Never had a novel been launched with such publicity.
If
Le Diable au corps
obtained a stunning success, with 100,000 copies sold in a few weeks after its release on March 23, 1923, it is not only due to the very real literary qualities (a simple, accessible style) of its author , Raymond Radiguet.
Nor even with the sulphurous content for the time of the novel telling of an adultery between a teenager and a woman engaged to a soldier who left for the front of the Great War.
To become such a bookstore phenomenon from the outset, the outstanding communication talent of publisher Bernard Grasset was decisive.
This is what Yann Coquart's documentary
Le Diable au corps underlines very well: sensual and without remorse
s already available on Arte.tv before its broadcast on the Franco-German channel on November 23 (11 p.m.).
“
I have decided not to apologize
”
Thus Bernard Grasset acted as a marketing pioneer, highlighting the venomous side of the book.
Just like the young age of its author who was only 19 years old.
"From the outset, the publisher banked on the scandal to make it a success
," says Julien Cendres, biographer of Radiguet.
Before adding:
“He used all the means, possible and even impossible.
He arranged for stacks of books to be set up in bookstores, accompanied by a poster of the author's photo by Man Ray.
Grasset also simulated the scene of the signing of the contract between Radiguet and himself by having it filmed.
And the film was broadcast on the cinematographic news of the time!
We had never seen that for the launch of a book in France.
The documentary then shows an extract from these news items evoking "
the youngest novelist in France
".
Hungry for success and pragmatic
The author himself published an article the same day that his largely autobiographical story was released, about the hype surrounding his text.
“We can judge that it would have been decent for the author of Le
Diable au corps
to deplore this noise made around a novel before the public was given the opportunity to form an opinion.
However, I have decided not to apologize.
All writers will understand my pleasure in finding united in one man two publishers who had always seemed irreconcilable to me: the one who loves the work he publishes and the one who launches the books, ”
he writes.
A very beautiful tribute which shows that Radiguet was not only a writer with lightning precocity, but also an author eager for success and pragmatic...