Reading Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse felt like riding a playground swing. For me this book was full of an ongoing internal contrast in Cécile’s mind between admiration and resentment towards Anne. On one hand, the difference that Cécile and her father had from Anne seemed to be highlighting class differences; Elsa, Cécile, and her father’s lives were categorized as “Bohemianism”, whereas Anne’s life was that of “a cultivated, well-organized, bourgeois existence” (46). I noticed how Cécile took advantage of this difference to cognitively separated her and her father from Anne, strengthening her treatment of Anne as an intruder and “danger” to the happiness of her and her father.
However, at the same time, Cécile seemed to have viewed Anne with great admiration. Cécile explicitly said, “I greatly admired her” (10). Cécile believed that Anne’s addition (or intrusion) to the family would benefit her as she said, “she would guide me, relieve me of responsibility, and be at hand whenever I might need her. She would make both my father and me into paragons of virtue” (44). I felt that throughout the entirety of the book, there was tension between Cécile’s admiration and resentment towards Anne. Perhaps Cécile’s admiration towards Anne fueled her resentment, as Anne’s attempt to bring order and responsibility to Cécile’s life kept Cécile from liking herself; Cécile, “who was naturally meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced by [Anne] into self-criticism and a guilty conscience” (52). Cécile undoubtedly admired Anne and her “bourgeois existence”; however, she viewed Anne’s orderly life as something far too superior, something that will require too much work, responsibilities, and changes to her current life that seem to her as unwanted sacrifices.
I felt that love was a key driver of this book. Cécile’s attitude towards love started cynical, where she viewed it as mere sensation rather than happiness (20). Then, love changed to a strong “physical” and “intellectual” pleasure that seemed to make her happy when she was with Cyril; it seemed like a true realization until this point. However, her realization of love took a drastic turn when she realized that it was not Cyril that she loved, but she “had loved the pleasure he gave [her]” (127). Perhaps this attitude accurately summarizes the novel’s focus on sensuality, pleasure, and irresponsibility. At a certain point Cécile started to resemble Anne; she started to think about the future and formed tactics that were derived from critical thoughts. However, her irresponsibility remained the same; she is driven by emotions, usually resentment, and never thought of the consequences that could happen by her actions.
To close off my blog, I would like to ask a question: Throughout the book we never got proper insight on Cécile’s mother. Considering that this book had a first-person narrative, do you think the lack of insight on her deceased mother has any implications? Is it merely because her deceased mother is uninfluential to the plot, or perhaps, is Cécile repressing thoughts about her mother?
Hi Daniel! I think that this book did a good job portraying the internal tug of war between Cécile’s resentment and love for Anne. It kept making me switch sides as it made me sympathize with both of Cécile’s conflicting feelings. To answer your question, I wonder whether her mother was similar in personality to her father’s carefree ways, or whether her mother was more like Anne. Seeing as Anne was her mother’s friend, I think it would make sense if Cécile saw a familiar mother figure in Anne and if this in turn played a role in her intense admiration and love for Anne despite her desire to resent her.
Daniel – great swing analogy! And you raise an interesting point about the lack of mention/ first-person reflection on Cecile’s mother and her death. To that, I would add, she hardly lets us in on these ten years of “convent life” that are briefly mentioned a handful of times. How do we read this brushing aside of the past and embrace of the present (and lack of thought about future, might we add)…?
Hi Daniel! Really interesting post. I hadn’t considered that Cecile began to resemble Anne at one point, but that’s definitely something to further ponder. In response to your question, I think it’s quite possible her mother doesn’t play a large role in the story because she’s been gone for fifteen years; Cecile may barely remember her, therefore she doesn’t feel the need to bring her up. However, I think it’s interesting to consider that she’s been repressing thoughts about her mother.
Hey Daniel! I loved reading your post, and I think you pose a really great question. I had honestly brushed off Cecile’s past as irrelevant because the story focused on a very set period of her life. When you actually think about it though, she does mention convent life a few times but never explains what happened there or what happened before she lived in a convent. It’s almost like she forgot everything of her life before she was reunitied with her father? But surely her mother would have influenced her life, and surely the convent did as well, which perhaps has something to do with the way she treated Anne. I honestly couldn’t find an answer to why memories of her mother/previous life weren’t mentioned often, but I think it is definitely a good point to think about, and I think it surely had some influence on her actions/life.