A CERTAIN SMILE

by Francoise Sagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 1956

She's done it again, has Francoise Sagan -- transferred the freshness, the vividness of her youth to the printed page in a story of adolescent love. So Benj Tristesse was not just a flash in the pan. Francoise Sagan has a gift for light badinage, for subtly conveying a sense of naivete (while assuming a role of sophistication). She is so wholly French that Americans can feel thoroughly naughty in relishing the casual acceptance of infidelity and liaisons as a way of life....The girl in this tale is a schoolgirl, and at the start of the story she is living quite openly with a boy who is a fellow student, and enjoying the give and take of passion while reasoning about its incompletences. Then he takes her to meet his uncle, a ""man of the world"" who takes a fancy to her. In her imagination she builds it up into quite an affaire and at the same time forms a close friendship with his wife. When he invites her to join him for a week on the Riviera- and it extends to a second week- she thinks herself strong enough to have her brief encounter- and go back to her former relationship. But it is not so easy after all. However, as the story cers a phone call seems unimportant- and a new love hovers on the horizon.... It is studiedly young. The child of Benjour Tristesse who manipulated her father's romances now graduates into her own. Those who cherished the earlier book will delight in this. Those who felt her to be a gifted stranger on our shores will again bide their time.

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1956

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1956

Categories: FICTION