increased its activities, and in response, Hitler issued
Speaker 1: what was known as the Night and Fog Decree, allowing
Speaker 1: German authorities to arrest people who were believed to be
Speaker 1: part of the resistance or otherwise in endangering German interests.
Speaker 1: The name night and Fog came from the idea that
Speaker 1: these arrests, which really were essentially kidnappings, would happen during
Speaker 1: the night, with people simply disappearing from site, they would
Speaker 1: be detained and they would be tried in secret courts.
Speaker 1: On December twelfth, ninety one, the Gestapo arrived at the
Speaker 1: Paris apartment in the Palais Royale, where Colette and Maurice
Speaker 1: were living. This is something neither of them seemed to
Speaker 1: have thought of as a possibility, and they were not
Speaker 1: at all prepared for it. Colette and their housekeeper were
Speaker 1: able to pack a small bag for Maurice before he
Speaker 1: was taken away. This was obviously terrifying for everyone, especially
Speaker 1: because both Colette and Maurice don't seem to have considered
Speaker 1: that something like this could happen. Collette said that for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life, her mouth would start trembling
Speaker 1: anytime someone unexpectedly arrived at her door. Maurice was held
Speaker 1: at a detention camp northeast of Paris. He later described
Speaker 1: this as a place where he was not given much
Speaker 1: to eat, and their betting was infested with vermin, but
Speaker 1: at least for fit and healthy people, things were manageable
Speaker 1: and the guards mostly left them alone. He managed to
Speaker 1: have notes to Collette smuggled out of the camp from
Speaker 1: time to time, most of them asking for things like
Speaker 1: food or books. Meanwhile, Colette tried to free him, calling
Speaker 1: in favors, talking to anybody she thought might be able
Speaker 1: to help. Eventually, on February six ninety two, he was
Speaker 1: freed on the order of Otto Abbott's, who was the
Speaker 1: German ambassador to vic France. He had married a French
Speaker 1: woman named Suzanne de Breiker in two She had convinced
Speaker 1: her husband to intervene on Collette's behalf. After Maurice's release
Speaker 1: from the camp, they remained in Paris. A couple of
Speaker 1: months later, they had tea with Susanne de Breiker at
Speaker 1: the German embassy. That June, the Nazis ordered Jewish people
Speaker 1: in France and a number of other countries to start
Speaker 1: wearing yellow stars. This is something that Colette described her
Speaker 1: husband as not particularly bothered by. It was only after
Speaker 1: Viscy authorities started deporting thousands of Jewish people from France
Speaker 1: and one of Colett's Jewish friends took her own life
Speaker 1: that they started to believe that Paris might be too dangerous.
Speaker 1: They went to centro Pe using forged papers. Eventually, Maurice
Speaker 1: made his way back to Paris and remained in hiding there.
Speaker 1: Collette made her way back as well, and they were
Speaker 1: both in Paris when it was liberated in August of
Speaker 1: n Shortly before the liberation of Paris, Missy dea Bouf,
Speaker 1: who we talked about in Part one, died by suicide
Speaker 1: sometime after the immediate aftermath of their breakup had subsided.
Speaker 1: Missy and Colette had gotten in contact again. They kept
Speaker 1: up a correspondence for most of the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: Missy died at the age of eighty one, having outlived
Speaker 1: many close friends and also started to experience some cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: As was the case with much of what happened in
Speaker 1: the world during Colette's lifetime, she did not really comment
Speaker 1: on the events of World War two or speak out
Speaker 1: against the Nazi Party's violent anti semitism, even as it
Speaker 1: targeted her husband. We do not really know her thought
Speaker 1: process on this. Some scenarios are easy to imagine, like
Speaker 1: she may have understood that if she were publicly vocal
Speaker 1: on any of this, her husband's life would be at risk.
Speaker 1: But she's described as being a passive collaborationist during World
Speaker 1: War two, and she also published a lot of her
Speaker 1: work in pro visy anti Semitic journals. During the war,
Speaker 1: she also published a novel, Julie de Carnilon, which contained
Speaker 1: a lot of anti Semitic language. Even generously, this was
Speaker 1: not good, any of it. One of Collette's more well
Speaker 1: known novellas, especially in the United States, was one of
Speaker 1: the works she published in a pro VC journal during
Speaker 1: World War Two. This was Gig, which was published in
Speaker 1: This is the story of a girl in Paris whose
Speaker 1: grandmother and great aunt are training her to be a
Speaker 1: high class courtisan. Does not go exactly the way that
Speaker 1: those two women are planning for her. After the war
Speaker 1: was over, Collette chose Audrey Hepburn to play the role
Speaker 1: of Gigi on Broadway, and that launched hep Barn's career.
