["Bonjour Tristesse"] is a charming story, and I pay tribute to the chief of its charms—the author's youth. Reading along, one almost pictures a young girl deciding to be an author. Vacation has begun, so she sits down at her table, pushes aside her textbooks and starts writing…. All the depth of the past in the light of the present; so much life lived, so much still to live and all kinds of possible "psyches" to set free….

More often than not, in such aspirations to authorship, things go wrong. Yet Mademoiselle Sagan gives proof that she has the right qualities; she moves at once from amateur to professional status. She has talent and facility. She has read, too. She knows a thing or two. She won't let out a long romantic wail, nor refurbish some worn out philosophy of the absurd or of the superman. No...