“Bonjour Tristesse”, or “Hello Sadness” in English, is a stable novella filled with romance and surface-level drama. The story is narrated by a young girl, Cecile, who is describing her summer vacation with her widowed father, Raymond, and his young girlfriend, Elsa. Her father, described as a charming or “playboy” type, ends up falling in love with an old friend of Cecile’s mother, Anne, a classy and unfriendly woman. Cecile, discontent and angry with this relationship and her father’s break up with Elsa, devises a sneaky plan to try and remove Anne from the picture. However, once the plan was in action, Cecile seemingly felt guilty and was constantly questioning the plan. Throughout the novel, Cecile seems to never comprehend or work through the rightness or wrongness of the situation with which she created. The book finishes with Anne dying from a car accident, and Cecile and Raymond question whether it was suicide. Cecile’s plan ultimately has consequences, and she seemingly feels guilty for the death of Anne. However, her plan apparently works as after Anne’s death, Cecile says that “life began to take its old course” (129).
One part that really stuck out to me was on page 44, when Raymond describes his daughter Cecile as his “pet”. I found this honestly creepy and disturbing; however, I believe this part gave readers insight into the relationships in the book, as Cecile says that she “was nothing more than a kitten to them” (44). Cecile seems to feel a sense of inferiority, which she never expresses to her father. Throughout the book, Cecile is repeatedly questioning whether Anne will ruin her and her father’s way of life, as Anne lives a more serious or organized life of discipline.
One of my favourite quotes from the book is: “fate sometimes assumes strange forms” (117). I thought this was a perfect summary of the book, which touched on fate, bizarre connections, and irrational decisions. On a personal note, this quote really resonated with me as I feel as if it is a good description of our lives right now. Although many of us lost a lot from the pandemic, I am sure the majority of us could say we also learned or gained a lot from it as well, even though this growth came in “strange forms”.
My question is: How do you think Francoise Sagan portrayed young French women in her novella, and how do you think outsiders viewed the characters (or Sagan) at the time this book was published?
Hi Eliza! Wow! I loved your takeaways from the novel as well as the way you worded your thoughts. To answer your first question, I think she painted them out to be quite impressionable until Anne was introduced. Anne being this mature, established lady with deeply rooted morals and an income of her own quickly became the protagonist in my eyes as all her motivations were to help construct a more stable, rewarding life for Cecile. I could imagine at the time however, some people may have preferred Elsa and Cecile’s ideologies and perhaps considered novel to have a happy ending.