An exercise in narrative deception, 31 Aug 2006
I ran across this one in a charity bookshop and picked up this Bristol edition mainly because I wanted some reading practice in French and partly because the story sounded intriguing: a love story set against the backdrop of the First World War. However, this is no heroic tale of love shattered by war, but rather a grubby (yet beautiful) little tale of a sixteen-year-old student and lonely wife falling in love during the absence of her husband.

Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the novella as I was at first. It is all easy to assume that the novel is a simple autobiography of Radiguet, because he was not much older than the protagonist of the novel at the time of writing. However, the novel is well-crafted and the narrative more complex than it first seems; Radiguet the writer is much more sophisticated than the adolescent presented in the text. The narrative is full of adolescent anxiety, confusion and lies, but the beauty of it is that the reader must discover all that for him/herself.

Thus the novella is an experimental text that seeks to penetrate the human psyche not simply by describing it, but by asking the reader to judge the characters, their words and actions for ourselves. Thus, as you read on, the novella develops from a simple love story into a probing inquiry into how we perceive love and ourselves.

Do consider reading the text in the original French if you can, the language is fairly simple. The Bristol edition has useful footnotes and an interesting introduction.

Brilliant book, 26 Feb 2002
I hadn't heard about Raymond Radiguet before but stumbled across him while surfing amazon and decided to give it a go and i have to say i was not disappointed.
Hard to believe he was only between the ages of 16 and 18 when he wrote this. For his age the talent and wisdom he shows within his writing is pretty remarkable, the characters are extremely well written and the relationship between the two lovers very much believable(he himself had a relationship with an older woman). The story itself has a quick pace and he never stops to mull over unessacery details. The ending is extremely sad and left me with a real sense of loss.
I don't think apart from Le Grande Meaulnes have i ever been moved by a novel quite as much as this.
Not many people seem to have heard of him which is a shame as he produced in my opinion a classic novel of real depth and beauty, you can only imagine had he lived beyond his 20 years what else he would have been able to have produced.

A quite brilliant and assured literary debut, 04 Feb 1999
Radiguet's first novel was written when the author was between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Set in France during the First World War it is the story of a precocious boy who gradually becomes drawn into a passionate and reckless affair with a married woman, Marthe. Marthe's husband is fighting in the trenches and the community is outraged when the affair becomes public knowledge. It is this sense of public indignation that Radiguet reacts against. In an era when the questioning of a nation's authority left one a political and emotional suspect Radiguet's story is a refreshing and corruscating plea in support of individual expression. The Devil in the Flesh shows, like all Radiguet's fiction, a belief in the sanctity and correctness of love above all other concerns. He sees betrayal where other writers see fidelity, and fidelity where others see betrayal. Love is shown to be an extraordinary gift and its is the duty of each individual to follow the prompting of the heart regardless of public opinion. The author is strict in adherance to his own moral code and the result is the most honest, most moving love story of any age. One of the great works of this, or any other, century.

An exercise in narrative deception, 31 Aug 2006
I ran across this one in a charity bookshop and picked up this Bristol edition mainly because I wanted some reading practice in French and partly because the story sounded intriguing: a love story set against the backdrop of the First World War. However, this is no heroic tale of love shattered by war, but rather a grubby (yet beautiful) little tale of a sixteen-year-old student and lonely wife falling in love during the absence of her husband.

Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the novella as I was at first. It is all easy to assume that the novel is a simple autobiography of Radiguet, because he was not much older than the protagonist of the novel at the time of writing. However, the novel is well-crafted and the narrative more complex than it first seems; Radiguet the writer is much more sophisticated than the adolescent presented in the text. The narrative is full of adolescent anxiety, confusion and lies, but the beauty of it is that the reader must discover all that for him/herself.

Thus the novella is an experimental text that seeks to penetrate the human psyche not simply by describing it, but by asking the reader to judge the characters, their words and actions for ourselves. Thus, as you read on, the novella develops from a simple love story into a probing inquiry into how we perceive love and ourselves.

Do consider reading the text in the original French if you can, the language is fairly simple. The Bristol edition has useful footnotes and an interesting introduction.

