Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Double Georges
Just finished a couple of Simenon books: one a translation of a biography by Pierre Assouline and the other one of his hard novels, 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre'. The second being prompted by the first and with the TLS reviewing a new translation of 'La neige était sale' at about the same time being entirely coincidental. I say new translation because it must have been a review of a translation which prompted me to read it a couple of years ago or so - one of the virtues of Simenon from an English point of view that he deliberately eschews complicated vocabulary or syntax: he took pride in saying things in a simple way, which, as he pointed out, is often harder than saying things in a complicated way. So his French is a lot easier going than that of his biographer, samples of which can be found at http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/.
Having read two books about Simenon by Simenon ('Mémoires intimes' and 'Pedigree') it was interesting to read a book about Simenon by someone else. So we learn that he had a distinctly unglamorous war, holed up for most of it in the Vendée, where he was able to establish working relations with the occupiers. He also made a great deal of money out of the popular films made from his books made by what was effectively a German company operating under a French cloak. Nothing terribly wrong about this, but one could understand that the French who had a harder war might be a little sore. He was also mildly anti Semitic, but not so much as not to be shocked by the rampant anti Semitism in New York in the 50's. In a country which went to war, in part, to rid the world of Hitler.
He got through three partners, each lasting around 20 years. For most of this period he also had a maid who was also his mistress and was an enthusiastic patron of brothels. He also had at least two lady staffers who worked on the production side of his writing operation and who were with him for a long time. Knew lots of creative types but despite his huge output seems to have hankered for more, hankered for respectability. Did not want to go down in history as the most successful author of pulp fiction of all time. He wanted posh; an endeavour in which he was perhaps not helped by his ostentatious life style. Perhaps also by his economy with the truth; according to his biographer he spent so much time spinning yarns - books that is - out of his life experience that he lost track of the truth. Simenon would say he was true to the spirit of things and that this sometimes meant one could not stick with what actually happened.
Interestingly the review of 'La neige était sale' explains that the hero of that book has a hole in the middle of his personality, a problem which afflicts both the hero of 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre' and his wife. Given that this last contains, at least it seems so to me, plenty of autobiographical material, one wonders if Simenon worried about a hole in the middle of his own personality. He certainly worried about the relations between fathers and sons, his own having died in middle age.
Another aspect of spinning yarns out of life was that some of the people near him came to regard him as a parasite. Watching, observing & sucking the life out of them, to be regurgitated in his rather dour and often unflattering novels. Watching but not really participating. And his novels, at least the few that I have read, are rather dour. There might be passion but there is little joy.
All that apart, I thought that 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre' was a jolly good crack at telling the story of someone who has a stroke over the couple of months or so in hospital it took to recover from it - particularly since I don't think Simenon had ever stayed in a hospital with a stroke or anything else. He shares with me a fondness for that half hour or so in the morning when one is neither asleep nor fully awake. And he shares with his contemporary Ian Fleming the need to tell us about the fancy goods available to the rich; something which the rest of us bought into vicariously as we emerged from the drabness of the war.
And then onto lunch. Following the failure with ox tail last week, had a go with shin of beef on the bone today, something over two kilos of the stuff, sawn into three centimetre slices crosswise. A bone which was a cylinder of more than two inches in diameter, which appeared solid but which was certainly hollow by the time it was cooked. The drill being to brown it a bit with some lard, add four coarsely chopped onions, add four coarsely chopped sticks of organic celery, add three pints of water, not quite covering the meat, bring to the boil and simmer for four hours. Add two ounces of orange lentils about half way through. Serve with boiled potatoes and brussels sprouts. Gravy of the watery variety but a very good flavour. Perhaps what used to be called beef tea.
PS: nicely set the following morning. Saucepan now put into the fridge to harden off the layer of fat to facilitate removal. Limit to how much cholesterol I can comfortably whack down in one sitting these days. Unlike the mountain men of old who used to drink down liquid kidney fat from buffaloes while telling stories around the camp fire. Meanwhile FIL reminisces over his toast about the lectures in which the larger bones would have made him excellent teaching aids.
Having read two books about Simenon by Simenon ('Mémoires intimes' and 'Pedigree') it was interesting to read a book about Simenon by someone else. So we learn that he had a distinctly unglamorous war, holed up for most of it in the Vendée, where he was able to establish working relations with the occupiers. He also made a great deal of money out of the popular films made from his books made by what was effectively a German company operating under a French cloak. Nothing terribly wrong about this, but one could understand that the French who had a harder war might be a little sore. He was also mildly anti Semitic, but not so much as not to be shocked by the rampant anti Semitism in New York in the 50's. In a country which went to war, in part, to rid the world of Hitler.
He got through three partners, each lasting around 20 years. For most of this period he also had a maid who was also his mistress and was an enthusiastic patron of brothels. He also had at least two lady staffers who worked on the production side of his writing operation and who were with him for a long time. Knew lots of creative types but despite his huge output seems to have hankered for more, hankered for respectability. Did not want to go down in history as the most successful author of pulp fiction of all time. He wanted posh; an endeavour in which he was perhaps not helped by his ostentatious life style. Perhaps also by his economy with the truth; according to his biographer he spent so much time spinning yarns - books that is - out of his life experience that he lost track of the truth. Simenon would say he was true to the spirit of things and that this sometimes meant one could not stick with what actually happened.
Interestingly the review of 'La neige était sale' explains that the hero of that book has a hole in the middle of his personality, a problem which afflicts both the hero of 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre' and his wife. Given that this last contains, at least it seems so to me, plenty of autobiographical material, one wonders if Simenon worried about a hole in the middle of his own personality. He certainly worried about the relations between fathers and sons, his own having died in middle age.
Another aspect of spinning yarns out of life was that some of the people near him came to regard him as a parasite. Watching, observing & sucking the life out of them, to be regurgitated in his rather dour and often unflattering novels. Watching but not really participating. And his novels, at least the few that I have read, are rather dour. There might be passion but there is little joy.
All that apart, I thought that 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre' was a jolly good crack at telling the story of someone who has a stroke over the couple of months or so in hospital it took to recover from it - particularly since I don't think Simenon had ever stayed in a hospital with a stroke or anything else. He shares with me a fondness for that half hour or so in the morning when one is neither asleep nor fully awake. And he shares with his contemporary Ian Fleming the need to tell us about the fancy goods available to the rich; something which the rest of us bought into vicariously as we emerged from the drabness of the war.
And then onto lunch. Following the failure with ox tail last week, had a go with shin of beef on the bone today, something over two kilos of the stuff, sawn into three centimetre slices crosswise. A bone which was a cylinder of more than two inches in diameter, which appeared solid but which was certainly hollow by the time it was cooked. The drill being to brown it a bit with some lard, add four coarsely chopped onions, add four coarsely chopped sticks of organic celery, add three pints of water, not quite covering the meat, bring to the boil and simmer for four hours. Add two ounces of orange lentils about half way through. Serve with boiled potatoes and brussels sprouts. Gravy of the watery variety but a very good flavour. Perhaps what used to be called beef tea.
PS: nicely set the following morning. Saucepan now put into the fridge to harden off the layer of fat to facilitate removal. Limit to how much cholesterol I can comfortably whack down in one sitting these days. Unlike the mountain men of old who used to drink down liquid kidney fat from buffaloes while telling stories around the camp fire. Meanwhile FIL reminisces over his toast about the lectures in which the larger bones would have made him excellent teaching aids.
# posted by Jim @ 5:46 AM 
