Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse was a very fun read, but I quickly grew to have conflicting feelings about the main protagonist. In fact, many of Cécile’s thoughts and actions reminded me a lot of Blair Waldorf from the tv series, Gossip Girl (the one that first aired in 2007 – not to be confused with whatever mess the 2021 version was). The two characters share many similar traits that make them endearing but also infuriating at the same time.
Firstly, both Cécile and Blair are privileged teenagers who have the same tendency to scheme and manipulate situations to their liking. Cécile’s claim of how she loves the “pleasure of driving in a high-powered car, of buying a new dress, records books [and] flowers” (19) mirrors the extravagant and luxurious life that Blair Waldorf lives in New York City as a wealthy heiress.
Furthermore, Blair’s mother, Eleanor Waldorf, is a successful fashion designer that also shares a few similarities with Anne Larsen. In addition to how they share the same career, there are also many parallels between their relationships with Cécile and Blair. For instance, although both of Blair’s parents are alive, her parents are separated so she mainly lives with her mother in New York City’s Upper East Side. Blair clearly looks up to her mother and craves her validation yet finds herself annoyed at her when she doesn’t meet her expectations. One example of this is when Blair disapproves of her mother’s decision to marry a man and creates a whole scheme as an attempt to break off their engagement.
This is very similar to how Cécile “greatly admire[s]” Anne for being a smart and beautiful woman (10) yet found herself “irritated by the discovery that she was vulnerable (15-16). Her disappointment from finding out that Anne is in love with her father and their plans for marriage leads her to create a scheme involving her father’s ex-lover, Elsa, and Cyril, a man who’s infatuated with her. In the end, her plan succeeds, but it also results in a tragedy with the death and possible suicide of Anne. Cécile is left feeling describing her father and herself as “alone and unhappy” (128). However, Cécile later finds herself “happy” (129) when she falls in love with Anne’s cousin and her father moves on to a new lover.
This ending leaves me with a lot of questions for what Cécile’s life beyond the story’s end:
Do you think Anne’s death will have any impact on Cécile’s growth as a person? Will she be less inclined to scheming or do you that it’s inevitable that she’ll repeat the cycle? Also, do you think Cécile’s behaviour stems from her own insecurities?