Bonjour Tristesse

Hey Everyone!

Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse was a rather interesting read! We get several indications throughout the book that the book is written as a recalling of an eventful and potentially tragic summer. Bonjour Tristesse explores some interesting relationships, views on life by displaying contradictions. 

It seems that Cecile like Anne is quite attentive and intelligent. Both of these characters use this intelligence to defend their upbringing and way of life. While Anne attempts to impose her lifestyle on Cecile and her father, Cecile counters by taking advantage of Anne’s values and her sense of justice and trust. Often times Cecile is pictured struggling to forge her own identity. On one hand, she is moved by Anne’s intelligence and elegance thus admiring her. But on the other hand, she struggles to maintain the simpler views on life she adopted from her father. Ultimately, she was able to come to terms with her struggles by desiring to teach Anne that she could remain with them if she could accept that they are unchangeable. The struggles between the differing views on life and the implications to her identity often exhausted her and made her resort to simpler resolutions. 

One of the biggest questions I had after reading the book was, how accurate was Cecile’s accountability to the situation? As I mentioned earlier the book seems to be a recalling of Cecile’s eventful and tragic summer. The recalling in a lot of ways can be seen as tinged with guilt. Looking at it beyond her perspective though it was her father’s choice to cheat. In some sense based on how her father was described, the events seem a little inevitable considering how lax and uncommitted her father can be. Her father and Anne can almost be seen as two incompatible individuals who are inevitably doomed to fail if ever brought together. 

Bonjour Tristesse can be seen as a coming of age book that explores various identities, the forging of identities all under the setting of summer. As our professor said, summers in these books bring together individuals who would have otherwise never come together. First, it was Cyril and Cecile with their summer romance beginning to become a source of dispute between Anne and Cecile. This then leads to the plotting by Cecile who attempts to create trouble between the other summer couple, her father and Anne. Despite the long acquaintance of Cecile’s father with Anne, the two are also ultimately brought together by summer.