Word: sagan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger; Columbia). The thoughts of youth, in the case of 18-year-old French Novelist Franchise Sagan, were brief, decadent and commercial. Her first novel (TIME, Feb. 14, 1955) sold more than 600,000 copies in France and more than 1,625,000 in the U.S. At first the critics were amazed at the book's "maturity," but later many decided that the maturity was mostly just adultery. In this picture the adultery has been tastefully toned down. What is left is an old-fashioned story about incest...
Reminiscing in Paris about her earlier years, aging (22) Novelist Franchise (Those Without Shadows) Sagan was rueful about the estimated $500,000 she made off her first three bedtime stories. "The tax people caught up with me and took 65% of my earnings," said she with a certain sadness. "If I'd had more sense I'd have owned whole estates by now. But I bought cars and boats which ended up scuttled on roads or at the bottom...
Author Kerr goes on to spoof interior decorating, domestic pets, diets and operations. It's a pity that she does less of what she does best, literary parodies. She confines herself to a hilarious take-off on the morose moppet, Franchise Sagan (TIME, Dec. 10, 1956) and an equally funny spoof of Mickey Spillane called "Don Brown's Body." Sample: "I was going into Longchamps when this tomato waltzes by. She was a tomato surprise. A round white face with yellow hair poured over it like chicken gravy on mashed potatoes. Her raccoon coat was tight...
...Africa. Naturally, she does not want any part of Bernard. For her it is a vulgar-but-vital medical student who can take her or leave her. As a result, Bernard is very sad and does not have much use for his nice young wife Nicole. For once Author Sagan is thoughtless of the needs of her characters: she fails to provide a lover for Nicole...
...same−other vices, other rooms, and a whole collection of young-old aphorisms at the level of: "the most jaded appetite can be stimulated by privation." No privation could be healthier for U.S. literary appetites than a season or two without a book by Françoise Sagan...