Overview

Too young to fight, he assumes for himself a noble ancestry and a few extra years and becomes a soldier. In this guise he meets the society star Princess de Bormes and her impressionable daughter Henriette. While the princess pursues charity work with the wounded, Henriette falls in love with Guillaume. However, Guillaume, resplendent in army uniform and issued with a shiny revolver, is lost like a child in a fantasy land of their own creation. At the novel's denouement he clings to his imposture but in mind, if not body, he has grasped the real meaning of war. Jean Cocteau's visionary novel is a 'hymn to the cult of youth' in which the First World War battlefields become an exaggerated spectacle where fiction and reality are inseparable.

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9780720612523

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Reviews

'Exciting in its mixture of fantasy, horror and hilarity.'- Daily Telegraph 'Words are used as if with a thrusting palette knife, and the effect is at once powerful and striking.' - Scotsman; 'At once the mind turns to Diaghilev and those frenzied days when the Cocteau talents took their first springtime leap. It is in the manner of a macabre ballet that the battle scenes emerge. We feel as we feel in the theatre, and not the less deeply for that.' - Guardian; 'A welcome reappearance' - Gay Times

Author Information

Jean Cocteau is regarded as one of France's greatest men of arts and letters. A multi-faceted talent and a recipient of the Légion d'honneur, he achieved distinction as a poet, playwright, and critic as well as an artist, illustrator, composer, actor, and internationally acclaimed filmmaker. He was the author of La Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants Terribles, and Opium. Gilbert Adair is the author of The Real Tadzio.

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