The Devil in the Flesh

"Just as a bee plunders in order to enrich the hive, a lover enriches his love with every passing desire that besets him in the street. It is his mistress who benefits from this accumulation. "

‘The Devil in the Flesh’ is the story of an unnamed narrator who begins a tumultuous love affair at the age of 16 with a 20 year old married woman whose husband is away fighting at the front during WWI. The affair is soon discovered by family, friends and neighbours and naturally it can only end in tragedy.

The book is fairly short but it is also quite intense and well written. However, what made this more interesting for me was the back story to it. Radiguet was only 17 or 18 himself when he wrote it, a similar age as his two lead characters, show more and it is semi-autobiographical because he had a similar experience himself when he was only 14. This was a WWI novel yet the war is barely mentioned but it was first published when many of the wounds of that great conflict were still fresh. This was also Radiguet's first published novel, he wrote one more novel and a collection of poetry before he died at the age of 20 from typhoid.

The story is told in the first person and due to the minor age differences between his lead and himself Radiguet was able to capture the obsessive emotions of the narrator perfectly, and a the doomed relationship that slips from bliss to tragedy as it slides towards its devastating conclusion. The narrator is naïve and candid, amoral and callous yet the language is also displays a certain cynicism and innocence. The novel is still in print today, over a hundred years after it was first published showing that Radiguet could easily have become one of the great French literary masters had he lived longer. Yet his work is relatively unknown.

So why didn't I enjoy it more? The themes would be considered a lot less controversial today than they were when first published in France in 1923 and whilst I admire the writing style the story itself failed to really grip me in truth. As I said previously the author's own life intrigued me more. show less

A sixteen-year-old adolescent falls in love with a twenty-year-old married woman. Her fiancé (and later husband) is off fighting in the Great War, and the two carry on their relationship more or less frankly while he is away. The villlage disapproves.

This was short, and most of it was very good.

The book focuses almost solely on the inner life of its main character -- an adolescent experiencing love while society does not consider him an adult. It reminded me a lot of James Joyce’s A portrait of the artist as a young man, especially in how spot-on and how evocative Joyce’s descriptions of adolescence were; Le diable au coeur shares that strength. The desire for things that lose their appeal as soon as you voice them, the immediacy show more of feelings, the impatience, the way expectations are constantly adjusted to reality (and vice versa), resulting in contradictory behaviour and mood swings… Radiguet got things exactly right.

Still, in places I thought this novella dragged things out a little, kept treading water instead of moving forward. Also, the resolution (if it can be called that) felt a little like a cop-out. But I’m glad I read this: its strengths more than outweigh its weaknesses. show less

I found The Devil in the Flesh to be an interesting coming-of-age story that was originally published in 1923, the year that the author died. He passed away at the age of 20 and is supposed to have written the book a few years previous to that so I am wondering if this is actually based on his own experiences.

Set during World War I, the novel tells of an affair between a French teenage boy and a young married woman whose husband is away at the front. Although the age difference isn’t all that great with he being 16 and she 19, the book caused a huge outpouring of anger and outrage over the wife of a patriot carrying on with a lad. The lad in question is not the naive innocent one might expect but rather amoral and callous. The show more straying wife actually seemed far more naive and innocent than he did. What does come across is his brutal honesty as he describes this illicit affair.

The Devil in the Flesh is a quick read but the story is complex and the writing exceptional. I was immediately drawn in by the realness of how the author described the main character’s thoughts, one minute showing a deep maturity and in the next the raw selfishness and angst of a teen. Overall I found The Devil in the Flesh to be a worthwhile reading experience. show less

Radiguet's story of a young man who falls in love and commits adultery with an older woman was hailed as a classic within years of its release, and is still deemed to be one even today. Having now read it myself, I think I would more or less agree: Radiguet's simplistic style is perfect for the subject matter (and besides, simplicity of style is enormously hard to achieve) and his narrator's occasional asides and remarks about his behaviour are extraordinary glimpses into the man's soul.

"What did I care? Happiness is selfish!", 28 Feb. 2013
By
sally tarbox

This review is from: The Devil in the Flesh (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
'What appears dream to others...seems to me to be as real as cheese to a cat- in spite of the glass that covers it. If the glass breaks, the cat takes advantage, even if it is his master who breaks it and cuts his hand in the process.'

Thus our 16 year old narrator begins to explain his affair with the slightly older Marthe during the Great War. Affianced when she first meets her young lover, Marthe nevertheless goes on to marry Jacques, who spends most of the novel away fighting - conveniently for their romance. As the author observes: 'what the war meant for so many of us very young boys show more - four years of holiday.'

This short (127 page) novel follows their affair and the immaturity of the writer in dealing with an adult situation. Unlike other reviewers, I failed to particularly engage with the lead characters. The true sadness was in the letters from poor Jacques away at the Front, bewildered at his new wife's lack of interest in him - and the way Marthe heartlessly tears up some of these unread. Amazingly well written by a young man between the ages of 16 and 18 - yet left me untouched. show less

“It did not matter to me whether she offered her lips willingly or not.” (92)

The story of [Le Diable au corps] is simple: When a young man leaves for certain death at the front lines in World War I, he unknowingly leaves his young bride behind to the machinations and lust of an arrogant and depraved teenager. The unnamed protagonist, F., in some translations, is a conceited, histrionic, narcissistic, pretentious, solipsistic, and spoiled teenager born to a loving family in the suburbs of Paris.

