Word: couchant
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...American publisher came up with a blithe title like Salad Days (the French title is Le Chien Couchant] for this predictable little morality tale is hard to figure out. Sagan is writing against her strength. She seems to have little access to these pinched minds, so that her customary grace notes-sly humor, sheer oddity-are rarely struck. But the story is told in sure-handed fashion, and it is flawlessly paced. Gueret at least is a convincing character, and the author takes an unexpectedly hearty interest in his clumsy pursuit of Mme. Biron. The French critics are doubtless right...
Criticism of her fiction stepped up after 1972, when Sagan reportedly began battling spells of illness, and her novels grew skimpier and more vulnerable to attack. In 1981 she was devastated when a French court banned her twelfth novel, a 178-page crime story called Le Chien Couchant (The Setter), on the ground that it was an "illicit reproduction" of a short story by another writer. The ban was later reversed on appeal...