Name: Sheila Mae Moradas's review of Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan
Item: Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile
Rating: 4
Author: Sheila Mae Moradas

Françoise Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse is Françoise Sagan's stylish, shimmering and amoral tale of adolescence and betrayal on the French Riviera, published when its author was just eighteen years old. It tells the story of Cécile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry - with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile, which is also included in this volume, Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that unfolds in unexpected and troubling ways. Both novellas have been freshly translated by Heather Lloyd and include an introduction by Rachel Cusk. Françoise Sagan was born in France in 1935. Bonjour tristesse (1954), published when she was just eighteen, became a succès de scandale and even earned its author a papal denunciation. Sagan went on to write many other novels, plays and screenplays, and died in 2004. Heather Lloyd was previously Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow, and has published work on both Bonjour tristesse and Françoise Sagan. Rachel Cusk is the author of Saving Agnes (1993), which won the Whitbread First Novel Award; A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother (2001); and Arlington Park (2006), shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her most recent book is Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation (2012). 'Funny, thoroughly immoral and thoroughly French' The Times

Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile

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What a great summer read!! I definitely relate to these two girls in the story. Their recklessness, their desire for adventure and the strong repulsed for boredom. This is girlhood at it's peak and I'm definitely gonna re-read this again. 

Sheila Mae Moradas

 because there's no separate listing for it.)

i liked this just as much, if not more than, 

. one thing i will always love about sagan's writing is how vivid it is, and how she captures the romance of summer so sharply. i felt i was there on the riviera, drinking the ocean, or drowning in it, as i read the sections set in cannes. it was arresting in a remarkable way. 

, but it left a similar kind of ache in my heart. there is a line in dominique's narration — 

for when all is said and done, at least when you are young, nothing in life's long swindle seems more desperately desirable than a spirit of recklessness

. i think that sums up both novellas wonderfully, and sums up why i love them. i understand why some may find sagan's characters immature — frankly they are — but when you are in the same frame of mind and stage of life, it's as if she is holding up the clearest mirror to your insides. because of this, i was very fond of dominique, and felt very close to her in some ways too. sagan depicts young women and love so well. it's not necessarily women 

 love that i mean, but how they feel about it, how they interpret their ideas of it, how it changes them, and changes within them. i feel it all very acutely, and even a little painfully, what dominique felt in this story. if i were a little older, maybe i wouldn't have been so impressed, but as it stands, i read this at the exact right time, and i'm glad i got to experience it as i did. it is a perfect summer story to me, and the sparkling youth behind sagan's words is too charming for me to feel anything but endeared towards it.

rory

(using this for a certain smile because there's no separate listing for it.)

i liked this just as much, if not more than, bonjour tristesse. one thing i will always love about sagan's writing is how vivid it is, and how she captures the romance of summer so sharply. i felt i was there on the riviera, drinking the ocean, or drowning in it, as i read the sections set in cannes. it was arresting in a remarkable way. 

the ending was far more hopeful than in bonjour tristesse, but it left a similar kind of ache in my heart. there is a line in dominique's narration — for when all is said and done, at least when you are young, nothing in life's long swindle seems more desperately desirable than a spirit of recklessness. i think that sums up both novellas wonderfully, and sums up why i love them. i understand why some may find sagan's characters immature — frankly they are — but when you are in the same frame of mind and stage of life, it's as if she is holding up the clearest mirror to your insides. because of this, i was very fond of dominique, and felt very close to her in some ways too. sagan depicts young women and love so well. it's not necessarily women in love that i mean, but how they feel about it, how they interpret their ideas of it, how it changes them, and changes within them. i feel it all very acutely, and even a little painfully, what dominique felt in this story. if i were a little older, maybe i wouldn't have been so impressed, but as it stands, i read this at the exact right time, and i'm glad i got to experience it as i did. it is a perfect summer story to me, and the sparkling youth behind sagan's words is too charming for me to feel anything but endeared towards it.

Two great summer stories that fly by in a breeze. Immediately makes you wanna lounge by the ocean.

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Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan

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Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan