Bonjour tristesse (book)
The novel Bonjour Tristesse , published in Paris in 1954 , is probably the best-known work by the French author Françoise Sagan . The first German translation was by Helga Treichl.
content
Cécile, 17 years old and a half-orphan since early childhood, spends her summer holidays with her father, the somewhat aging womanizer Raymond, and his easy-going young lover, Elsa Mackenbourg, in a villa on the Côte d'Azur .
Her carefree daily routine with bathing in the sea, evenings in nearby beach cafes and the carefree relationship that Cécile soon begins with the law student Cyril, however, experiences a dramatic shock when the fashion designer Anne Larsen, a friend of her late mother, appears in the house by the sea and announced her intention to marry Raymond. Intelligent and confident as she is, she tries to put an end to Cecile's relationship with Cyril and instead force her to prepare for her autumn exams. Torn between admiration and disgust, the girl fears that when Anne intrudes into her "family", she will have to give up the carefree lifestyle that she and her father have so far led. With the help of Cyril and Elsa, who has since quartered with him, she tries to stir up her father's jealousy by asking them to appear to him again and again as seemingly provocative lovers. This “seduction” finally succeeds one day, Raymond gets involved with Elsa again in a moment believed to be unobserved and is caught by Anne in a rather unambiguous position.
Without Cécile, now plagued by feelings of guilt, being able to hold her back, Anne drives away in her car, crying. A few hours later, the girl and her father receive news that Anne had a fatal accident at a dangerous point on the road, but they do not know whether it was an accident or suicide. The two return to Paris, separate from Cyril and Elsa and pursue different relationships. Cécile is getting on with her life as well as before, and only when she thinks of Anne does she become a little sad.
history
The novel Bonjour tristesse , written by Françoise Sagan within a few weeks at the age of 18, quickly became a bestseller, translated into dozens of languages, sold millions of times, won numerous prizes and filmed in 1958. He made his author famous overnight, but also brought her the harshest criticism for his alleged immorality: for a girl who was free and for her pure pleasure in determining her body, also towards the opposite sex, and who lived out her sexuality without worries or feelings of guilt the time is slowly ripe, but not our contemporaries. The Catholic writer François Mauriac published a scathing review on the front page of Le Figaro , in which he described the author as a “charming little monster of eighteen years”, which sparked numerous polemics and made the author rich and famous in record time. Sagan later described the experience of the success at that time as a "firedamp".
filming
In 1958 Otto Preminger 's film adaptation of the same name appeared in cinemas with David Niven and Deborah Kerr .
See also
New translation
- Translated from Rainer Moritz . Epilogue Sibylle Berg . Ullstein, Berlin 2017 ISBN 978-3-550081385
Individual evidence
- ^ Bertrand Poirot-Delpech : Sagan . Paris, Herscher 1985, p. 66.