Novel
The Devil on Two Sticks
Le Diable boiteux
Alain-René Lesage · 1707
Opening lines
Une nuit du mois d'octobre couvrait d'épaisses ténèbres la célèbre ville de Madrid: déjà le peuple, retiré chez lui, laissait les rues libres aux amants qui voulaient chanter leurs peines ou leurs plaisirs sous les balcons de leurs maîtresses: déjà le son des guitares causait de l'inquiétude aux pères et alarmait les maris jaloux […]
An October night covered the famous city of Madrid in thick darkness: already the people, withdrawn into their homes, left the streets free to lovers who wished to sing of their pains or their pleasures beneath the balconies of their mistresses: already the sound of guitars was worrying fathers and alarming jealous husbands […]
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
In Madrid, a student, Don Cleofas, flees swordsmen across the rooftops and slips into a magician's attic, where a voice calls to him from a phial: it is the demon Asmodeus, whom he sets free. In gratitude, the devil on two sticks carries him through the air, lifts the roofs of the city for him and shows him what is happening in each house, commenting on what they discover together.
Context
The title and the premise come from a Spanish novel by Luis Vélez de Guevara, El Diablo cojuelo, published in 1641, from which the author departs widely after the first chapters. The book appeared in 1707 and was at once a great success, with several editions following one another. Nearly twenty years later, the author brought out a revised and expanded version, in which new episodes are added to the earlier ones.
Who it is for
A novel made of tableaux and embedded stories, which one can pick up and put down at each chapter, in the language of the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Prizes and reception
A great success from the time of its publication, the book made its author known and was translated into English the following year.
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