From one of France's most famous novelists, this story of lost love set in 1960s Paris is richly translated, with an afterword by Douglas Hofstadter. Set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960s, That Mad Ache recounts the intense battle unleashed in the heart of Lucile, a sensitive but immature young woman, when she finds herself caught between her carefree, tranquil love for fifty-year-old Charles, a gentle, reflective and well-off banker, and her impetuous passion for thirty-year-old Antoine, a hot-blooded, impulsive and struggling publisher. She goes back and forth but in the end must choose, and the way her heart carries her is both unsettling and poignant. Like her best-selling work Bonjour Tristesse , Francoise Sagan's subtly explores many of the same philosophical questions raised by her contemporaries, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Douglas Hofstadter's lively essay on the art of translation, his most extended essay on the subject in fifteen years, describes the subtle traps he encountered at every turn, such as the difficulty of making chic Parisians speak fluent, Standard English. Hofstadter fans and Sagan lovers alike will adore this intimate portrayal of the art of translation.