Volume 36, Number 15 · October 12, 1989
Chaste Lovers
By Gabriele Annan
Count d'Orgel's Ball
by Raymond Radiguet, translated by Annapaola Cancogni, foreword by Jean Cocteau
Eridanos Press, 174 pp., $11.00 (paper)
Raymond Radiguet became famous as an infant prodigy who died young—a cross between Chatterton and Rimbaud. He was born in 1903, the eldest of seven children. His father, Maurice Radiguet, was a well-known cartoonist. The family lived in an outer suburb of Paris on the banks of the Marne. One can imagine them against an Impressionist background of river, willows, row boats. Raymond liked to lie in a boat moored to the bank, reading the French classics. He preferred it to the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, which he rarely bothered to attend. He was as cool as can be. His sensible father decided to educate him at home. He also got him to deliver his cartoons to the editorial offices of the Intransigeant. The poet André Salmon worked there, and Raymond took an opportunity to show him his own poems. Salmon was impressed. He helped the boy to get some of them published in papers and magazines, found him small journalistic assignments, and introduced him to Max Jacob. Max Jacob was impressed too, and introduced him to Jean Cocteau.
Review, 2811 words
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