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Monsieur Monde Vanishes
Monsieur Monde is a successful middle-aged businessman in Paris. One morning he walks out on his life, leaving his wife asleep in bed, leaving everything behind.
Not long after, he surfaces on the Riviera, keeping company with drunks, whores and pimps, with thieves and their marks. A whole new world, where he feels surprisingly at home--at least for a while.
Georges Simenon knew how obsession, buried for years, can come to life, and about the wreckage it leaves behind. He had a remarkable understanding of how bizarrely unaccountable people can be. And he had an almost uncanny ability to capture the look and feel of a given place and time. Monsieur Monde Vanishes is a subtle and profoundly disturbing triumph by the most popular of the twentieth century's great writers.
Not long after, he surfaces on the Riviera, keeping company with drunks, whores and pimps, with thieves and their marks. A whole new world, where he feels surprisingly at home--at least for a while.
Georges Simenon knew how obsession, buried for years, can come to life, and about the wreckage it leaves behind. He had a remarkable understanding of how bizarrely unaccountable people can be. And he had an almost uncanny ability to capture the look and feel of a given place and time. Monsieur Monde Vanishes is a subtle and profoundly disturbing triumph by the most popular of the twentieth century's great writers.
174 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
About the author
Georges Simenon
1,882 books1,921 followersGeorges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.
Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.
During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).
Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).
In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.
Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.
During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).
Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).
In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
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November 27, 2021
"I have made love to ten thousand women." - Georges Simenon
Fortunately for his reading public, Georges took time out to write over 400 novels.
When Belgian novelist Georges Simenon (1903-1989) neared his 70th birthday, he unplugged his typewriter and abruptly stopped writing. But one thing is certain: nobody could ever accuse Simenon of being a slacker, for after all, he authored over 200 novels under his own name (including dozens of crime novels featuring a detective, one Inspector Jules Maigret) and 300 novels under various noms de plume. So, in terms of sheer numbers, this novel, the subject of my review, is simply one of many. However, if Monsieur Monde Vanishes was Simenon’s one and only work of fiction, I wonder if the author would be considered a key existentialist and this book a classic study of identity and alienation.
On the topic of identity and alienation, one prime text is Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society and it is this classic of social psychology I will quote below and pair with my commentary as a way of highlighting the wisdom nectar contained in Georges Simenon’s fine novel.
“By alienation is meant a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien. He has become, one might say, estranged from himself. He does not experience himself as the center of his world, as the creator of his own acts—but his acts and their consequences have become his masters, whom he obeys, or whom he may even worship.”
Monsieur Monde turns forty-eight but will his wife, his son, his daughter, his business associates remember and wish him a happy birthday? Is Monsieur the center of his own world? Is he really alive? Monsieur recognizes the answer to all of the above is “no” - at the same time he also realizes it is time to make a quick exit from his comfortable, predictable, deadening upper-upper-middle class life and hit the road. And that is exactly what Monsieur does.
“Man cannot live statically because his inner contradictions drive him to seek for an equilibrium.”
Monsieur Monde has been living in his role as an ideal husband, father and business leader. But enough is enough – life is much more, much richer, much freer beyond the stifling boundaries of role. He takes the dramatic first step in shedding his role. We read, “Near Boulevard Sebastopol he noticed a third-rate barbershop and went in, took his place in line behind other customers, and, when his turn came to sit in the hinged chair, told the barber to shave off his mustache.” Shave off his mustache! It doesn’t get more dramatic than that for such a solid, stolid, sedentary member of the bourgeoisie.
“Thus, the ultimate choice for man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.”
After the shaving of his mustache, Monsieur begins to feel the ecstasy of release, the bliss of transformation. The author writes about Monsieur’s transformation with such subtlety and tenderness, a true master of the craft of developing character. The subsequent events in the novel are made all the richer by the reality of the ‘new’ Monsieur Monde.
“As with the need for relatedness, rootedness, and transcendence, this need for a sense of identity is so vital and imperative that man could not remain sane if he did not find some way of satisfying it.”
After setting out with his new Self, Monsieur senses the risk and dangers involved in shedding habitual categories, as in when the author writes, “He did not know where he was going or what he would do. He had set off. Nothing lay behind him any more: nothing lay before him. He was in space.”
“All passions and strivings of man are attempts to find an answer to his existence or, as we may also say, they are an attempt to avoid insanity.”
