'Bonjour Tristesse' by Françoise Sagan

*Japanese ver

Reading "Bonjour Tristesse" by Françoise Sagan（1954）

First time in a long time to read a novel with a wish to

not end
not finish
but continue

---

The story is about a 17-year-old French girl

I used to have some peculiar interest in stories about these teenage females

It was when I was teenager

Every day, they were around me
Every day, they were within arm's reach,
physically

But unreachable

They were a million miles away,
emotionally

And I thought,

if I read books about girls in a fictional world,
then I might have been able to reach & know the inner world of the girls in my classroom

---

Many years passed

Now, came across "Bonjour Tristesse"

A story about a teenage girl

And what I'm thinking is,

Only now, I am able to read this novel
Only now, I can manage to enjoy this novel
And if I was teenager, I was unable to read this novel

due to a total lack of understandings and insights

about life
about emotions
& about women

---

The novel is written in a very airily, wispy, moody style

Back-and-forth events
Lazy river-like flow
Chess-like moves

Its writing style is not a linear, straight, streamlined, "1 + 1 = 2"-like form

And this is the 1st thing
I must not have dealt with, when I was younger

---

Back then
I was thinking

"Reading a novel"

means

"Understanding events happened in the story"

"When" and "Where" it happened?
"Who" was there?
And "How" these events are related?

...........I was thinking,

understanding these organised, mathematical, consistent information & its relations is called
"Reading a novel"

Hence,
I found very hard to read a novel
that didn't follow this theoretical, logical, rational rule

And changing one's view over writing style
...........How the author treats the story...........

means

changing one's view over one's own life
...........How one treats oneself ...........

---

Reason or,
Order or,
Purpose or,
Result or,
Logic or,
Worth or,
Rationality or,
Theory or,
Objectivity or,
Meaning or,
Value or...........

...........Now, I'm viewing a life,
that deserve to live for,
must exist outside these despicable absurd vulgar notions

Life must exist based on something that

appears without
any reason
any purpose
any meaning

& disappears without
any logic
any rationality
any result

...........It is called emotions

"Live for the emotions"

Now I find a life
in "To live for the emotions"

Now I find a life,
that deserve to live for,
only in "To live for the emotions"

---

The same goes to a woman

Or, to a relationship with a woman

Back then, I thought
a relationship should consist of "Peace", "Stability" & "Tranquility"

"Anxiety" or "Disappointment" or "Anger" or "Jealousy" or "Drama" or...........should never exist there

If there were,
then it's a foolish, childish, wrong relationship 

Now
I can't think about a relationship, or "romance",
without this sweetness coming from anxiety & disappointment

---

Teenage boys & girls

They cannot compete

Boys lose, always
Girls win, always

17 years old...........it is around the time that girls realise they have sexual power

Some explore its possibility by giving an influence over the opposite sex

And some even reach the realisation that

It is the power that drives the world

It is the fundamental dynamism that drives the history

---

"Bonjour Tristesse"

Writing in a transparent, erratic, temperamental style

& Writing about transparent, erratic, temperamental, mist-like female emotions

...........It is only natural that
my 17-year-old self was unable to read this novel

I knew nothing about life
I knew nothing about emotions
I knew nothing about the opposite sex