Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Graceful and timeless, 29 April 2007
It's hard to believe, now, that this book scandalised 1950s France. Seventeen year old Cécile, and her father Raymond epitomise the Beautiful People of the French Riviera: fun-loving and decadent, Raymond loves fast cars and attractive women and has taught his daughter to emulate his hedonistic lifestyle. This she does with an innocence impossible after the 1960s, stating of the one boy with whom she even flirts during the course of the book, "if Cyril had not been so fond of me I would have become his mistress that week." The picture is entirely charming, even if the lifestyle is now entirely gone.
And then, in the middle of one long summer, Raymond drops his current lover, the sunburned redhead Elsa, and proposes to marry Anne, an old friend. Cécile is appalled; her dreams of life with her father, of the balance of power between them gradually shifting in favour of her telling him her adventures, seem about to be shattered. She determines to stop the marriage, and forms a plan involving Cyril and Elsa pretending to become lovers right under Raymond's nose, trusting that good old fashioned jealousy will drive him to try to win back his erstwhile plaything.
I was expecting to be bored by this book, but needed something very thin to tuck into a pocket (it's just over a hundred pages). I thought that something which shocked France fifty years ago would be either insufferably tawdry, or just plain dull, but that in either case, morés would have changed so drastically in the intervening period, that the book would be all but incomprehensible.
In the event, what I found was a delicately graceful story which is almost timeless in its depiction of falling in love, growing up, growing older, passion and jealousy. Raymond's desire to stay young by bedding younger and younger women is of course only too familiar, but so is Anne's smart and efficient but somehow soulless respectability.
Cécile herself is perhaps the best thing about this book, the character of a teenager drawn with terrifying accuracy. Her relationship with Anne veers between a respect bordering on reverence, and a pathological desire to shock, and this - witness the drunk adolescent trying to be scandalous - will be the thing which keeps modern readers entertained, when implications of extra-marital sex have long lost their power to shock.
What does shock, though, is the ending. Until the last few pages, when the tragic consequences of Cécile's actions become clear, the plot has meandered through a course as languorous as the summer itself; I truly did not expect a moment of high drama. Naturally, through Cécile's eyes, this becomes melodrama, but still it left me stunned. It is, of course, a moral lesson that even the most innocent of meddlers may set in motion events they could not have foreseen, and this thought, too, is timeless.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A young girl's idle whims cause tragedy one summer, 4 April 2000
By A Customer
This is a intruiging and lyrical classic depicting the shallowness of youth, set in the French Riviera one idyllic summer. The heroine decides to scheme and manipulate the lives of her family and friends, completely unaware of the drastic effect she will have. A realistic and moral tale, about how dangerous it can be to meddle in others' affairs. A brief, but utterly worthwhile read.
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20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a brilliant introduction to french literature!, 20 Oct 2001
By A Customer
I am currently studying A-level french and my literature teacher recommended Bonjour Tristesse as the first book we should read due to the fact that it is easy enough to understand provided that you don't insist on looking up every word you don't know in a dictionary, otherwise it becomes too tedious.
Bonjour Tristesse is set on the French Riviera where Celine and Raymond, the two main characters, like to spend their summer vacation.
Raymond is the typical middle-aged "Don Juan" "qui plaisait au femmes" and as a result sees no problem in inviting not one but two women on holiday with him and his daughter.
Celine, like her father, enjoys living the easy life in the pursuit of pleasure but is extremely worried when her father announces that he is going to marry one of his mistresses, Anne.
The book is wriiten by a middle-aged Celine looking back on her teenage years and as a result much of the story centres on her thoughts and feelings about love, which although naive and even bordering on downright selfish at times, make an enjoyable read.
Sagan's descriptive writing is extremely effective in transporting the reader to the south of France and at times you almost feel like you are standing beside Celine on the goatpath or lying with her on the beach, which certainly brightens up a dreary schoolday!
True to the title, however, there are a few sad parts which bring a tear to your eye, but the immense satisfaction you gain when you reach end of the last page and realise " Wow I've actually read my first French novel ever" more than makes up for it! It has certainly inspired me to move on to other great Franch classics.
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