Product Description

Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cécile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.

Freed from boarding school, Cécile lives in unchecked enjoyment with her youngish, widowed father -- an affectionate rogue, dissolute and promiscuous. Having accepted the constantly changing women in his life, Cécile pursues a sexual conquest of her own with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. Then, a new woman appears in her father's life. Feeling threatened but empowered, Cécile sets in motion a devastating plan that claims a surprising victim.

Deceptively simple in structure, Bonjour Tristesse is a complex and beautifully composed portrait of casual amorality and a young woman's desperate attempt to understand and control the world around her.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238086 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Released on: 2001-11-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
("Hello Sadness") Novel by Francoise Sagan, published in French in 1954. The story of a jealous, sophisticated 17-year-old girl whose meddling in her father's impending remarriage leads to tragic consequences, it was written with "classical" restraint and a tone of cynical disillusionment. The book showed the persistence of traditional form during a period of experimentation in French fiction. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Cecile is seventeen. Most of her youth was spent in a convent school, but for the past two years she has lived with her widowed father, a hedonistic forty-year-old with a wandering eye. Cecile has accepted the constantly changing women of their household and cherishes the free-spirited life she shares with her father, including, most recently, a two-month summer vacation at a villa with her father's new mistress, Elsa. The villa is beautiful, Elsa is "rather simple-minded and unpretentious," and Cecile has her own plans for sexual exploration with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. To Cecile's surprise, however, Anne comes from Paris to join them. Anne, her late mother's friend, is cool, intelligent and restrained; Cecile and her father are exuberant and careless. Cecile expects complications when she realizes that Anne is in love with her father: "All the elements of a drama were to hand - a libertine, a demimondaine, and a strong-minded woman." What unfolds is far from what she imagines. Sympathetic and unsparing, Francoise Sagan takes us into the mind of a precocious seventeen year-old as she attempts to understand and control a world beyond her years. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author
Françoise Sagan was only 18 when her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, was published in 1954. She is also the author of Incidental Music, A Certain Smile, A Fleeting Sorrow, Lost Profile, and The Painted Lady. She lives in Paris, France.

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Customer Reviews

Not a girl, not yet a woman
`Bonjour Tristesse' is a typical French coming-of-age story. Written in the 1950s' it was an instantaneous scandal for dealing so clearly with teenagers and their sexuality. The times have change, we see the world in a different way, adolescents are the same, but this novel still holds the interest.

Cécile is a precocious seventeen-year-old girl who travels to the French Riviera in the company of her father and his mistress. She is used to having different women around with her father all the time. But when he decides to marry one of them, Cécile and her lover Cyril decide to do something to stop him. Meanwhile, she is also learning about life, love, sex and pleasures. All these life-changing experiences will make the girl grow up towards to womanhood.

Françoise Sagan writes about something she knew, and it makes the book very interesting to read. Her prose never sounds fake or far-fetched. Although, it is a little dated --some of Cécile's acts that were daring by that day are just `normal' nowadays-- it has not lost its freshness. The Riviera settings are beautifully described, and we're often asking what the girl will do next.

It is undeniable it is a novel about that time in our lives when we're not a child any more and not yet an adult. With a mind filled with questions, we're trying to define who we are and will be in the future to come. Cécile has to face tragic events to understand what her life is and what it will be like for the next years. While many consider her being a spoilt little brat, this is the time when she is forced to stop being that, and see she won't have her father papering her forever.

`Bonjour Tristesse' opens with a powerful paragraph that reads: `A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the name of sadness'. At this point, had we any doubts it is a book about teenage angst, they are all dissipated.

Sagan wrote this novel when she failed to pass her examination at Sorbonne. The book became an international best seller and also a movie. While `Bonjour Tristesse' is a short and quick book, it is a good work of fiction, and probably Sagan's masterpiece.

Essential French Literature
Any lover of the French must read the coming of age tale of Celine. Written in 1954, Bounjour Tristesse was novel and took on issues of young love and jealously that seemed ahead of it's time. Now, the book may feel a bit passe, but for understanding the author and time it was written-- it remains a classic.

Excellent read
I found Bonjour Tristesse an incredibly moving and stimulating book, which I would recommend to anyone who is intruiged by the emotions that a young woman goes through during her adolescense. The book touched on love, her relationship with her father and the other women that enter her and her fathers life. Sagan writes with a flowing and very realistic style, which I found interesting to read. A really fresh and thought provoking book with an excellent ending.