Françoise Sagan (1935–2004)

The cover of this translation of Françoise Sagan's classic coming of age tale has a quote that calls it thoroughly immoral. The back of the book tells me that it scandalised 1950s France with the main character's rejection of conventional notions of love.

What was love like in 1950s France, then? What's immoral about finding pleasure in desire and enjoyment in sex?

Sagan was 18 when she wrote the book, and her eye for the transition from youth to adulthood is precise. There is nothing flowery show more or romantic about her writing, but the book is more beautiful for that. Her style made me think of Fitzgerald, but I liked Sagan more. She brought some Flannery O'Connor to the mix.

Although only a short book, it drew me in completely. I really enjoyed it. show less

This book is actually two novellas - the title novella and A Certain Smile. In Bonjour Tristesse, the narrator is in her late teens and enjoying a fairly permissive life with her womanising widowed father when circumstances change one summer requiring some drastic action. I'm not sure I'd go as far as The Guardian's comment that 'Françoise Sagan is the French F. Scott Fitzgerald', but certainly she captures well the essence of that heady era of wealthy adults with questionable moral show more compasses enjoying the pleasures of hot summers in the south of France. It's extraordinary, given the quality and maturity of Sagan's writing, to think that this was her first book at the tender age of 18. She captures perfectly the lightness of youth, offering a sardonic, outside perspective of the types of gatherings depicted by the likes of Fitzgerald and Hemingway.

In A Certain Smile, the narrator is a late teen who, bored with her young boyfriend, embarks on an affair with his much older uncle. Every teen is wont to think they have life sussed, but this young protagonist finds out the hard way that she's not quite so in control of things as she'd like to think.

What's clever about Sagan's writing is that she wrote commandingly from the perspective of young women, yet at the same time shows so clearly the naivety of youth to the reader, which given the young age she was when she wrote these novellas is commendable.

I absolutely loved these two novellas - they were fun and absorbing and set in one of my favourite eras for fiction, and I'll certainly be looking out for other titles by Sagan which have been translated.

4.5 stars - the perfect holiday read. show less

Meh. Sorry, but that's my reaction to BONJOUR TRISTESSE, this so-called modern "classic" of eroticism. Erotic? Not. Slow? Very. Boring? Yep. But I kept reading to the very end. And thank God it was barely a hundred pages long. It's narrated by Cecilie, a spoiled 17 year-old, two years out of a ten-year stint in convent school, who lives with her long-widowed middle-aged father Raymond, a shallow, skirt-chasing rake, who has taught her the joys of a mindless and carefree disolute life. Enter show more an old family friend, Anne, a forty-ish intelligent, sophisticated career woman, who goes after Raymond, determined to civilize both father and daughter. She is initially successful, driving off Elsa, the current, much younger mistress. And there is Cyril, 25, who becomes Cecile's lover as their long, lazy beachtown summer progresses - excruciatingly long, as nothing much really happens. Jealous, Cecilie devises a plan, using Cyril and Elsa, to get rid of Anne. Jealous? Yeah, because it appears Cecile has a giant, albeit repressed, crush on Daddy. At least that's my take on the whole situation. There are some tragic consequences, but no one feels bad for very long. "Hello Sadness"? Not really. More like, Let the Good Times Roll. My apologies to any literary pundits of the past sixty years who found Sagan's story so classic, shocking, erotic or whatever, because I found it to be an enormous bore.

And I thought I was getting such a bargain twofer in this Penguin Classics edition, which tacks on Sagan's next novella, A CERTAIN SMILE. Well, the first couple pages, with phrases like, "He bores me, I really don't care about any of this." or "I was quietly rather bored" quickly disabused me of any such notion. After scanning a few more pages of the second story, I quickly agreed with its narrator. I don't care about any of this either. Enough of Francoise Sagan's fashionable French ennui for this old fart. On to something a bit better, I hope. Not recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Bonjour Tristesse was a melodrama that somehow felt incredibly real. Obsessed with the way the author depicted familial relationships.

A Certain Smile: I don't think this is a popular opinion but I liked this one better, probably because I was able to connect with the material *slightly* more. It's a very ordinary story about falling in love and getting your heart shattered for the first time but told extraordinarily and with a great deal of compassion. Love will absolutely devastate you and show more rewire your brain but the pain is temporary and Paris is forever. show less