Speaker 1: She was also made into a musical film in and
Speaker 1: that film won all nine Academy Awards that it was
Speaker 1: nominated for. Collette did not live to see this version
Speaker 1: of her novella, though, and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: that after we pause for a sponsor break. As we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Collette developed arthritis and it worsened during World
Speaker 1: War Two. We've also talked about how Collette really hated
Speaker 1: the idea of aging, and in her younger years she
Speaker 1: had kept up a fitness regiment to both sculpt what
Speaker 1: her body looked like and to hopefully prevent physical problems
Speaker 1: later on in her life. Her body changed a lot
Speaker 1: as she got older, but she had really hoped that
Speaker 1: she was going to be active and physically well all
Speaker 1: the way until the end. So her disability and the
Speaker 1: chronic pain that accompanied it were just very, very upsetting
Speaker 1: to her. She tried to remain in good spirits, and
Speaker 1: if she thought she was sinking too far into despair,
Speaker 1: she would think about when the Gestapo came from Maurice.
Speaker 1: She thought that was the worst thing that could ever
Speaker 1: happen to her, and it had already happened. She spent
Speaker 1: most of the last years of her life in an
Speaker 1: apartment in Paris that overlooked the Palais Royal Gardens, an
Speaker 1: apartment that she described as quote another country home in Paris.
Speaker 1: Her bed was pushed against the window so she could
Speaker 1: see outside and sit in the fresh air when the
Speaker 1: weather was good. For a time, she was still able
Speaker 1: to travel, and she and Maurice would stay with friends
Speaker 1: or in hotels, or visit spas and thermal baths with
Speaker 1: the hope that she would get some pain relief. But
Speaker 1: the more trouble she had with her mobility, the less
Speaker 1: this was possible. This was an upstairs apartment, it was
Speaker 1: not accessible to her. Getting downstairs required her and her
Speaker 1: wheelchair to be carried. That was something that required two
Speaker 1: strong people to do. Maurice thought about moving them to
Speaker 1: a first floor apartment where this wouldn't be an issue,
Speaker 1: but worried that that kind of relocation would just be
Speaker 1: too upsetting for her, and then she would also no
Speaker 1: longer have the view of the gardens that she loved
Speaker 1: so much. After World War two, there had been a
Speaker 1: wave of effort in France to seek out and prosecute
Speaker 1: people who had collaborated with Germany. Many writers who had
Speaker 1: published in the pro Vichy press had their work boycotted,
Speaker 1: and some faced death threats and violence, but Collette's reputation
Speaker 1: was seemingly unaffected by her publishing in a range of
Speaker 1: pro Vissy journals during the war. On May second, she
Speaker 1: was elected to the French literary organization known as the
Speaker 1: Academy goncur. She was only the second woman to be
Speaker 1: so honored at mondegoncour who established the Academy, had specified
Speaker 1: in his will that it was not open to women
Speaker 1: or Jews. He also excluded poets and members of the
Speaker 1: Academy fonseai Is. In ninety Colette was nominated for the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Literature, although that prize went to T. S. Eliott.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty three, she was named Grand Officer in
Speaker 1: the French Legion of Honor. Colette died in Paris on
Speaker 1: August third, nineteen fifty four, at the age of eighty one.
Speaker 1: Maurice wrote an account of her death and which he
Speaker 1: said that as she was dying, she kept admonishing him
Speaker 1: to look. Look. He couldn't see what was so absorbing
Speaker 1: and so wondrous to her, and thought she must be
Speaker 1: seeing paradise. He later said of her quote. For thirty
Speaker 1: years she enabled me to live in a fairy world.
Speaker 1: It is often mentioned that Colette was denied Catholic funeral
Speaker 1: rites because of her divorces and remarriages, which is true,
Speaker 1: but she had not left any instructions for what should
Speaker 1: happen to her after her death, aside from the instruction
Speaker 1: that no one should see her. The request for a
Speaker 1: Catholic funeral had come from Maurice. Colette wasn't dead honored
Speaker 1: with a state funeral in France on August seventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four. She was buried at pearl Ches Cemetery. Maurice
Speaker 1: had become her literary executor. He later wrote a book
Speaker 1: about their life together called pret to Colette or Close
Speaker 1: to Collette. He later remarried and also became a father
Speaker 1: at the age of seventy one. He wrote a memoir
Speaker 1: about this, called The Delights of Growing Old, which was
Speaker 1: published in nineteen sixty six. He died on January nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Her daughter died in nineteen eighty one and
Speaker 1: was buried next to Collette at Parlaches. Collette was regarded
Speaker 1: as a national icon in France by the time of
Speaker 1: her death, and her work was widely read and deeply beloved.
