Colette The Hand

Although the American novelist, Edmund White, believes that Colette is not taken seriously by many French readers just for the fact that she is a woman working in a primarily historically male-dominated field, it can be argued that this is not the only reason on why some people might not take Colette seriously. According to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary, the word serious is defined as: “Of or relating to a matter of importance.” However, even though Colette’s work is certainly interesting, she is nonetheless a novelist that writes fictional stories, and some, like The Hand, are quite exaggerated. Although a great writer indeed, she is a fictional writer, not a historian, economist, or a scientist, all of which write non-fictional work that

This is not because she is not a good author, but for the fact that Colette seems to overcomplicate quite simple things that should not really be overthought. For example, in her short story, The Hand, Colette goes into plenty of detail on the hand of a man who is sleeping next to his new wife. The author goes on to mention the anatomical details of the hand, like the veins and fingers. Sentences like, “The thumb stiffened itself out, horribly long and spatulate, and pressed tightly against the index finger, so that the hand suddenly took on a vile, apelike appearance.” (Colette, 247) Yes, the sentence is quite detailed, but it goes into so much detail and analyses that the story becomes plain creepy.

In general, Colette seems to over analyze very simple things, like in The Hand, although she does it quite well. Her other stories like, If I Had A Daughter, for example, is another example of a story that has some sort of mockery and idealization. Throughout this short story, a woman describes her ideal daughter to her friend and the tone of her friend sounds annoyed throughout the majority of the story. It seemed like this woman had told her friend made up scenarios quite a few times and her friend was tired of it. The story starts