“He was lucid, not with an everyday lucidity, the sort one finds acceptable, but on the contrary the sort of which one subsequently feels ashamed, perhaps because it confers on supposedly commonplace things the grandeur ascribed to them by poetry and religion.” Monsieur Monde is better able to sense the answer to the riddles: Does a dog have the Buddha nature? What is the sound of one hand clapping?
“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues. The fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
Is it time for serious transformation in your life? Need some inspiration? Go ahead – pick up this petite jewel published by New York Review Books (NYRB) featuring an introductory essay by Larry McMurtry and cover photo from Jacques Tati’s Playtime. It just might prove to be the right first step leading to something big.
October 20, 2022
My latest ‘romans durs’ by Simenon is the least ‘dur’ of several I have read so far. (These are his non-Inspector Maigret ‘hard novels.’)
Was the phrase ‘midlife crisis’ common in 1945 when Simenon published this? The author doesn’t use those words, but that’s the premise of this story.
Monsieur Monde is a wealthy 48-year-old man. He has two adult children from his first wife, who left him, and he lives with a second wife we are told is ‘shrewish.’ Monsieur Monde inherited a wholesale business from his father. He’s well-off enough to have a maid, cook, butler and chauffeur.
But he’s disappointed in his children. His daughter is married and her husband has a good job, but somehow the only times he sees her is when she wants to cadger money from him. He gave his son a job in his business but he considers him useless. He has to remind his son to stop by and say hello when he comes to work.
One day - he just had his 48th birthday- without any forethought or planning, Monsieur Monde gets up from his desk, goes to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money, shaves off his mustache, buys some old clothes at a thrift shop and takes a train to Marseilles. We’re told he’s exhausted from ‘struggling’ and that on the train he weeps tears of weariness.
He tells no one what he is doing and leaves no note for his wife, kids or business associates. His wife goes to the police to report him missing and places ads in newspapers to try to find him.
The real story starts at this point. We suspect that Monsieur Monde will hit the bars and casinos and have a wild time picking up women, but that’s not what happens.
He seems glad when his money is stolen - it made him feel guilty. He gets a job as an accountant/stock manager in the backroom of a dancehall. He seems happy to have become a ‘common man.’ One day, a wealthy elderly lady who often comes into the dancehall with her maid/companion suddenly dies at her table. The police get involved because behind-the-scenes things were going on in the dancehall. Monsieur Monde’s life changes again.
One of the reasons I say above that this is the least ‘dur’ of this series of the author’s is that it’s the only one I’ve read that has a relatively happy ending.
Georges Simeon (1903-1989), a Belgian-born author who wrote in French, wrote 75 Maigret novels and almost 500 novels in total. And all of them are good stories.
Top photo of Marseilles around the time of the story from alliancefrancaise.london
The author from theguardian.com
Was the phrase ‘midlife crisis’ common in 1945 when Simenon published this? The author doesn’t use those words, but that’s the premise of this story.
Monsieur Monde is a wealthy 48-year-old man. He has two adult children from his first wife, who left him, and he lives with a second wife we are told is ‘shrewish.’ Monsieur Monde inherited a wholesale business from his father. He’s well-off enough to have a maid, cook, butler and chauffeur.
But he’s disappointed in his children. His daughter is married and her husband has a good job, but somehow the only times he sees her is when she wants to cadger money from him. He gave his son a job in his business but he considers him useless. He has to remind his son to stop by and say hello when he comes to work.
One day - he just had his 48th birthday- without any forethought or planning, Monsieur Monde gets up from his desk, goes to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money, shaves off his mustache, buys some old clothes at a thrift shop and takes a train to Marseilles. We’re told he’s exhausted from ‘struggling’ and that on the train he weeps tears of weariness.
He tells no one what he is doing and leaves no note for his wife, kids or business associates. His wife goes to the police to report him missing and places ads in newspapers to try to find him.
The real story starts at this point. We suspect that Monsieur Monde will hit the bars and casinos and have a wild time picking up women, but that’s not what happens.
He seems glad when his money is stolen - it made him feel guilty. He gets a job as an accountant/stock manager in the backroom of a dancehall. He seems happy to have become a ‘common man.’ One day, a wealthy elderly lady who often comes into the dancehall with her maid/companion suddenly dies at her table. The police get involved because behind-the-scenes things were going on in the dancehall. Monsieur Monde’s life changes again.
One of the reasons I say above that this is the least ‘dur’ of this series of the author’s is that it’s the only one I’ve read that has a relatively happy ending.
Georges Simeon (1903-1989), a Belgian-born author who wrote in French, wrote 75 Maigret novels and almost 500 novels in total. And all of them are good stories.
