At the ripe old age of 20, Jane observes the world with light-hearted yet serious lucidity. Smitten with a world champion wrestler whose romantic performance is inversely proportional to his athletic ones, she sees him only between tournaments. To distract herself from her bouts of loneliness, she accepts the supposedly platonic advances of Bertin, a rich old man who adores young women, and even agrees to go on a trip with him. Because Jane wants it all, as one does at 20. She may not truly love herself, but she loves her body and her youth, which she wants to enjoy to the hilt, as she’s already obsessed with ageing. This novel describes both how hard it is to figure out who you really are, and the repulsion-fascination a young woman can have when faced with signs of ageing. For Jane observes Bertin with the cool detachment of an entomologist. There’s not a trace of affection in this unusual sentimental education, in which the forthright vocabulary intertwines with an elegantly classical writing style, describing moods and feelings.

A first novel first published in 1976, L’involontaire addresses romantic initiation and growing up with disarming amorality; clever passages about food, sex, loneliness and a horror for old age stud this very atypical sentimental education. Although the novel is firmly rooted in the 1970s, the questions it raises are timeless, and it is well served by a delightfully lively and particularly modern writing style.