Jean Cocteau. By Margaret Crosland. (Nevi11, 15s.)
journalism side of Coctcau's life is here: the opium, the great passions, the trompe-fail snooks of perpetual .adolescence at a bourgeois world. None of this is treated in a very satisfactory way, for the book's capsuled nature (it is in the same series as a very poor book on Hemingway which appeared some time ago) makes it a sort of literary Edward's Notes. Statements arc flung down without being persuasively buttressed: 'The often-quoted remark, "Cocteau's chef-d'ceuvre is his life" contains a perceptive truth.' Even accepting this, his life and work becomes little more than a private joke.
To be fair, Miss Crosland is at pains to show him as a true poet, but the picture which emerges is too often of the 'sick, confused boy' of contemporary mythology with a flair for appealing sym- bolism. 'Cocteau,' the author writes, 'is one of the few men in the world who knows how to conduct a public relations campaign with the imagination of a poet.' Again, she says: 'He has often been criticised for what appears to be a preoccupation with death, but in fact it is usually the spectator or the reader who unconsciously substitutes his own conception of death for whatever form in which Cocteau introduces it.' Apart from the non sequitur, this hardly seems accurate of a writer whose preoccupation with 'le grand sommeir is as familiar as a Dubonnet advertisement.
Cocteau's lasting fame, surely, will be in his power as a catalyst, a shockworker making the path easier for men of greater talent. but lesser drive. None the less, this book will give those who are unsure of what 'em cocieate is a clear introduction, and it should stimulate them to read his work. They will enjoy reading of the poet going to war dressed by Poiret, or, playing Mercutio, hoping that he would really be killed in the duel. And they will also perhaps come to regard him as a true poet, with a distinct voice : Dans le caw,• de quelques antis J'ai su me biitir tin refuge. Sous la robe rouge de juge Le monde ne m'a pas admis.
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