At 13:55 08-07-03 -0400, Bill Denton wrote:
>Thanks. It is indeed Simenon month, but I got behind
in kicking it off.
>M. Borgers, among Simenon's non-Maigret books, you
recommend:
>
> * LES ANNEAUX DE BICTRE (THE RINGS OF BICETRE, aka
THE PATIENT)
> * TROIS CHAMBRES MANHATTAN (THREE BEDS IN
MANHATTAN)
> * LA NEIGE TAIT SALE (THE STAIN ON THE
SNOW)
>
>What are they like? Can you give a summary? I speak
as someone who has
>never even read a Maigret novel, though I have a
certain picture of them
>in my mind. I have no idea what his other books are
like.
Well, now that Simenon's month is confirmed, I may answer
your question with a narrower R-A angle, as my former "Web
introduction" to Simenon was not specially crime or noir
orientated by my selection of titles.
He wrote close to 120 more literary orientated novels, most
of them with a strong existential slant, a lot of them having
stories with murder and death as background, and more than a
few being real Noir (in the broader sense) lit. This
"literary" part of his corpus was called by the writer:
"tough novels"
(romans durs) to separate them from the novels of lighter
intention or even from pure mystery novels that were confused
-at the time- as a part of the
"leisure readings", in many countries.
I assemble here a list of some titles that could orientate
the search of Avians amongst what I consider as the top of
Simenon's noir :
(dates are given based on the first publication in
France)
The best (probably his masterpiece)
* THE STAIN ON THE SNOW /aka THE SNOW WAS BLACK - La neige
é´¡it sale (1948)
Recommended others: ACT OF PASSION - Lettre à on Juge (1947) -
one of his real bests BELLE - La mort de Belle (1952) THE
BLUE ROOM - La chambre bleue (1964) THE BROTHERS RICO - Les
frè²¥s Rico (1962) THE CAT - Le chat (1967) - maybe borderline
by its topic, but totally noir by intention THE HATTER'S
GHOSTS - Les fantô¥³ du chapelier (1949) THE MAN WHO WATCHED
THE TRAINS GO BY - L'homme qui regardait passer les trains
(1938) IN CASE OF EMERGENCY - En cas de malheur (1956)
STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE - Les inconnus dans la maison
(1940)
But, PLEASE, do not consider the above list as restrictive.
There are many more noir novels by this writer worth the
read, and I didn't read them all…
There are also top novels by Simenon that are not fully in
our Noir domain, but still very pessimistic, somber and
existential… and not to be missed !
As you may know, Simenon stopped abruptly to write novels in
1972, a sudden decision. But he continued to write: memoirs,
short essays, "opinions" (in his famous 'Dictations'-
Dict饳)…etc. He died in 1989.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
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