Speaker 1: She wrote at least fifty books, along with plays and articles,
Speaker 1: and a ton of letters. She was a very avid correspondent.
Speaker 1: Although some of her books had been translated into other
Speaker 1: languages during her lifetime, she didn't become as widely known
Speaker 1: in many other parts of the world until later. In
Speaker 1: the UK and the US, her popularity didn't really take
Speaker 1: hold until the nineteen seventies thanks to a surging interest
Speaker 1: in women's literature. Will end with a quote from her
Speaker 1: work that, to me evokes both collette style of writing
Speaker 1: and how she viewed her own life and work. She
Speaker 1: published the short story Levrial de Vane, or The Tendrils
Speaker 1: of the Vine in Night. This was part of a
Speaker 1: collection of stories by the same name. She wrote it
Speaker 1: before her separation from Willie, in the early years of
Speaker 1: her career as a writer. It's framed as a legend
Speaker 1: that the nightingale didn't used to sing at night until
Speaker 1: he woke to find that he had become entangled in
Speaker 1: a fast growing vine. The nightingale feared that he would die,
Speaker 1: and so he swore to stay awake and sing for
Speaker 1: as long as the vine grew. While singing, he discovered
Speaker 1: his own voice and fell in love with it. Singing quote,
Speaker 1: I want to say say say everything. I know, everything,
Speaker 1: I think, everything, I guess everything which delights and hurt
Speaker 1: and astonishes me. That is called who. As I said
Speaker 1: at the beginning of part one, aren't of her life
Speaker 1: file Love and other parts? I'm like, no, that was
Speaker 1: that was bad girl. What do you have a listener
Speaker 1: mail for us? I do? This is from Cindy. Cindy
Speaker 1: wrote to us after we talked in our most recent
Speaker 1: Unearthed episodes about watermelon seeds and eating roasted watermelon seeds,
Speaker 1: and yes, Hi, Holly and Tracy, longtime fan of the show.
Speaker 1: I've never really been compelled to write, but when you
Speaker 1: mentioned trying roasted watermelon seeds, I just felt the need
Speaker 1: to act. Roasted in seasoned watermelon seeds her popular snack
Speaker 1: in China and a staple at gatherings. I would say
Speaker 1: they taste like a slightly sweeter sunflower seed. As much
Speaker 1: as I like eating them, though, I dreaded them being
Speaker 1: brought out at a party because it almost always meant
Speaker 1: that no matter when we said we were going to leave,
Speaker 1: and how late it got, the adults would chatter away
Speaker 1: for another hour or two, a pile of seed husks
Speaker 1: slowly growing between them on the table. As the oldest
Speaker 1: child in the family and among my parents friends, it
Speaker 1: just meant I had to sit among the toddlers a
Speaker 1: little longer. Still, though, it's one of my favorite snacks,
Speaker 1: and I think that if you like sunflower or pumpkin seeds,
Speaker 1: you should definitely give them a try. You can find
Speaker 1: the seeds at most local Chinese supermarkets, but I've included
Speaker 1: a link to a brand my family likes, as well
Speaker 1: as pictures of my cat and pup. My girlfriend and
Speaker 1: I adopted the kittie about five months ago and his
Speaker 1: name is Eggs Benedict. I love it, me do. He's
Speaker 1: the most active cat I've ever seen and loves to
Speaker 1: join us on hikes. The pup is Cedric, and I
Speaker 1: started listening to your show around the time when I
Speaker 1: adopted him about six years ago. I'm sure he would
Speaker 1: recognize your voices in a crowd. At this point, You've
Speaker 1: kept us company on many a long drive. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all you do, and please keep up the great work. Cindy.
Speaker 1: Cindy sent a picture of um they are They are
Speaker 1: soy sauce watermelons needs. Other folks had also let us
Speaker 1: know that if there are things that you can pick
Speaker 1: up at Chinese or other Asian supermarkets, and then of
Speaker 1: course animal pictures, which we always super super love. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much for letting me know that. About
Speaker 1: watermelon seeds, I don't know that they have ever caught
Speaker 1: my eye when I have been in one of the
Speaker 1: very out of our various local Asian groceries, So thank you.
Speaker 1: If you would like to send us a note about
Speaker 1: this or any other podcasts were at History Podcasts at
Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. We're also on social media
Speaker 1: at missed in History and Let's Throw Find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
Speaker 1: in Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app or wherever you like to
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.