[Although] the situations often appear unintentionally ludicrous, the characters wooden, and the language stilted, ["The Wonderful Clouds"] is nevertheless significant and interesting. Moreover, its flaws help make it so.

Françoise Sagan is still a very young writer, and the vision of the world she has is deep-dyed in that world-weariness that afflicts each new generation. Apparently humorless, cynical, obsessed by self, sex, and the meaning of life, she projects, in each of her works, a mood that is eternally adolescent. Only a young person could see Alan and Josée as tragic figures, this weak and moping pair who, in spite of wealth, health, and beauty, find relief from taedium vitae only in mutual cruelty and sex. Only a young person could write such a beautifully sad statement of their lot on earth: "frail collections of bone, blood and gray matter that snatched little joys and little...