Like many teenagers, F. has a deep and profound need to prove himself superior and more mature than grown-ups, scores of whom end up dead on the battlefield whilst they prove their patriotism and manhood. Rather than die, F. has chosen life. show more Not only that, he has chosen to live—to prove his very existence during a time of crisis and war—in a way that he is most psychologically predisposed to: the seduction of and sexual liaisons with a woman married to a serviceman, the fathering of illegitimate children, and the remorseless drugging and raping of another woman. Indeed, much of the latter quarter of the novel features ruminations by the protagonist about raising a child with a military widow and proving himself better than all other men. So great are the heights of F's egocentrism, so lost and gone is his moral compass that even on the very last page he, still conceited and histrionic, cannot envisage his own defeat.

[Le Diable au corps] was more than a semi-autobiography—if it was autobiographical at all, it is a sensationalist social critique. Radiguet sought to undermine the heroic dogma of the war rooted in the defence of France and the prevention of another repeat of the Franco-Prussian War through shock and awe. He threatened both the morals of the war and the masculinity of front line soldiers in the trenches by going after their wives at home. The Alpha and Beta males may all die at Verdun for “liberté, égalité, fraternité,” Radiguet implied, but the Gamma males and the cockroaches will have their day if only for a year.

So, was the war worth it at all? Did the soldiers fight in vain against the senseless slaughter at the frontlines and the moral decadence at home brought upon by modernity? I believe that Radiguet had such ideas in mind when he wrote this short novel, however, his miscalculated mixture of sensationalist writing with social critique ultimately failed him.

Radiguet is today largely remembered as a scandalous, bold but decadent literary prodigy and [Le Diable au corps] is likewise remembered as an equally scandalous and immoral autobiography. Radiguet is recognized as an artist, but not as a moralist or a social commentator. The aspects of social critique within his writing are muted because of his writing style along with the way he and his publishers advertised him in public. The former because the details in the story seemed true enough for readers to be persuaded that it had to have happened and the latter gave enough substance to support those suspicions. Subsequent writers would prove to be more capable at balancing both the style and meaning of their teenage stories: Yukio Mishima’s [Confessions of a Mask] and J. D. Salinger’s [The Catcher in the Rye]. Nevertheless, Radiguet, in [Le Diable au corps], proved himself to be adept with characterization, description, but above all a master of literary moral decadence.

And because it was a short and somwhat interesting read:

Two Thumbs Up! show less

Those who study literary theory view World War I as a key element in the development of modernist literature. And while French author Raymond Radiguet published only one novel before his death at age 20, that work, The Devil in the Flesh, is a prime piece of evidence for this viewpoint.

It's not surprising that Radiguet's book caused a stir when it was published in 1923. Set in the Paris suburbs during the last year of World War I, The Devil in the Flesh tells the story of a 16-year-old boy, the narrator, who has an affair with and impregnates the 18-year-old wife of a French soldier while the soldier is at the front. Although the age of consent in France at the time was 13, the thought of a teen's betrayal of a fighting man would still show more chafe. What perhaps bolstered the distress of readers is the knowledge there were more than a few wives who cheated on their soldier husbands and gave birth to illegitimate children. In fact, the book is semi-autobiographical. Radiguet supposedly started writing it between the ages of 16 and 18 after having had an affair with the wife of an soldier at age 14.

Yet the sordid touch added by the narrator's age and the betrayal of a soldier are not the only elements that can disturb. The narrator (unnamed in many translations but called Francois here in Christopher Moncrieff's translation) observes in the first paragraph, "People who reproach me should try and imagine what the War was for so many young boys -- a four-year-long holiday." Certainly, those who experienced the War -- capital W -- or its ramifications didn't see something that took the lives of nearly 1.4 million French soldiers as a holiday. Add to this that Francois comes off as little more than an amoral narcissist and there's plenty to outrage.

At the outset of The Devil in the Flesh, Francois is what readers today would essentially classify as a teenager with the attitude of that age. His sexual desires and drives, although not specifically denominated as such early in the book, have become far more common among literary characters over the decades. When he first meets 18-year-old Marthe Lascombe, the daughter of a family friend, her fiancé is on the front lines. Francois fosters his relationship with her by helping her pick out items for her future household. It is only after her marriage, though, that he eventually manipulates her into a sexual relationship. Yet Francois eventually falls deeply in love with Marthe, at least insofar as he can conceive of the emotion

Throughout the book, the dialog and perspective are internal. Francois is focused on his feelings and his emotions. Only occasionally does he show care or concern for Marthe and even then it tends to be short-lived. Yet there is no doubt he has some internal conflicts and Francois often seems a blend of naiveté and hedonism. He wants to flaunt society's rules but often oscillates between the effort to shock and an effort to hide the relationship. He repeatedly praises love yet even then does so in a tone mental heals professionals would call affectless. He is not unaware of a certain inherent level of immaturity while engaging in an adult game. "We were like children standing on a chair, proud of being taller than the grown-ups," he says. "Circumstances put us in this lofty position, but we were unable to live up to it."

As Radiguet's sparse, direct prose leads the work to its tragic conclusion, it is easy to see why The Devil in the Flesh is considered emblematic of early 20th Century modernism. The book does not carry the same shock value as it did on its initial release. Yet that does not prevent it from being a precursor to several themes that would be explored in coming decades or change the fact many of those same themes and issues remain relevant today.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.) show less