Top photo of Marseilles around the time of the story from alliancefrancaise.london
The author from theguardian.com
March 20, 2022
I am somewhat surprised that the ratings for this book are only positive, because in my view this is a real gem -- certainly the best of the four romans durs I read this week -- and utterly flawless. Not a chink or a blur in it. Nothing much happens. A man goes from Paris on a grim winter day to Nice - he vanishes... from his life.
It was early morning, when they returned from work... in the casino.
"They stopped on the landing to say good night to one another. Julie, wholly unembarrassed by her friend's presence, glanced up at him. "Coming?"
He did so occasionally; but now he said no. He didn't feel like it. He went on upstairs.
"She's a nice girl," Charlotte said. "She's swell!"
He agreed.
"Good night..."
"Good night..."
He went on climbing, slowly. Once, at home on Rue Ballu [Paris], he had climbed the stairs to his bedroom, an evening when he had been out alone and his wife, the second wife, was waiting for him. And without knowing, under a sort of compulsion, he had stopped and sat down on a step, wearily, without a thought in his head; then because of some creaking sound, made perhaps by a mouse in the wall, he had got up, feeling ashamed, and made his way upstairs.
Now he went up to the very top, optened the door with his key, and began to undress, looking out at the hundreds of red roofs spread out in tiers in the morning sunlight.
https://bakersandbest.files.wordpress...
It was early morning, when they returned from work... in the casino.
"They stopped on the landing to say good night to one another. Julie, wholly unembarrassed by her friend's presence, glanced up at him. "Coming?"
He did so occasionally; but now he said no. He didn't feel like it. He went on upstairs.
"She's a nice girl," Charlotte said. "She's swell!"
He agreed.
"Good night..."
"Good night..."
He went on climbing, slowly. Once, at home on Rue Ballu [Paris], he had climbed the stairs to his bedroom, an evening when he had been out alone and his wife, the second wife, was waiting for him. And without knowing, under a sort of compulsion, he had stopped and sat down on a step, wearily, without a thought in his head; then because of some creaking sound, made perhaps by a mouse in the wall, he had got up, feeling ashamed, and made his way upstairs.
Now he went up to the very top, optened the door with his key, and began to undress, looking out at the hundreds of red roofs spread out in tiers in the morning sunlight.
https://bakersandbest.files.wordpress...
April 21, 2022
I've read several of Georges Simenon's Maigret books, which I enjoyed, but I am not a great fan of the detective noir. I suspected that Simenon could write just as well, freed from the restraints of his whodunnit plots. And yes - I loved this; in fact it is special, one of those books that resonates at some powerful level - a classic perhaps.
So Monsieur Monde walks out of his life; his secure, wealthy, high-status life as a Parisian business man and takes the train to Marseilles. In his hotel room, that night by the sea, he overhears a dispute between a young woman, and her lover in the room just opposite. Monde's natural disposition is to help and the following day he cannot leave without checking on her. They lunch in a restaurant of Julie's choice and we hear her story. Monde listens, unsure as to whether his support is still required, but in some way both of them are stranded. Julie does not want to return to the hotel of her recent unpleasant experiences and it is Monsieur Monde who suggests they take the 9 o'clock train to Nice.
I loved their conversations - Julie eager to extricate herself from her dubious background, explaining over and again that she is a nice girl - and in fact that is what she turns out to be. She finds work for herself - as a hostess in one of the gambling dens in Nice, and Monsieur Monde, who takes on the name of Désiré, is a watchman - he literally watches the waiters from behind a partition to ensure there is no funny business. Julie and he return to their hotel at 3 or 4 a.m. after their nights' work. Monde has a cheap attic room, which Julie has procured for him because he has lost the money that he brought from Paris - three hundred thousand francs.
Unfortunately Monde's escape from his dull life is short-lived as he encounters his first wife. She is completely destitute when her wealthy mistress, the Empress dies from an overdose and Thérèse is searched and turned out of her hotel by the police. Monde who has seen her previously in the nightclub where he works, searches for her, when he learns what has happened. The situation worsens, when he discovers she is addicted to morphine. He has no choice but to help her and to do so, he must return to Paris and take up his old-life. Thérèse is the mother of his two children.
That is the whole story, however, there is some remarkable writing and even more significantly there is Simenon's elegant existential questions - who are we? What makes us the person we are and is it possible to shrug this off and re-invent ourselves anew?
I want to share this remarkable description of Monsieur Monde sleeping in the early morning, when he returns from his nightshift in the 'casino'.
