Raymond Radiguet
Personal Information
Description
Raymond Radiquet was born in Saint-Maur, Val-de-Marne, France, the son of a caricaturist. In 1917 he moved to the Paris to study at the Lycée Charlemagne. He dropped out of school to write full-time. He was associated with the Modernists, befriending Picasso, Max Jacob, Juan Gris and especially Jean Cocteau, who became his mentor. In early 1923 he published his first and most famous novel, Le Diable au corps (The Devil in the Flesh). He died of typhoid fever in 1923 at the age of 20. His second novel, Le bal du Comte d'Orgel (Count d'Orgel's Ball) was first published posthumously in 1924.
Books
Radiguet
Summary:A romantic novel set in Paris during the final years of the First World War in which the narrator, a sixteen-year-old boy, recounts his love affair with a woman whose husband is fighting at the Front. From the author of COMTE D'ORGEL. In French.-WorldCat
Count d'Orgel's ball
Count d'Orgel is handsome, charming, and carefree, a model of cool aristocratic aplomb. His wife, the Countess, is beautiful and pure and loves her husband more than anything in the world. But from the moment the d'Orgels meet and befriend the clever young François de Séryeuse backstage at the circus, all three of these supremely civilized and witty people are caught up in an ever more intricate and seductive dance of deception and self-deception. At Count d'Orgel's masquerade ball, the real disguises are those of the human heart. Completed just before Raymond Radiguet's death at the age of twenty, Count d'Orgel's Ball is a love story that is as disturbing as it is delicious.
Le diable au corps
Je vais encourir bien des reproches. Mais qu'y puis-je ? Est-ce ma faute si j'eus douze ans quelques mois avant la declaration de la guerre ? Sans doute, les troubles qui me vinrent de cette periode extraordinaire furent d'une sorte qu'on n'eprouve jamais a cet age ; mais comme il n'existe rien d'assez fort pour nous vieillir malgre les apparences, c'est en enfant que je devais me conduire dans une aventure ou deja un homme eut eprouve de l'embarras.
The devil in the flesh
"An important work of early Modernism--long unavailable in America--now in a stunning new translation. Hailed by Jean Cocteau as a "masterpiece," and by the Guardian as "Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, avant la lettre," this taut tale written by a teenager in the form of a frank "confession" is a gem of early twentieth century romanticism. Set in Paris during the first World War, it tells the story of Francois, the 16-year-old narrator, who falls in love with Marthe--an older married woman whose husband is off fighting at the Front. What seems to begin as a charming tale of puppy love quickly darkens, and they launch into a steamy affair. In the tense environment of the wartime city, their love takes on a desperation transcending their youthfulness. And as the badly kept secret of their relationship unfolds, scandal descends when Marthe becomes pregnant, leading the story to a final, tragic conclusion"--