우리는 이따금씩 아무의 간섭도 받고 싶지 않고, 완벽하고 빈틈없이 짜여진 질서에 대하여 이유없이 반발하며, 소유하고 싶은 대상은 철저하게 독점하고 싶은 갈망을 할 때가 있다. 주인공 쎄실도 역시 이러한 갈망에 휩싸여 새어머니감 안느를 죽음으로 이르게 하고야 마는데... 이러한 무모한 욕망을 채우고 난 후 슬며시 찾아드는 것은 손님처럼 낯설고 권태로운 슬픔이라는 아름다운 이름의 감정이다. 작가는 주인공의 정신적인 성숙과정을 섬세하고도 예민하게 펼쳐나가고 있는데 19세 어린 소녀라고는 느껴지지 않을 만큼 감정의 묘사가 세련되고 능란하게 전개되어가고 있음을 볼 수 있을 것이다.

A sensational 1954 French novel that has become a contemporary classic Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences. Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cecile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father--a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye--for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress. Cecile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while plotting her own sexual adventures with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. But the arrival of her late mother's best friend intrudes upon a young girl's pleasures. And when a relationship begins to develop between the adults, Cecile and her lover set in motion a plan to keep them apart...with tragic, unexpected consequences. The internationally beloved story of a precocious teenager's attempts to understand and control the world around her, Francoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse is a beautifully composed, wonderfully ambiguous celebration of sexual liberation, at once sympathetic and powerfully unsparing. This special Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Diane Johnson and a P.S. section with additional insights about the book and author.