Cheeks on Fire by Raymond Radiguet

Cheeks on Fire Reviews

• 
  Matthieu

  From childhood to adolescence, from adolescence into (young) adulthood. Two novels surrounded by verse. Bookends. A young man's light touch, an adolescent's light touch, a child's fear of ink and typesetting. The evolution of a poet, of a writer, of a young man. Ambiguous prose poems are refined into sonnets. Venus in windows and fountains. Sixteen to nineteen. A novel about a masked ball. The Pelicans. When the lungs are filled, one simply stops. An eye overflows. Cocteau, the winedark Mediterranean. Bébé est vicieuse. Il aime les femmes. Death punctuates.
• 
  Alor Deng

  Radiguet's gift was in storytelling, not poetry. Or perhaps I'm not as attuned to the subtler art. But also, as the foreword by Radiguet himself says, these were written when he was sixteen and seventeen. An obscure age when the senses begin to stir but Love remains dormant.
• 
  Sam

  “Sad that Sunday’s free from extra chores,
  Let’s skip these puzzles and chew gum instead.
  Smile for me a little, fickle dawn;
  A dunce’s cap looks stunning on your head.
  
  Over vacation, there’s ample time to blush,
  Then after reading all the hottest books
  Croon sentimental ballads out of tune
  And sneer at dwarfish roses in the bush.
  
  One by one, my songs give way to sighs.
  ‘Lovers’ nest’ – but now the signpost fades;
  That doesn’t bother me, so long as skyscrapers
  Tomorrow jolt my castles in the skies.
  
  In the midst of ecstasy, I see your face.
  A stream, beneath the bridge which straddles it,
  though violated, heaves with sobs of rapture;
  In the end those sobs are all I can embrace.”
  —
  “In her evening gown, the infanta of the wintry dunes proffers me her milk. She teaches me how to walk on the sand without leaving footprints behind. We talk in mostly dead tongues. Meanwhile, the cavalier – whom the ocean fits like a glove, his future drowned, his ears pressed to the waves – hears them settle upon his fate but fails to grasp their meaning.”
  —
  “By your own fair image stayed.
  Lest some intruder spy you
  I appoint the Marne as guardian
  Of all your charms, O wanton boy;
  See, its waters more slowly run.
  
  Although the watchful Marne may seem
  More chaste and pure than other streams
  Its yearnings are the same as ours:
  To watch as your virginity
  (At teatime, in white breeches)
  
  Steams in vapour to the sun.”
  —
  “Bouquet of flames (which stolen
  Kisses make more bright)
  How grand, on Midsummer Day
  To drown, with the doves, in your light.
  
  Streams which toss in their beds,
  Murmuring ceaselessly,
  And restless fires that fume
  Far from where Venus treads,
  
  Coo to the waves, and mime
  In their adorable fit,
  A breast grown full with milk.
  Or with desire? That’s it.”
  —
  “Echo, you’re lying, or something’s amiss,
  For through the chimney sweep’s tunnel,
  As if in a funhouse mirror,
  Ever-changing phantoms of bliss
  
  Come softly creeping past my chair
  As soul and body gasp for air.
  – Rapture, I only knew it was you
  From the hiss you made as you went up the flue.
  
  Lie back, my soul, one can’t avoid
  The march of time, or your own flight;
  My greedy ear, athirst for sound
  And straining at whispers in the void
  
  Hears only the farmyard’s rural king.
  Rooster, with the knife that kills
  Stuck in your throat, hoarsely sing:
  I’d like to think it’s early still.”
  —
  “Venus not only reveals to me
  Her secrets, but those of her mother too:
  Long ago, I’d gaze at the sea
  The way a child who couldn’t read
  
  Might skim through the pages of a book.
  Venus boasts a pedigree
  From lofty skies, denying the debt
  She owes her mother. Goddess, admit
  
  That a teen-aged novice belies your tale.
  I’m really not impressed by your boasts
  Because you’ve taught me how to read
  The booming waves, those soft maternal
  
  Wrinkles on the ocean womb.
  But I’ll repay you as befits
  An artless youth: since you let me enrol
  As a pupil in your risky school,
  
  I’ll teach you how to read my soul.”
  —
  “Undine, you’ll say I’m just a child
  If politely I ask you to
  
  Loan me one of those penknives
  Which glisten like slippery sardines
  Nibbling open the choicest shellfish.
  In exchange for the silver blade
  
  Of your knife, undine, I’ll try to carve
  Words to you and your sisters on
  The bark I couldn’t penetrate
  Before, whether prone or erect,
  Crushed by a force I couldn’t direct.”
• 
  Mike

  2.5 stars. Poems of love and death written by the teenage wunderkind Radiguet. The strongest here are the odes to Venus, although often peppered with adolescent sexual fantasies and double entendre, as well being a bit heavy-handed on the womb imagery. Another case of “what could have been” if the poet had lived beyond the age of twenty. Mostly a curiosity for anyone interested in French literature or wanting to read everything published by Radiguet: two novels, a one-act play, and this poetry collection.
• 
  Jack Killeen

  Pretty good