Brilliant book, 26 Feb 2002
I hadn't heard about Raymond Radiguet before but stumbled across him while surfing amazon and decided to give it a go and i have to say i was not disappointed.
Hard to believe he was only between the ages of 16 and 18 when he wrote this. For his age the talent and wisdom he shows within his writing is pretty remarkable, the characters are extremely well written and the relationship between the two lovers very much believable(he himself had a relationship with an older woman). The story itself has a quick pace and he never stops to mull over unessacery details. The ending is extremely sad and left me with a real sense of loss.
I don't think apart from Le Grande Meaulnes have i ever been moved by a novel quite as much as this.
Not many people seem to have heard of him which is a shame as he produced in my opinion a classic novel of real depth and beauty, you can only imagine had he lived beyond his 20 years what else he would have been able to have produced.

A quite brilliant and assured literary debut, 04 Feb 1999
Radiguet's first novel was written when the author was between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Set in France during the First World War it is the story of a precocious boy who gradually becomes drawn into a passionate and reckless affair with a married woman, Marthe. Marthe's husband is fighting in the trenches and the community is outraged when the affair becomes public knowledge. It is this sense of public indignation that Radiguet reacts against. In an era when the questioning of a nation's authority left one a political and emotional suspect Radiguet's story is a refreshing and corruscating plea in support of individual expression. The Devil in the Flesh shows, like all Radiguet's fiction, a belief in the sanctity and correctness of love above all other concerns. He sees betrayal where other writers see fidelity, and fidelity where others see betrayal. Love is shown to be an extraordinary gift and its is the duty of each individual to follow the prompting of the heart regardless of public opinion. The author is strict in adherance to his own moral code and the result is the most honest, most moving love story of any age. One of the great works of this, or any other, century.

An exercise in narrative deception, 31 Aug 2006
I ran across this one in a charity bookshop and picked up this Bristol edition mainly because I wanted some reading practice in French and partly because the story sounded intriguing: a love story set against the backdrop of the First World War. However, this is no heroic tale of love shattered by war, but rather a grubby (yet beautiful) little tale of a sixteen-year-old student and lonely wife falling in love during the absence of her husband.

Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the novella as I was at first. It is all easy to assume that the novel is a simple autobiography of Radiguet, because he was not much older than the protagonist of the novel at the time of writing. However, the novel is well-crafted and the narrative more complex than it first seems; Radiguet the writer is much more sophisticated than the adolescent presented in the text. The narrative is full of adolescent anxiety, confusion and lies, but the beauty of it is that the reader must discover all that for him/herself.

Thus the novella is an experimental text that seeks to penetrate the human psyche not simply by describing it, but by asking the reader to judge the characters, their words and actions for ourselves. Thus, as you read on, the novella develops from a simple love story into a probing inquiry into how we perceive love and ourselves.

Do consider reading the text in the original French if you can, the language is fairly simple. The Bristol edition has useful footnotes and an interesting introduction.

Brilliant book, 26 Feb 2002
I hadn't heard about Raymond Radiguet before but stumbled across him while surfing amazon and decided to give it a go and i have to say i was not disappointed.
Hard to believe he was only between the ages of 16 and 18 when he wrote this. For his age the talent and wisdom he shows within his writing is pretty remarkable, the characters are extremely well written and the relationship between the two lovers very much believable(he himself had a relationship with an older woman). The story itself has a quick pace and he never stops to mull over unessacery details. The ending is extremely sad and left me with a real sense of loss.
I don't think apart from Le Grande Meaulnes have i ever been moved by a novel quite as much as this.
Not many people seem to have heard of him which is a shame as he produced in my opinion a classic novel of real depth and beauty, you can only imagine had he lived beyond his 20 years what else he would have been able to have produced.

A quite brilliant and assured literary debut, 04 Feb 1999
Radiguet's first novel was written when the author was between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Set in France during the First World War it is the story of a precocious boy who gradually becomes drawn into a passionate and reckless affair with a married woman, Marthe. Marthe's husband is fighting in the trenches and the community is outraged when the affair becomes public knowledge. It is this sense of public indignation that Radiguet reacts against. In an era when the questioning of a nation's authority left one a political and emotional suspect Radiguet's story is a refreshing and corruscating plea in support of individual expression. The Devil in the Flesh shows, like all Radiguet's fiction, a belief in the sanctity and correctness of love above all other concerns. He sees betrayal where other writers see fidelity, and fidelity where others see betrayal. Love is shown to be an extraordinary gift and its is the duty of each individual to follow the prompting of the heart regardless of public opinion. The author is strict in adherance to his own moral code and the result is the most honest, most moving love story of any age. One of the great works of this, or any other, century.