Bonjour tristesse Pocket Book – 12 Nov. 1986

I heard about this book when I was in the VI form in the sixties. When it came out in the fifties in the years immediately after the war, It was considered scandalous not just for the sexual goings on but for the jealousy shown by the main character. Francoise was her late teens when she wrote it and she went on to write others.It is good place to start reading her books which are all very different. There are few characters but these are all well drawn.This book made her huge amount of money and her life then took a very different turn some wold say for the worse. Definitely a book to read and it is not too long.

The daughter loves Carl Sagan, so bought her this and promised her she's enjoy this too.Yes, she's as baffled as you are but she's just as confused in French now, and while she's off guard I may be able to sneak back some of the vast pile of my books she's appropriated as her ownI'm afraid I haven't read Bonjour Tristesse myself, only discussed it with the princess while she's been organising her thoughts. Apparently it's an intense, provocative and typically French introspective piece of work masquerading as a rite of passage romance and worth reading if you like kids writing about their hormonally overwrought first encounters with alien emotional psychescapes but I suspect it's not really my bag. I get the impression it's something like Jane Austen writing a fou fou, beribonned Catcher In The Rye which is not really the sort of angsty overindulgent stimulation I need right now. There are still hundreds of books I want to read that I haven't got time for, most of them not French but I'd stick with Fleurs du Mal and chunks of Zola if I head out in the direction of having my head wrung out, though I know I'd be far more comfortable with Hugo than any of them. I'm not really struck on anything post (including) Sartre but I know I'm being irrationally unengaged through laziness, not because of the quality of output so I'm sorry if I sound unfairly dismissive; it's a genre thing. The main thing is the kid enjoyed the book - but probably not as much as the missus did. It was one of her formative literary influences and she's enjoyed re-visiting it. Apparently it is "very good" and as she's the literate one of the family, then I'm sure that is a fair appraisal.As a present it seems it was successful. The book was enjoyed - just not by me. I may get round to it if holed up under siege but it's not high on my "to do" list.I think the consensus is that it is a four star work.After reading other reviews here, I'm now fairly certain that I read Tristesse some time in my early teens though it's patent that I was hardly submerged in whelm by the experience.

good story

The youth of the author was undoubtedly a major factor in the notoriety and success of this book. I imagine critics have discussed at length the extent to which it is a work of her imagination or is based on experience. In any case, the story is not without interest, although I am not sure my French was equal to following the nuances of the narrator's thinking and plotting! Sufficient to say that she comes across as self-centered and not at all appealing as a character.

A surprisingly satisfying and thought-provoking read. It's a short book, but then some others from that era are too. L'etranger springs to mind as one of those novels from a middle class French milieu which was discarding traditional morals, and looking at a society where physical beauty and "cool" mattered more than anything else.I only read this to help.my daughter with her French A level. It is the classic girls' school set book after all. But it's a good read. I'm sure I enjoyed it more than my daughter Highly recommended.

I had read Bonjour Tristesse in English and then in French when I was at school. Now I was to study the English translation. I read each chapter twice, first English, then French. Oh, the joy of speech -enabled text on my Fire! I read aloud in French, at first echoing the reading voice, then trying to synchronise with it. By the end I was able to read without pausing to translate. This kindle edition provided the best quick catch up French course I would have found. The print was clear. The reader had a pleasant voice with no perceptible regional accent. 4 not 5 stars because I'd hoped for notes at the end. Great novel; lovely to hear it read aloud in French.R

Enough has been written about this very famous novel. I had difficulty finding one in French as the descriptions seldom made clear whether it's an original or a translation. The only one I could find was used but it turned out to be in virtually 'as new' condition and very cheap. The purchase was smooth and quick.

This is the story of a 17-year old, well-off, girl who conspires to interfere with her (egocentric) father's new love affair with a family friend. It was written in the 1950s, shortly after the war, when the author, Francoise Sagan, was herself only 19. The story and descriptive passages require analysis. This is a slow-moving but intricate book not for someone who wants a highly action-packed novel, as its strengths lay in the interplay of the characters.