This strikes me as a story that was good fiction and edgy when published in 1958, and which is now good fiction and historically interesting in 2023. Sally Jay Gorce embarks on adventures in discovering herself while discovering Paris, funded by a rich uncle after fulfilling a promise to complete her education first. I found some of the writing devices interesting and unique ("I stiffened my spine and tried to dance disapprovingly. Try it."). If you like fun fiction and tales of decades gone by, this is a worthy choice. ( )

"Last night was one of THOSE evenings. I wouldn't know what to call it. Eventful in an uneventful way. Boring; but interesting. Nothing much happening on the surface and everybody seething and stewing underneath---changing character all over the place." Page 180

I don't think I've read another novel where the protagonist came roaring off the page like Sally Jay Gorce does in this book. A twenty year old American girl who is spending the year (1958) in Paris, she is so fresh, so dynamic, so filled with energy that I couldn't help cheer her on as she faced one disaster after another. Lots of books have been written about Americans abroad but this one is the one that will stand out for me. All the characterizations are great but Sally Jay will stay with me for sure. Wild and wonderful.Enhanced by the terrific Backlisted podcast. ( )

> I remember all this part so very clearly. And I remember a little later wondering why things always turn out to be diametrically opposed to what you expect them to be. It’s no good even trying to predict what this opposite will be because it always fools you and turns out to be the opposite of that, if you see what I mean. If you think this is geometrically impossible all I can say is that you don’t know my life ( )

magnifique....sans effort....sur de soi.....zymotic! ( )

I don't know how I feel about this book; the ending caught me unawares. 3.5*?

Quotable: "It's difficult to explain, but I just somehow feel that I never really have lived; that I never really will live--exist or whatever--in the sense that other people do. It drives me crazy. I was terribly aware of it in the Ritz bar looking around at what seemed to be real grown-up lives. I just find everybody else's life surrounded by plate glass. I mean I'd like to break through it just once and actually touch one."

"Then I began to have this nightmare. Actually I have it so often I've even given it a name. It's called the Dreaded Librarian Dream.
....Anyway, the closer I get to this girl, the older she becomes, until she turns into a middle-aged spinster librarian. Then I see that it's me. People keep coming up to her from every direction asking her for books....I'm trapped.
....It was this space kick that made me leave Jim in the first place. It's this space kick that's going to turn me into the spinster librarian if I don't stop.
....Then, from outer space, that librarian who is going to be me, who is me, always ready to pounce, is going to take over. And I'll be cooked. If I don't stop it."

"Now here's the heavy irony. So I went back to New York to become a librarian. To actually seek out this thing I've been fleeing all my life. And (here it comes): a librarian is just not that easy to become. I'd taken my lamb by the hand to the slaughter and nobody even wanted it. Apparently there's a whole system and stamping system and God knows what you have to learn before you qualify." ( )