Radiguet x Proust
Translated from French.
Radiguet x Proust ⚡️
Although they were contemporaries, the two authors did not belong to the same generation at all: Proust was born in 1871, Radiguet in 1903. Nevertheless, their literary recognition came at the same time: Proust was awarded the Prix Goncourt for “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” on 10 December 1919. Radiguet had read it in November. And on 21 December, he made his first notes in preparation for writing his first novel, “Le Diable au corps”. 🧐🖋️
It was Max Jacob who first met Radiguet in 1919, and introduced him to Jean Cocteau and then Blaise Cendrars. The young author collaborated with these three older writers on several occasions, for example on Max Jacob’s “Art poétique” and Blaise Cendrars’ “Anthologie nègre”, two works for which he is not credited. 🤦🏻♂️
In August 1921, Radiguet began writing “Le Diable au corps” in earnest, and made rapid progress on the manuscript (120 pages in two-thirds of a week). 🦾
On 31 December 1921, after attending the “New Year’s Eve dinner” 🌟 hosted by Gabrielle Chanel, he went to the “New Year’s Ball” hosted by Édith and Étienne de Beaumont, where Marcel Proust 🤵🏻♂️ made a much-anticipated appearance, “shortly after midnight, on the arm of Lucien Daudet”.
Whilst work on the drafting and editing of “Le Diable au corps” was progressing, Radiguet read “Sodom and Gomorrah” as soon as it was published in 1922. On 18 November, Marcel Proust died at his Paris home 😢 and Cocteau and Radiguet were among the first to visit the “exhibition of the body” at 44 Rue Hamelin.
On 21 November 1922, Radiguet and Cocteau attended Marcel Proust’s funeral at Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot and “along the route of the funeral procession, the two friends stopped off at Le Bœuf sur le Toit, ate crêpes, then made their way to the burial at Père-Lachaise Cemetery.” ⚰️
On 10 March 1923, Bernard Grasset, who had been the first publisher of “Swann's Way” barely 10 years earlier, organised a high-profile launch for “Le Diable au corps”. 📚 The novel was an instant success. Radiguet was working on a second novel, entitled “Le Bal du comte d’Orgel”, but he died prematurely of typhoid fever on 12 December 1923.
That was 100 years ago.
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