Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Bonjour Tristesse
Book Review: Good reading
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book when I was 20 in Turkish. After 2 years I watched its movie and re-read the book. It is really a good book.Book Review: Innocence Sidelined
Summary: 5 Stars
Francoise Sagan is a brilliant French writer, who here has written an intriguing novel about a young lady's 'coming-of-age' while on Holiday by the sea. What I appreciate about Sagan's works most of all is her style. She writes very subtly, almost tenderly at times, but what comes out of these impressions is incredible clarity into the inner human workings ans spirit. She deals with huge and incredibly moving emotional matters and life-changing experiences with the grace of an unassuming, yet very beautiful bouquet. Perhaps only French writers writing in French can do this (but this English translation maintains some of the original affect). It's like the hidden waters of the subconscious are feeding Sagan's stories, and especially 'Bonjour Tristesse' with eternal messages about life, love, fear, uncertainty, and Destiny. The parvenu paramour in 'Bonjour Tristesse' finds love without becoming jaded by the experience. Yet, she leaves us with elegaic afterthoughts. This is just brilliant literature.Book Review: Loved the book
Summary: 5 Stars
I find it hard to believe she wrote this without help because she was only seventeen. But regardless, this is a masterpiece, a classic.Book Review: Not a girl, not yet a woman
Summary: 4 Stars
`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.
Book Review: Pleasant Reading ( 4 and 1/2 Stars)
Summary: 4 Stars
This was my first reads by Francoise Sagan, and I must say that I enjoyed it very much. Considering her age when this story was published, Bonjour Tristesse is very well written and thought out indeed.
The prose floats along so easily, that it reads more like a novella. I finished it in an afternoon, and this is also an excellent beach or coffeeshop read. I also loved Sagan's depiction of the French way of life, and how with some of her descriptions, you feel as if you are transported to Paris or the Riviera.
The only problem with this story that I could find is that some of the details did not have enough depth, and that the narrator could be almost vapid. However, Francoise Sagan was very young at the time, so it hardly matters.
I'm reading The Painted Lady at the moment, which is considered to be Sagan's major novel. I am looking forward to reading more by this very whimsical and creative author, and recommend Bonjour Tristesse to any person who is interested in French culture, the 1950s time period, or a just a pleasant read to make the afternoon go by. Bonjour Tristesse definitely qualifies, and the beach reads today hardly hold a candle to this gem of a story.