Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse

Hi Everyone!

For this week’s blog post, I am going to be reflecting on Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse. I really enjoyed this novel. Not only did I find the storyline to be very engaging, but also the linear narrative to be quite refreshing (especially after some of the other texts we’ve read for this course). Personally, for me this week’s been pretty hectic with many midterms and multiple assignments due which is why it was also really nice to have a fairly short (and interesting)  novel to read. Knowing that this reading was for a course helped me relax and take breaks between my studying for other classes since I didn’t feel guilty for not doing something “productive”!

On to the content of this novel, I found Cécile’s character to be quite interesting. There were many instances in the novel where her opinions of/interactions with other characters would drastically keep changing. For example, I believe this is most prominent with Anne. Cécile starts off by completely adoring her, “I remember thinking her the most wonderful person and being quite embarrassingly found of her…” (pg. 6). However, as the story goes on, we then also see Cécile’s dislike for Anne as she goes from admiration to hatching out an elaborate plan to get in the way of her father, Raymond, and Anne’s engagement. Although this dislike for Anne draws from a relatively reasonable place (I mean, who wouldn’t be even slightly thrown off/unhappy with their parent remarrying someone else),  it is more so the extent of these extreme opinions/reactions that catch you off guard. Moreover, we also see this back and forth (to a slightly lesser degree I would argue) with Cécile’s feelings for Cyril. At times Cécile’s descriptions of Cyril make their relationship seem very lovely, however, with this she then goes on to include him in this very immature and childish plan to harm her father and Anne’s engagement which highlights a fairly unhealthy aspect to their relationship.

Overall, I found this portrayal of Cécile’s personality to directly relate to the whole essence of a coming-of-age story. Having her be indecisive of her feelings as well as constantly reflecting on and altering her perspective precisely parallels the journey of growing up and how it isn’t always a quick and easy process, but rather one that involves quite a bit of to and fro, self-reflection and lots of confusion.

Additionally, the scene when Cyril asked Cécile to marry him to which her reaction was that although she “loved him”, she “did not want to marry him” (pg. 55), also adds to the whole growing up and coming of age story aspect. Her saying this doesn’t have to do with her feelings for Cyril specifically, but instead, has more to do with Cécile coming to her own realizations as she notices and accepts the reality that she isn’t ready to marry someone yet. In fact, in the novel itself, she mentions that she “had no intention of marrying anyone” and that she is “exhausted” because “all this emotion wears [her] out” (pg. 55).

Finally, for the questions of this post: How did you portray Cécile? Did you find yourself relating to her character?

: )