Hey everyone. Let's have a quick chat about Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan.
I read the English translation by Irene
Ash and I really love this book. It's
very short. You can read it in a day. At
least that's what I did. I was really
drawn into the story, the writing and
everything. This book basically tells the
story or the adventures of the summer of
Cecile her father and two other women
Elsa and Anne. Her father is basically
dating Elsea at the beginning and then
Anne shows up, who's an old friend of the
family, and things evolve. This book is
told in retrospect. So we know that
Cecile is older now and you can tell it
in the writing that she looks back at
things. I really loved how you can see
how she overanalysed everything that
had happened in that summer. Everything
is looked upon from the wisdom of later
times. I loved the writing. The
writing feels detached and vulnerable at
the same time. You really feel the
light-heartedness of the summer adventure and the heat just oozing of it. And it's -
I don't know - I really loved it. I also
loved how it looked at Cecile and how
she felt threatened by Anne and her way
of life. Her father and Cecile live a
rather frivolous life and Anne is more
the intellectual part, she frowns
upon a lot of things they do. The
events that happen make Cecile on the
one side be drawn to Anne. She really loves her and she really respects her. But on
the other side she feels rather
threatened in her young 17-year old
flirty self, exploring the world and
enjoying that her father is taking her
on so many adventures and allowing so
many wild things to happen. It's all
in these few pages, where you can see how Cecile clings to a life that she wants
but society might be more on Anne's side. How she really doesn't know how to deal with things.
How to deal with emotions, how
to handle love and everything
around that. And normal family life, like
marriage, that is something that is coming
up in this story a lot, from her father's
point of view, from Anne's point of view,
and also from Cecile's point of view.
What she wants from it, and her
understanding of what it does and what
it means for her life. As you can see
there's a lot of stuff in this short
book and I highly recommend you pick it
up, if you haven't yet. If you like the
writings of the 50s and summer
adventures with really deep impactful
meanings for later life. Like I said,
I really enjoyed that this was written
in retrospect. You can really tell that
the events happening that summer really
stuck with Cecile a long time. What can I say?
I loved the book and you should read
it.
If you have, tell me in comments what
you thought or what you liked about the book.
Thank you for watching bye bye
