Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness) caused a sensation in France when it was published in 1954, a bestselling novel written by an eighteen year-old French girl that became an enduring international classic. It ranks at #41 in the 100 most memorable books of the century by Le Monde.

Cecile is a young seventeen year-old perfectly happy living with her wealthy father, a handsome widower of fifteen years. He is a frivolous character, and being very attractive to women refutes all ideas of fidelity as arbitrary, picking and choosing women to his whim.

Holidaying with them at a Mediterranean villa is Elsa, his modelesque young mistress of the moment. Surprisingly, he has also invited for the summer an old flame, Anne, more his contemporary and a stable influence having mentored Cecile since she left convent school, showing the young girl how to dress and act in Paris.

Cecile is young and unknowing of love, the meanings, the kisses, until Cyril arrives on the scene. A local student with a sailboat whose tenderness wins Cecile's heart, their kisses slowly turning passionate, urgent, the sound of the sea giving way to the pulse beating in her ears. The days of sunbathing turn into midnights at the Cannes casino, as Elsa fades out of the picture. Suddenly Anne and her father announce they plan to marry.

Cecile can see their beautifully chaotic Paris flat tamed by Anne, the order placed onto their lives breaking the father-daughter dynamic, and so, as a young girl might, she enacts a nasty plan to separate them. Elsa and Cyril are convinced to pretend a new intense love - at the sight of their kissing her father would be helpless to not win Elsa back. She calculates the risks and overcomes every objection - until, the plan works to tragic consequence.

This could be read as very romantic, the lovers and heartbreaks on the summer Riviera.

But there is another side, which shows Cecile as naive and selfish. Even she finds the plan embarrassing and tries to halt it once in motion. This is well written and impressive for a seventeen year-old writer, still modern after seventy years. There will always be the discovery of young love, and the teenage uncertainty of where you stand in the world.

The New York Times says: "a talent extraordinary not only for its maturity of style but for its adult perceptiveness of human character."

This was made into a film by Otto Preminger in 1958 starring David Niven, Deborah Kerr, and Jean Seberg.

1954 / Paperback / 128 pages