The Pure and the Impure

Download or read book The Pure and the Impure written by Colette and published by Farrar Straus Giroux. This book was released on 1967-01-01 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.