The first posts on this blog were written when I was 18 years old. When Françoise Sagan was 18, her novel was published. It is impossible to imagine what it must be like to have Sagan’s wisdom and insight at such a young age: the proof that I had none of it is abundant on this very website.

Bonjour Tristesse, which I read in Heather Lloyd’s translation, opens with a seventeen-year-old girl, Cécile, living with her widowed father, Raymond. They live a carefree, perhaps mildly hedonistic life together in the French Riviera. Raymond is a bit of a playboy, and Cécile enjoys the freewheeling nature of their existence.

This is challenged when one of Raymond’s former lovers, Anne, turns up. As Raymond and strait-laced Anne become closer, Cécile fears that a degree of predictable rigidity is entering their lives. She seeks to fight against it by engineering the end of Raymond and Anne’s relationship.

Cécile’s meddling has consequences foreseen and unforeseen, which she is then forced to come to terms with—and that jolting realisation catapults her into adulthood.

This was published and set in 1954, but certainly stands the test of time. It’s an entertaining read with real depth below the surface, and no shortage of humour. It may only be a short book—perhaps more a novella than a novel—but there is a lot packed into it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here are some passages I highlighted:

‘You don’t realize how pleased with herself she is,’ I cried. ‘She congratulates herself on the life she has had because she feels she has done her duty and …’

‘But it’s true,’ said Anne. ‘She has fulfilled her duties as a wife and mother, as the saying goes …’

‘And what about her duty as a whore?’ I said.

‘I dislike coarseness,’ said Anne, ‘even when it’s meant to be clever.’

‘But it’s not meant to be clever. She got married just as everyone gets married, either because they want to or because it’s the done thing. She had a child. Do you know how children come about?’

‘I’m probably less well informed than you,’ said Anne sarcastically, ‘but I do have some idea.’

‘So she brought the child up. She probably spared herself the anguish and upheaval of committing adultery. She has led the life of thousands of other women and she thinks that’s something to be proud of, you understand. She found herself in the position of being a young middle-class wife and mother and she did nothing to get out of that situation. She pats herself on the back for not having done this or that, rather than for actually having accomplished something.’

‘I detest that kind of remark,’ said Anne. ‘At your age it’s worse than stupid, it’s tiresome.’

I normally avoided university students, whom I considered to be coarse and preoccupied with themselves and, above all, preoccupied with their own youth: to them just being young was a drama in itself, or an excuse for being bored.

I was greatly attracted to the concept of love affairs that were rapidly embarked upon, intensely experienced and quickly over. At the age I was, fidelity held no attraction. I knew little of love, apart from its trysts, its kisses and its lethargies.

I did not want to marry him. I liked him but I did not want to marry him. I did not want to marry anyone. I was tired.

We met Charles Webb and his wife at the Bar du Soleil. He specialized in theatre advertising and his wife specialized in spending the money he made, which she did at an incredible rate by lavishing it on young men.

How difficult she made life for us, with her sense of dignity and her self-esteem!