Updated for Eric:




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Four stars? Or three? This is just a Simenon. There is absolutely nothing special about it, it is putting an old pair of socks on....out of hundreds of pairs. So, as Simenons go, I'm rather inclined to give it three stars only. But if I am comparing it with the rest, all the socks in other people's cupboards and drawers all over the world - well, it's probably worth that extra star.

.....................

So Manny refused to vote for this review on the basis that it didn’t have enough stuff in it. “Not even all the socks in the world?” “Not even that.”

Hence I am going to make a few observations of the type for which he might vote.

Number one. I despised Simenon as a teenager because in my ill-fated French at school we were expected to read it about day one. I’m illiterate in this language and yet I can read this book? It must be rubbish. Short sentences? No adverbs? Bah. At the time nothing made me happier than having my nose stuck in page three thousand eight hundred and fifty two of a Russian work by somebody who probably wasn’t paid by the word, but clearly wished they were.

Now I know better. Pared down, minimalist is quite my preference. I never read much Maigret even after I got over my teenage rebellion against him, but the other works, like this one, I do regard with the greatest respect.

Number two. I’m just started wondering about this. We were having an argument about this book: is Lulu ‘nice?’ Well, I don’t think Simenon meant her to be. I think middle aged male readers probabably have a soft spot for idiotic self-centered teenagers, despite Simeon’s efforts to the contrary. On the other hand, it could just be that any grown up girl was once a teenager and knows the truth. It could just be that. But I read somewhere that part of the reason Simenon writes quickly is that he doesn’t want to get emotionally involved with his characters. I can see why. Having read a gadzillion Simenons and Highsmiths (there are others, but these are the finest practitioners) where one sides with the sociopathic main character, suffers with him, barracks for him, feels injured as heartfeltly as does the antihero himself at the way in which others treat him, it has only just occurred to me that Simenon is pulling my strings. He makes normal people ghastly, so that one is backed into the corner with his star character. The incredible thing is that he does so, so little to make them this way. If he were a painter it would be some minute stroke of the brush, a dab here, a spot there, that might transform something normal into something hideous.

Either that or my first thought. People are hideous. Normal ordinary people are hideous. Sociopaths have got it right.


( )

Updated for Eric:




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Four stars? Or three? This is just a Simenon. There is absolutely nothing special about it, it is putting an old pair of socks on....out of hundreds of pairs. So, as Simenons go, I'm rather inclined to give it three stars only. But if I am comparing it with the rest, all the socks in other people's cupboards and drawers all over the world - well, it's probably worth that extra star.

.....................

So Manny refused to vote for this review on the basis that it didn’t have enough stuff in it. “Not even all the socks in the world?” “Not even that.”

Hence I am going to make a few observations of the type for which he might vote.

Number one. I despised Simenon as a teenager because in my ill-fated French at school we were expected to read it about day one. I’m illiterate in this language and yet I can read this book? It must be rubbish. Short sentences? No adverbs? Bah. At the time nothing made me happier than having my nose stuck in page three thousand eight hundred and fifty two of a Russian work by somebody who probably wasn’t paid by the word, but clearly wished they were.

Now I know better. Pared down, minimalist is quite my preference. I never read much Maigret even after I got over my teenage rebellion against him, but the other works, like this one, I do regard with the greatest respect.

Number two. I’m just started wondering about this. We were having an argument about this book: is Lulu ‘nice?’ Well, I don’t think Simenon meant her to be. I think middle aged male readers probabably have a soft spot for idiotic self-centered teenagers, despite Simeon’s efforts to the contrary. On the other hand, it could just be that any grown up girl was once a teenager and knows the truth. It could just be that. But I read somewhere that part of the reason Simenon writes quickly is that he doesn’t want to get emotionally involved with his characters. I can see why. Having read a gadzillion Simenons and Highsmiths (there are others, but these are the finest practitioners) where one sides with the sociopathic main character, suffers with him, barracks for him, feels injured as heartfeltly as does the antihero himself at the way in which others treat him, it has only just occurred to me that Simenon is pulling my strings. He makes normal people ghastly, so that one is backed into the corner with his star character. The incredible thing is that he does so, so little to make them this way. If he were a painter it would be some minute stroke of the brush, a dab here, a spot there, that might transform something normal into something hideous.

Either that or my first thought. People are hideous. Normal ordinary people are hideous. Sociopaths have got it right.


( )

Updated for Eric:




----------------------

Four stars? Or three? This is just a Simenon. There is absolutely nothing special about it, it is putting an old pair of socks on....out of hundreds of pairs. So, as Simenons go, I'm rather inclined to give it three stars only. But if I am comparing it with the rest, all the socks in other people's cupboards and drawers all over the world - well, it's probably worth that extra star.

.....................

So Manny refused to vote for this review on the basis that it didn’t have enough stuff in it. “Not even all the socks in the world?” “Not even that.”

Hence I am going to make a few observations of the type for which he might vote.

Number one. I despised Simenon as a teenager because in my ill-fated French at school we were expected to read it about day one. I’m illiterate in this language and yet I can read this book? It must be rubbish. Short sentences? No adverbs? Bah. At the time nothing made me happier than having my nose stuck in page three thousand eight hundred and fifty two of a Russian work by somebody who probably wasn’t paid by the word, but clearly wished they were.

Now I know better. Pared down, minimalist is quite my preference. I never read much Maigret even after I got over my teenage rebellion against him, but the other works, like this one, I do regard with the greatest respect.

Number two. I’m just started wondering about this. We were having an argument about this book: is Lulu ‘nice?’ Well, I don’t think Simenon meant her to be. I think middle aged male readers probabably have a soft spot for idiotic self-centered teenagers, despite Simeon’s efforts to the contrary. On the other hand, it could just be that any grown up girl was once a teenager and knows the truth. It could just be that. But I read somewhere that part of the reason Simenon writes quickly is that he doesn’t want to get emotionally involved with his characters. I can see why. Having read a gadzillion Simenons and Highsmiths (there are others, but these are the finest practitioners) where one sides with the sociopathic main character, suffers with him, barracks for him, feels injured as heartfeltly as does the antihero himself at the way in which others treat him, it has only just occurred to me that Simenon is pulling my strings. He makes normal people ghastly, so that one is backed into the corner with his star character. The incredible thing is that he does so, so little to make them this way. If he were a painter it would be some minute stroke of the brush, a dab here, a spot there, that might transform something normal into something hideous.

Either that or my first thought. People are hideous. Normal ordinary people are hideous. Sociopaths have got it right.


( )

Charles Dupeux, a humble bookkeeper, comes home from work as usual. He locks himself in the attic and does not respond to his family - except to slip a message under the door demanding to be left alone. Why does a man "as timid as a rabbit" suddenly seclude himself? Why is his overbearing boss so upset? Simenon portrays in precise detail the seedy, prosaic, unsentimental world of the suburbs of Rouen and against that background tells a superb tale of human suffering and depravity. ( )