Continuing my celebration of Simenon month I have just
completed CHEZ KRULL completed by Simenon on July 27, 1938.
The edition I read is a U.K. paperback reprint by Four Square
from the 1955 Hamish Hamilton edition. My bookseller, the
usually accurate Jeff Meyerson, says there was not a U.S.
edition. The translation is by Daphne Woodward and while
seldom noted, translators are so very important. Some regular
Simenon translators, primarily Geoffrey Sainsbury, have been
termed butchers for the changes brought to the original
text.
This novel centers on the combined home and shop of the
family Krull, Germans who have lived for many years in France
and are naturalized citizens. They have their place in the
community even though they have not at all won true
acceptance. The matron of the family and her oldest daughter
look after the shop where they service the barge operators,
often utilizing a drunken old woman who serves as a
go-between. The father, who has never learned French although
he is losing his German, weaves baskets and such with a
hunchback assistant. To complete the family there is a son in
the mid-twenties studying for his final examination to become
a doctor and a teenage daughter.
They live a very self-contained life, aware that most of
their neighbors will walk a long distance to buy from a
French shop, yet prospering from their barge operator
customers.
Into this mix comes a relative, Hans Krull, fresh from
Germany where he has had to flee or, as he often states, he
would have been sent to a concentration camp. Hans is the
nephew of the elder Krull although he neglects to tell his
host that his father died 15 years ago. From that initial
lie, Hans goes on to betray the trust of his welcoming
relatives in every way imaginable. He seduces the youngest
daughter, he flimflams the family's best friend out of a
large sum of money and he spys on everyone's movements.
Extraordinarily insightful, he soon understands and "has the
number" of just about everyone in the house. But most
disruptive of all, he parades himself in the neighborhood so
openly, so very obviously German, that he attracts attention
to the entire household which has done everything imaginable
to blend in with their surroundings.
The teenage daughter of a drunk woman who serves as a conduit
of commerce between the Krulls and the bargemen likes to
present herself as someone older, much as a kid today might
dress like Brittany Spears. Her body is discovered in the
canal and she has been raped and strangled. Although the
discovery across from the Krull shop, the family would have
escaped attention but for the visiting Hans. Technically he
was first to see the body and he made much of this fact and
was everywhere under the nose of the investigators and
neighbors. Eventually, again as a direct result of Hans, the
neighbors turn against the Krulls first with graffiti
accusations of responsibility for the murder (and the Krull
son is suspected more than Hans) and eventually with mob
action.
This is a brief novel, as would be expected of Simenon, but
even for the Belgium master this one is crammed with vivid
characters and a logical progression of events that proceeds
to a shocking climax. Every one of the Krull family is
brought fully to life. Hans is a viper in the nest like
Peake's Steerpike yet the family member who eventually gets
past his defenses surprised me.
There are some nice touches here as during a tense,
competitive conversation the observation "...she was playing
a game, just as a peasant, at market, will criticise a cow he
is keen to buy."
And in a moment of confrontation with the police the matron
of the family still clings to the old normality. "Whe was on
the verge of looking at herself in the mirror, in an attempt
to discover what there was about her to account for their
rudeness."
The reading has left me with so many things to ponder that I
have to say this is one of Simenon's best, a profound,
brilliant achievement. And this from a novel about which I
have never heard a word of comment or praise.
Richard Moore
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 Aug 2003 EDT