Désiré was almost immediately engulfed in sleep; he would first feel himself drop vertically, as though sucked down by an eddy, but it was not unpleasant, he felt no fear, he knew he would not touch bottom; like a cork, he rose up again, not quite surfacing but sinking and rising again, and almost always the same thing went on for hours, slow or sudden alternations between the glaucous emptiness of the depths and that invisible surface above which the world went on living.
The light was the same as that which pervades sheltered coves of the Mediterranean; it was sunlight, he realized, but sunlight diluted, diffused, sometimes broken as through prism, suddenly violet, for instance, or green, the intense green of the legendary, elusive green ray.
Noises reached him as they must reach fishes through water, noises perceived not with the ear but with the whole of one's being, absorbed and assimilated until their meaning may perhaps be completely altered.
I liked this writing for several reasons, firstly because that is exactly how I have slept myself, especially if I was very tired, or for an hour or so during the day, and secondly because the description of Désiré sleeping parallels the structure of his life - "he knew he would not touch bottom..." and "noises perceived . . . with the whole of one's being...". It's as if Monde has entered his essential self.
It is a stunning piece of writing. And there are several other sections in the story which I found just as moving. There is a point when Monde is on the train to Nice and he feels as if he has already lived every moment of what he is perceiving just at that instant. Everything, although extraordinary, in fact feels completely normal. He watches Julie's face through the compartment window as she lifts her eyes to question 'where are we now'? It's a very strange moment because I think it is something that we universally recognize and yet no-one speaks of, nor writes about it:
He was smoking a cigarette. He was conscious of smoking it, of holding it between his fingers, of blowing out the smoke, and this was what was so baffling, so bewildering; he was conscious of everything, he kept on seeing himself without the intermediary of a mirror, he would catch sight of one of his own gestures or attitudes and feel almost certain that he recognized it.
But he searched his memory in vain, he could not picture himself in any similar situation. Especially without his mustache, and wearing a ready-made suit that somebody else had worn!
Even that instinctive movement . . . half turning his head to glance at Julie, in the corner of the compartment, sometimes sitting with eyes closed as though asleep, and sometimes staring straight in front of her as though wrestling with some important problem.
But Julie herself formed part of his memories. He felt no surprise at seeing her there. He recognized her. Perplexed, he resisted the notion of some previous existence.
It's strange because there is so much that I recognise from the Inspector Maigret books; Simenon's character Monsieur Monde, is another version of Maigret; strong, silent, thoughtful, intelligent - and yes the insalubrious, low-class characters, the people of the night are also familiar territory from his detective novels. What strikes the note of difference here is the introspective scenes of memory and dreams, which form the philosophical questioning to this book - this is what changes this story into something quite remarkable.
So Monsieur Monde walks out of his life; his secure, wealthy, high-status life as a Parisian business man and takes the train to Marseilles. In his hotel room, that night by the sea, he overhears a dispute between a young woman, and her lover in the room just opposite. Monde's natural disposition is to help and the following day he cannot leave without checking on her. They lunch in a restaurant of Julie's choice and we hear her story. Monde listens, unsure as to whether his support is still required, but in some way both of them are stranded. Julie does not want to return to the hotel of her recent unpleasant experiences and it is Monsieur Monde who suggests they take the 9 o'clock train to Nice.
I loved their conversations - Julie eager to extricate herself from her dubious background, explaining over and again that she is a nice girl - and in fact that is what she turns out to be. She finds work for herself - as a hostess in one of the gambling dens in Nice, and Monsieur Monde, who takes on the name of Désiré, is a watchman - he literally watches the waiters from behind a partition to ensure there is no funny business. Julie and he return to their hotel at 3 or 4 a.m. after their nights' work. Monde has a cheap attic room, which Julie has procured for him because he has lost the money that he brought from Paris - three hundred thousand francs.
Unfortunately Monde's escape from his dull life is short-lived as he encounters his first wife. She is completely destitute when her wealthy mistress, the Empress dies from an overdose and Thérèse is searched and turned out of her hotel by the police. Monde who has seen her previously in the nightclub where he works, searches for her, when he learns what has happened. The situation worsens, when he discovers she is addicted to morphine. He has no choice but to help her and to do so, he must return to Paris and take up his old-life. Thérèse is the mother of his two children.
That is the whole story, however, there is some remarkable writing and even more significantly there is Simenon's elegant existential questions - who are we? What makes us the person we are and is it possible to shrug this off and re-invent ourselves anew?
I want to share this remarkable description of Monsieur Monde sleeping in the early morning, when he returns from his nightshift in the 'casino'.
