Jacques Cazotte (1719–1792)

Jacques Cazotte's tale of the devil falling in love with a mortal and transforming into a beautiful woman to seduce him is one that's been known to me for a while but that I've only just gotten around to reading, and it's a lot of fun. Surprisingly more depth than I expected from what I thought would be mostly an enjoyable Gothic romp, exploring issues of self, religion, gender, love etc. The devil ends up coming across a lot more sympathetic than expected too, buttressed by the cop-out moralistic ending that undercuts what came before a fair bit, and along with some digressions that I tuned out of these were the main obstacles to me considering this more highly - still enjoyable though.… (altro)

That was somewhat disappointing. Any story where a Devil (or Death) turn up in human form, tends to be pretty awesome. Thats an aesthetic or plot-point or whatever that i quite enjoy.

This however was fairly bland given the setup. I'm absolutely sure its losing something in the translation but it can't be losing THAT much.

One issue plot wise is that the protagonist is constantly trying not to sleep with this woman, because it would be dishonorable or something. Ok, thats a little strange given this is written by a french guy and given the time period when things were a little more liberal.
I was thinking our hero is spanish so maybe this is a commentary on the spanish being more uptight than the french, but then he clearly sleeps with a lot of other women!
So the rule seems to be its only wrong to sleep with someone if there's a chance you might marry them later? Bit confusing.

Anyway, this story just never did enough with the supernatural elements, it never created that air of wrongness that you usually have in these kinds of stories and frankly the ending was very anti-climactic.

I guess it sounds like i'm completely trashing it but its still ok but far below my expectations.… (altro)

Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792) nos habla en su novela corta El diablo enamorado (1772) de un siglo XVIII muy diferente del que conocemos. De un siglo volcado en el esoterismo iluminista, con tanta o mayor ilusión que en el racionalismo militante. De un siglo que había descubierto que el rostro mítico y el rostro lógico no son en absoluto incompatibles, y que la luz y las tinieblas fueron creadas para vivir juntas. De un siglo que vio nacer la literatura fantástica propiamente dicha y asistió al nacimiento de un subgénero literario como la novela gótica inglesa, de tan sugestiva y brillante descendencia en las letras occidentales. Porque el siglo XVIII no es sólo la centuria en que se rinde culto a la razón (Voltaire), sino también la del descubrimiento de los monstruos que habitan la mente humana (Sade). La novela breve de Cazotte, escrita en un estilo razonable y claro, contiene sin embargo en sus páginas el germen de la tempestuosa revolución romántica.… (altro)