Noel’s Reviews > Bonjour tristesse > Status Update

Deuxième partie. Have the next two days off so will focus on finishing it then. (The last part ended on a very tense note; it’s remarkable that an eighteen-year-old could depict such complicated relationships between her characters.)

Hm, “smoking” is French for tuxedo. (And apparently Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Russian, etc., because of its similarly to Victorian smoking jackets.) (“Je le retrouvai en bas, étincelant dans un smoking neuf, et lui mis le bras autour du cou.”)

Starting over. It’s not quite as opaque to me as it was six months ago. (Then I had to look up like ten words a page; this time two or three.) I simply HAVE to practice because every day I physically feel the French slipping through my fingers…

Sur ce sentiment inconnu dont l’ennui, la douceur m’obsèdent, j’hésite à apposer le nom, le beau nom grave de tristesse. C’est un sentiment si complet, si égoïste que j’en ai presque honte alors que la tristesse m’a toujours paru honorable. Je ne la connaissais pas, elle, mais l’ennui, le regret, plus rarement le remords. Aujourd’hui, quelque chose se replie sur moi comme une soie,

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