Désiré was almost immediately engulfed in sleep; he would first feel himself drop vertically, as though sucked down by an eddy, but it was not unpleasant, he felt no fear, he knew he would not touch bottom; like a cork, he rose up again, not quite surfacing but sinking and rising again, and almost always the same thing went on for hours, slow or sudden alternations between the glaucous emptiness of the depths and that invisible surface above which the world went on living.
The light was the same as that which pervades sheltered coves of the Mediterranean; it was sunlight, he realized, but sunlight diluted, diffused, sometimes broken as through prism, suddenly violet, for instance, or green, the intense green of the legendary, elusive green ray.
Noises reached him as they must reach fishes through water, noises perceived not with the ear but with the whole of one's being, absorbed and assimilated until their meaning may perhaps be completely altered.
I liked this writing for several reasons, firstly because that is exactly how I have slept myself, especially if I was very tired, or for an hour or so during the day, and secondly because the description of Désiré sleeping parallels the structure of his life - "he knew he would not touch bottom..." and "noises perceived . . . with the whole of one's being...". It's as if Monde has entered his essential self.
It is a stunning piece of writing. And there are several other sections in the story which I found just as moving. There is a point when Monde is on the train to Nice and he feels as if he has already lived every moment of what he is perceiving just at that instant. Everything, although extraordinary, in fact feels completely normal. He watches Julie's face through the compartment window as she lifts her eyes to question 'where are we now'? It's a very strange moment because I think it is something that we universally recognize and yet no-one speaks of, nor writes about it:
He was smoking a cigarette. He was conscious of smoking it, of holding it between his fingers, of blowing out the smoke, and this was what was so baffling, so bewildering; he was conscious of everything, he kept on seeing himself without the intermediary of a mirror, he would catch sight of one of his own gestures or attitudes and feel almost certain that he recognized it.
But he searched his memory in vain, he could not picture himself in any similar situation. Especially without his mustache, and wearing a ready-made suit that somebody else had worn!
Even that instinctive movement . . . half turning his head to glance at Julie, in the corner of the compartment, sometimes sitting with eyes closed as though asleep, and sometimes staring straight in front of her as though wrestling with some important problem.
But Julie herself formed part of his memories. He felt no surprise at seeing her there. He recognized her. Perplexed, he resisted the notion of some previous existence.
It's strange because there is so much that I recognise from the Inspector Maigret books; Simenon's character Monsieur Monde, is another version of Maigret; strong, silent, thoughtful, intelligent - and yes the insalubrious, low-class characters, the people of the night are also familiar territory from his detective novels. What strikes the note of difference here is the introspective scenes of memory and dreams, which form the philosophical questioning to this book - this is what changes this story into something quite remarkable.
August 29, 2020
E’ proprio vero quando si dice che andare in vacanza significa staccare con la vita di ogni giorno, spezzarne i ritmi e cercare emozioni e sensazioni nuove. Il signor Norbert Monde che altro fa se non prendersi una vacanza? Una vacanza da titolare della ditta di import export Monde, da uomo sposato e padre di due figli grandi, da un’esistenza grigia, fatta di routine e monotonia, in cui ogni legame affettivo è arido e i rapporti interpersonali sono limitati ad impersonali relazioni. La chiamiamo “fuga”, ma è una fuga inconsapevole, involontaria, -ma non per questo meno determinata-, è un bisogno che ti scoppia dentro, all’improvviso, guardando il cielo azzurro ed i tetti rosa di Parigi, quando non ne puoi più.
Simenon descrive in modo magistrale il male di vivere che riempie l’animo di quest’uomo, che si porta dietro “la sua condizione di uomo come altri si portano addosso una malattia che ignorano”: è proprio la sua condizione di uomo a riportarlo infine, dopo essersi immerso in una vita diversa a contatto con persone che mai avrebbe conosciuto prima, al punto di partenza, inevitabilmente cambiato dalla “vacanza”.
Sono monotona, ma ogni volta mi sembra di trovarmi di fronte a un altro capolavoro di Simenon.
Simenon descrive in modo magistrale il male di vivere che riempie l’animo di quest’uomo, che si porta dietro “la sua condizione di uomo come altri si portano addosso una malattia che ignorano”: è proprio la sua condizione di uomo a riportarlo infine, dopo essersi immerso in una vita diversa a contatto con persone che mai avrebbe conosciuto prima, al punto di partenza, inevitabilmente cambiato dalla “vacanza”.
