by Francoise Sagan
Francoise Sagan is an inspiration. She dropped out of university at the age of eighteen and wrote the novel 'Bonjour Tristesse,' which sold millions of copies and she never had to work again. It was a novel only just over 100 pages, so that was pretty easy eh? Way to get out of the rat race. The title Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness), pretty much sums up all Madame Sagan's subsequent work as well. Basically all her novels are about love, or more accurately passion, that are infused with a distinctive Gallic pessimism. Love and sex provide no happy endings in Sagan's world.
The protagonist of Sunlight on Cold Water is Gilles Lantier who is a successful journalist for a major Parisian newspaper. He lives in a swank apartment with a beautiful woman and lives a hedonistic, carefree lifestyle. Except one morning Gilles wakes up no longer carefree, and is gripped by an existential crisis (nowadays we may just call this depression). He can't get out of bed, make love to his girlfriend, or pretty much do anything. Gilles has come to the conclusion that life is meaningless and futile.
So Gilles abandons the city and goes to live with his sister in the country. While there he meets a married woman who he has an affair with. The affair is restorative to Gilles and he gets his mojo back. The lack of guile and sincerity of Nathalie is an antidote to Gilles jaded city cynicism. However the problems begin when Nathalie leaves her husband to come and live with him in Paris. The innate goodness of Natalie starts to clash with Gilles' sophisticated lifestyle. His circle of cynical, superficial friends and former girlfriends puts an intolerable strain on the very relationship that has saved him from self-extermination. Needless to say it doesn't end happily.
If you want a book dealing with the difficulties of human relationships with a touch of chi-chi, than Sunlight on Cold Water is the book for you.