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?