From My Window
The companion wartime book, in which Colette meets the Occupation from her Paris window.
Read our take
Looking Backwards
by Colette
A wartime gathering of short pieces and memories — miscellaneous by design, and revealing precisely because it is unsettled.
- 1941
About Colette
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeLooking Backwards is a wartime collection Colette published in 1941, made of short pieces — newspaper writing, memories, and occasional prose — hurried into a single volume in the first year of the Occupation. It makes no pretense of unity: the pieces come from many places and moods, moving among Paris salons, the French countryside where she waited out the summer of 1940, and scenes further afield. What holds it is not a theme but a sensibility, dating the self backward through fragments under the pressure of war. (What's inside is described below.)
The story, in more detail
The book gathers twenty-three pieces that had appeared across a range of newspapers and reviews, or were written for the occasion, and sets them down without smoothing them into a single argument. That looseness is the point. Colette assembled it quickly, in a country newly under Occupation, and the haste and unease show through in a way that a more finished book would hide.
The range is wide. Some pieces reach back to the salons and figures of an earlier Paris; others record the present — the exodus of 1940, the countryside of the Corrèze and Burgundy, glimpses of Provence and of places further off. Readers have singled out individual pieces, but the book's interest is cumulative: it is Colette taking stock, backward, at a moment when the future had gone dark.
Looking Backwards is best read as a wartime notebook rather than a shaped memoir. It sits close to From My Window, the other book in which Colette met the Occupation by writing steadily through it. It was translated into English by David Le Vay under this title.
What's inside
There is no plot and, deliberately, little unity. The book collects twenty-three short pieces — newspaper writing, memories, and occasional prose — drawn from many sources and assembled quickly in the first year of the Occupation. The pieces range in place and mood: the salons of an earlier Paris, the 1940 exodus, the countryside of the Corrèze and Burgundy, and scenes further afield.
What connects them is a sensibility rather than a subject — Colette taking stock by looking backward, under wartime pressure, without shaping the fragments into a continuous account. The unsettled, miscellaneous quality is part of what the book records: a writer dating her own past at a moment when the present had turned uncertain and the future dark.
Themes and analysis
A halt on the road
The opening of “Fin juin 1940” accumulates displaced people, vehicles, bedding and animals before allowing the exhausted narrator a halt. Rest briefly promises an escape from the shared disaster, but ordinary faces and creatures bring back the demands of her vocation. The writing table appears as an obstacle encountered at the journey's end, not simply a refuge. Writing is both an obligation and a temptation she cannot leave behind. Her admission that she has not witnessed the war's spectacular violence limits her testimony while making room for the particular lives that have come within her reach.
Music remembered
In “Un Salon en 1900,” apparent informality depends on careful rules. Saint-Marceaux welcomes tired friends without evening dress, yet suppresses whispering and guards the atmosphere that makes their ease possible. Fauré and Messager's four-handed improvisations turn musical skill into playful combat: each surprises the other with a change of direction. Their freedom is sustained by the room's social discipline rather than opposed to it. The memory makes artistic fellowship concrete through clothes, furniture, refreshments and teasing, showing how an apparently spontaneous musical evening rests on years of a hostess's deliberate work.
Why we recommend it
A writer's wartime notebook
Assembled fast under the Occupation, it keeps the unease a more finished book would smooth away.
Colette taking stock
The looking-backward method dates the self through fragments at a moment when the future had gone dark.
The companion to From My Window
It sits beside the other book in which she met the Occupation by writing steadily through it.
What this book explores
Bring it to book club
- The book is miscellaneous on purpose. What does its lack of unity let Colette record that a shaped memoir might not?
- It was assembled quickly under the Occupation. Where do you feel the haste and unease in the writing?
- Colette dates her past by looking backward at a dark moment. Why might memory feel urgent in 1941?
Timeline
1940
Colette leaves Paris during the exodus and returns under the Occupation — the experience the book records.
1941
Journal à rebours is published by Fayard, gathering twenty-three wartime pieces.
1950
The book enters Volume XII of the Le Fleuron collected works, alongside Le Képi, De ma fenêtre, and Trois… Six… Neuf….
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- 1941
Paperback
- Paperback
- David Le Vay
Ebook
- Ebook
Reader reviews
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Three… Six… Nine…
The nearby late self-portrait, also assembled in the war years, telling her life through rooms.
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The Blue Lantern
The last of the late books, where the backward-looking method reaches its final form.
Read our takeLooking Backwards: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Looking Backwards?
Colette. Journal à rebours was published in 1941, a collection of short pieces gathered in the first year of the Occupation.
What is the book about?
It is a miscellaneous wartime gathering of newspaper writing, memories, and occasional prose, ranging from an earlier Paris to the 1940 exodus and the French countryside.
Is it a novel?
No. It is a collection of short pieces without a continuous plot — closer to a wartime notebook than to a shaped memoir.
Why is the book so miscellaneous?
Colette assembled it quickly under the Occupation from pieces of many kinds and sources. The unsettled, various quality is part of what the book records about its moment.
Is Looking Backwards available in English?
Yes. It was translated into English by David Le Vay under the title Looking Backwards.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Looking Backwards, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Looking Backwards
NovelColette, 1941Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Journal à rebours — Fayard 1941 text
WebsiteWikisourceUsed forOpening of Fin juin 1940, pp. 7–19, and complete Un Salon en 1900, pp. 123–131, in the French Fayard 1941 transcription. Used for the return of writing during displacement and the salon's cultivated informality; not a complete-volume, translation or independent historical verification.
3Colette — bibliography of original editions
WebsiteSociété des amis de ColetteUsed forThe Société des amis de Colette bibliography verifies the original edition's publisher and publication date.
4Société des amis de Colette — Chronology
WebsiteUsed forUsed to place Looking Backwards within Colette's published work and verify its bibliographic context.
5Bibliothèque nationale de France — The Worlds of Colette
Exhibition catalogueUsed forUsed for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding Colette's career and the period in which Looking Backwards appeared.
6Library of Congress — Colette resource guide
WebsiteUsed forUsed to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in Colette's wider catalogue.
7Bibliothèque nationale de France — Colette: online resources
WebsiteUsed forUsed to verify Colette's bibliography and place Looking Backwards within the broader chronology of Colette's career.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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