Alluringly Immoral (Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan)

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Product:	Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan
Date:	07/05/01 (565 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Angst, decadence, existentialism. "The liberty to think,even to think wrongly or not at all"

Disadvantages: Written off as a 'girl' book. Ending not worthy of what has gone before

Bonjour Tristesse is the story of Cecile, a precocious 17 year old girl coming to terms with, and later trying to sabotage, the newly formed relationship between her widowed father and the woman who had previously epitomised what she wanted to become.

Told from Cecile's point of view, the story is set in the French Riviera. On holiday with her promiscuous, hedonistic father and his latest conquest, the youthful red-head eye candy, Elsa. Cecile, meanwhile, catches the eye of the local amorous fisherman, Cyril. All is calm until the arrival of her father's long time friend, Anne. Things become unsettled to say the least when it is announced that her father and Anne intend to marry. What follows, as suggested in the title, are tragic consequences.

With a fine balance of what has become known as 'teenage angst' and counteracting, often patronising but usually realistic, adult rationality, this story is easy to relate to for any teenager who has a kindred relationship with melancholy.

Although the ending is somewhat disappointing due to its almost ingongruous and sudden nature, there is something to be gained from the tragic circumstances all are left to come to terms with.

For many, this is the novel that paved the way for a more permissive society due to its portrayal of Cecile as a teenage heroine who rejects most conventional notions of love, marraige and responsibilities in favour of her own sexual freedom and liberation. Pretty scandalous stuff for 1954.

This book is easily worthy of your time, and, at just over 100 pages, the amount of time will not be significant in comparison to the things to be gained within.

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