Sono monotona, ma ogni volta mi sembra di trovarmi di fronte a un altro capolavoro di Simenon.
October 17, 2011
Okay, a quickie review: Monsieur Monde, as the title suggests, vanishes. Except he doesn't really. If he were to vanish, it would imply that we (the readers) stayed behind in the place he vanished from, feeling the effects of his vanishing. But we don't do that. Instead, we travel with him to his new life in Marseilles and then Nice. Why exactly does he leave his wife, children, and job in Paris behind? Simenon hints at some vague, existential responses to this question, but it's probably best to diagnose Monsieur Monde's flight as no more than the product of inner compulsion. He leaves because he must. Yes, of course, we all know that this is self-deception (or what ol' Sartre would call 'bad faith'), but if the deception is effective, it's all the same. There is no other course. Yet oddly enough, Monsieur Monde's new life, populated as it is by whores, drug addicts, and gamblers, isn't really all that different from the old one. Well, it certainly looks different, but his passivity and ambivalence remain the same. At the end, he even runs into a woman from his past, which only goes to prove the inverted proverb: Everything new is old again. So what ultimately comes of his escape from his bourgeois life with all its bourgeois trappings? Perhaps a realization that any given life is its own prison? Or that we only change to the extent that we act as empowered agents of change? (That kind of makes me gag because it sounds like something the Dalai Lama would say while sitting cross-legged on top of a giant rock, but you get what I'm driving at.) But there's a mystery at the heart of Monsieur Monde Vanishes that I don't want entirely dispelled. It isn't a mystery concerned with circumstances, but rather with how we choose to live our lives. And we are always choosing, whether we realize it or not.
September 2, 2020
Οκ, δεν τσίμπησα με την όλη ιστορία του καλομαθημένου πλουσίου που θέλει να ξεφύγει από το χρυσό κλουβί του γιατί καταπιέζεται. Τσιμπάω όμως με τον τρόπο που ο Simenon χτίζει το ψυχολογικό προφίλ του κ. Μορτ, τις μεταπτώσεις του, τις δεύτερες σκέψεις, το καθημερινό σχεδόν ντελίριο όταν έπεφτε για ύπνο, τα φαντάσματα του παρελθόντος του που τον στοίχειωναν, τις σταγόνες ελευθερίας που τον σπρώχνουν να συνεχίσει σε μια ζωή ξένη για αυτόν μετά την φυγή του, ψιχάλες απελευθέρωσης που όταν επιστρέφει πίσω, τον έχουν κάνει άλλον άνθρωπο.
Όντως, οι δακρύβρεχτες ιστορίες καλοθρεμμένων που βαρέθηκαν την μυρωδιά του ροκφόρ και την γεύση της παλιάς σαμπάνιας, είναι τελευταίες στην λίστα των κοινωνικών εξιστορήσεων που θα διαλέξω να μάθω/ακούσω/διαβάσω. Όμως αν το κάνω, θα θέλω να είναι τόσο εξαιρετικά δοσμένες, τόσο αφοπλιστικά ειλικρινείς, τόσο γοητευτικά ρεαλιστικές, όσο αυτές της πένας του Σιμενόν. Η αρχική ιδέα της ιστορίας με άφησε ασυγκίνητο, η εκτέλεση της όμως με πήρε από το χέρι.
Από Σιμενόν: Νουάρ - κοινωνικό, σημειώσατε για ακόμη μια φορά διπλό.
Όντως, οι δακρύβρεχτες ιστορίες καλοθρεμμένων που βαρέθηκαν την μυρωδιά του ροκφόρ και την γεύση της παλιάς σαμπάνιας, είναι τελευταίες στην λίστα των κοινωνικών εξιστορήσεων που θα διαλέξω να μάθω/ακούσω/διαβάσω. Όμως αν το κάνω, θα θέλω να είναι τόσο εξαιρετικά δοσμένες, τόσο αφοπλιστικά ειλικρινείς, τόσο γοητευτικά ρεαλιστικές, όσο αυτές της πένας του Σιμενόν. Η αρχική ιδέα της ιστορίας με άφησε ασυγκίνητο, η εκτέλεση της όμως με πήρε από το χέρι.
Από Σιμενόν: Νουάρ - κοινωνικό, σημειώσατε για ακόμη μια φορά διπλό.
July 8, 2022
3.5
Suddenly, and without telling anyone, a successful middle-aged Parisian businessman leaves his family.
