A Review of Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

"A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow"

French Riviera. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The story is set in the beautiful and fashionable French Riviera over one summer. The principal characters in Bonjour Tristesse are:

Cécile - a 17 year old girl on the brink of womanhood. Her mother died 15 years ago and she lives with her father Raymond in Paris. Her father treats her very much like a companion or partner in crime than a daughter. Cécile has in turns a very naive view of life but also a world weary and cynical outlook. She accepts her father's "need for a woman" and is happy with their hedonistic partying lifestyle.

Raymond - is Cécile's father, in his 40's and is "young for his age, full of vitality and liveliness", with an eye for the ladies! He is charming, promiscuous and affectionate. He leaves Cécile to do as she pleases.

Cécile is excited by the prospect of summer in a villa they have rented in the French Riviera, and is happy for Raymond's current girlfriend Elsa to join them. She knows Elsa won't "get in the way" of Cécile and her relationship with her father. As Cécile embarks on a holiday romance with the "tall and almost beautiful" Cyril, Raymond announces that there will be an additional house guest...

Anne Larsen - Anne was a friend of Cécile's late mother and is cool, calm, intelligent and beautiful. Her ways are very different to Cécile's and her father's; she is not part of their partying glamorous crowd of friends at all. Cécile admires Anne and has this urge to try and please her, but always feels she falls short. Cécile is also immediately slightly wary as to why Anne would visit them, she isn't Raymond's type of woman at all, and has a feeling that their uncomplicated summer of fun would end with Anne's arrival. Where Elsa doesn't get in the way of Cécile's relationship with Raymond, she knows Anne will.

As Cécile becomes more threatened by Anne, a power struggle for Raymond's affections grows. The ruthlessness and manipulation Cécile displays in contriving different ways to split Anne and her father up culminates in the tragic ending of Bonjour Tristesse - which you will have to read to find out!

Mediterranean Coast of the French Riviera
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"From dawn onward I was in the water. It was cool and transparent, and I plunged wildly about in my efforts to wash away the shadows and dust of Paris"

"....I kept thinking, first of Cyril's passionate face, and then of Anne's, both with the stamp of violence on them.
And I wondered if the rest of the vacation would be as uncomplicated as my father had assumed."