At fifty pages in I thought this was going to be the book that was going to enlighten me as to the appeal of Simenon. There’s an intriguing opening as Madame Monde finally reports her husband’s vanishing – 3 days after the event; then, on page 10 comes an interesting change of tack from where you thought the novel was possibly heading. But unfortunately from Chapter 4 onwards the book begins displaying the issues that I’ve had with previous Simenon books. A lack of consistency. I’m drawn in one moment, only to be lost the next by some incredibly dull passage, but then pulled back from a point of drooping eyelids by a sharp piece of observation, perceptive thought, or simply a return to the narrative that sometimes feels like it’s been forgotten.
Chapter 7 opens wonderfully with a description of a morning:-
Désiré slept under a sloping attic roof. The skylight stood open. Birds were bickering along the ledge, and lorries from far afield were rattling past in the streets below, converging on the flower market; the sounds travelled so clearly through the thin air that one could almost smell the stacks of mimosa and carnations.
I’m there. And it goes on in similar vein for a few paragraphs. But you know that not too far away Simenon will strip his prose to the - overly so in my humble opinion - bare minimum. He was proud of the fact that he would cut beautiful sentences, stating that they should not draw attention to themselves. A surprise that he left the above description in! Regarding the flatness, I have said before with the Maigret novels, just because we are following the events of a life that has become mundane, doesn’t mean that the writing has to follow suit. Passages in Simenon are sometimes so mind-numbingly dull that I’ve gone back – often three times – to reread. And lo and behold, frequently buried there is a key plot issue. For the life of me, I completely missed the moment where Monde meets an important character from his past. Patrick Hamilton wrote of such characters and situations, but you won’t find many a dull sentence in any of his best works.
I would say that I found the two non-Maigret books that I’ve read (the other being ‘The Venice Train’) more interesting than the two with Maigret. So, although I won’t be rushing back, it’s to a non-Maigret that I'll probably go when giving Simenon another shot.
The most fascinating thing here was that the actual copy of the book I read has been floating around the Swansea Libraries system since 1968! Which is quite a feat, as most new library books these days seem to have a shelf life of little more than five years, before being cast off into history with a ‘WITHDRAWN’ stamp and sold off in the corner for 50 pence. Its retention is presumably because it is looked upon as a classic. So much for my view! Now I could carp on here over why there’s a dozen Anne Perry’s I can’t get a hold of (including some relatively recent ones), and not a sign will I find of many of the great hard-boiled writers; but I’m not going to, because Swansea’s library service is generally pretty damn good. My local in Oystermouth has a wonderfully friendly staff compliment, and Swansea's central library has a coffee shop with a beautiful view over the bay where I have spent many a happy hour supping, reading, writing and gazing over the view. Long may the library services go on… [Which, yaaawn, is about as political as I'll ever get on here!].
Suddenly, and without telling anyone, a successful middle-aged Parisian businessman leaves his family.
At fifty pages in I thought this was going to be the book that was going to enlighten me as to the appeal of Simenon. There’s an intriguing opening as Madame Monde finally reports her husband’s vanishing – 3 days after the event; then, on page 10 comes an interesting change of tack from where you thought the novel was possibly heading. But unfortunately from Chapter 4 onwards the book begins displaying the issues that I’ve had with previous Simenon books. A lack of consistency. I’m drawn in one moment, only to be lost the next by some incredibly dull passage, but then pulled back from a point of drooping eyelids by a sharp piece of observation, perceptive thought, or simply a return to the narrative that sometimes feels like it’s been forgotten.
Chapter 7 opens wonderfully with a description of a morning:-
Désiré slept under a sloping attic roof. The skylight stood open. Birds were bickering along the ledge, and lorries from far afield were rattling past in the streets below, converging on the flower market; the sounds travelled so clearly through the thin air that one could almost smell the stacks of mimosa and carnations.
I’m there. And it goes on in similar vein for a few paragraphs. But you know that not too far away Simenon will strip his prose to the - overly so in my humble opinion - bare minimum. He was proud of the fact that he would cut beautiful sentences, stating that they should not draw attention to themselves. A surprise that he left the above description in! Regarding the flatness, I have said before with the Maigret novels, just because we are following the events of a life that has become mundane, doesn’t mean that the writing has to follow suit. Passages in Simenon are sometimes so mind-numbingly dull that I’ve gone back – often three times – to reread. And lo and behold, frequently buried there is a key plot issue. For the life of me, I completely missed the moment where Monde meets an important character from his past. Patrick Hamilton wrote of such characters and situations, but you won’t find many a dull sentence in any of his best works.
I would say that I found the two non-Maigret books that I’ve read (the other being ‘The Venice Train’) more interesting than the two with Maigret. So, although I won’t be rushing back, it’s to a non-Maigret that I'll probably go when giving Simenon another shot.
The most fascinating thing here was that the actual copy of the book I read has been floating around the Swansea Libraries system since 1968! Which is quite a feat, as most new library books these days seem to have a shelf life of little more than five years, before being cast off into history with a ‘WITHDRAWN’ stamp and sold off in the corner for 50 pence. Its retention is presumably because it is looked upon as a classic. So much for my view! Now I could carp on here over why there’s a dozen Anne Perry’s I can’t get a hold of (including some relatively recent ones), and not a sign will I find of many of the great hard-boiled writers; but I’m not going to, because Swansea’s library service is generally pretty damn good. My local in Oystermouth has a wonderfully friendly staff compliment, and Swansea's central library has a coffee shop with a beautiful view over the bay where I have spent many a happy hour supping, reading, writing and gazing over the view. Long may the library services go on… [Which, yaaawn, is about as political as I'll ever get on here!].
December 5, 2021
Il tema della fuga come fuga da se stessi, dai propri demoni e dalle convenzioni e' stato affrontato diverse volte da Simenon (ad esempio nel superbo "Cargo") e declinato in varie epoche e latitudini (in questo caso probabilmente non al massimo livello). Anche il signor Monde si illude che basti abbandonare casa, famiglia e lavoro per raggiungere un'agognata e mai chiarita liberta'. Alcune pagine sono di un lirismo e di una verita' stupefacenti.
January 22, 2012
I am beginning to see why Anita Brookner and so many others--the introduction here is by Larry McMurtry--love Georges Simenon so much. He is an exemplar of the spare style. This comes across quite well in translation since much of what he writes about is concrete: acts and things, showing versus telling. Though Simenon does have his philosophical flights, they are usually brief. Sartre he isn't, thank goodness. The storyline is simple: a Parisian businessman, fed up with life, drops out of sight, vanishes. The adventure he then has marks him in a way not entirely expected. The following is a cliché said about certain writers but here it is also true. One feels that Simenon does not waste a single word. Everything works harmoniously. He upends expectations, surprises and excites. He entertains. Apparently, he would write about six or seven such books per year. In a bad year only two or three. ; )
July 23, 2013
There are certain authors one returns to like old friends. In their novels one finds the landscape and terrain that feel like home. Graham Greene is one such author for me, as are Henning Mankell and Daphne Du Maurier. Georges Simenon with his romans durs feels like another of my most trusted friends and companions.
I read Monsieur Monde Vanishes after having started it a year or so ago and putting it aside--not in the right mood at the time--and felt immediately at home, deliciously so. The novel is compelling, as always, and also quietly unsettling.
In contemporary fiction often it is the wife who sheds her family and former life. We spend the novel searching for her with her husband, or we spend it with her left-behind family as they try their best to move on without her. In Simenon's novels of the 1950's it is the well-respected businessman and husband, father and bourgeois citizen, who makes a break with his comfortable life to dig deeper in the underworld. Often a crime is what plunges him into that world and makes the break for him. Here there is no crime: M. Monde withdraws a sum of money, buys a second hand suit to change into and takes the train for parts south. He is inexorably drawn to the sea (we glimpse it at various times in the novel) but it is more of distant lure than an acknowledged desire. He takes up with a woman who's been abandoned by her lover on the train. The two, more partners and friends than lovers (though they have sex, they do not succumb to obsessive desire and jealousy that lovers often do), restart daily life & routine in Marseilles among the dance halls, gambling parlors, seedy hotels. M. Monde finds a place for himself in this world (with a new name) until someone from his past surfaces and he feels compelled to act.
M. Monde is not passive; he seems sure about what he wants and what he must do, but neither is he driven by the torment and obsession we see in other Simenon novels. His is a quieter desperation and his solution, his newfound milieu, is interesting and unexpected. The ending comes as a surprise (to me, at least) and is cause for the unsettling nature of the novel. M. Monde is not afraid to confront himself and his ghosts. His is a quiet bravery. One feels great affection and sympathy for him, making this one of my very favorite Simenon novels.
I read Monsieur Monde Vanishes after having started it a year or so ago and putting it aside--not in the right mood at the time--and felt immediately at home, deliciously so. The novel is compelling, as always, and also quietly unsettling.
In contemporary fiction often it is the wife who sheds her family and former life. We spend the novel searching for her with her husband, or we spend it with her left-behind family as they try their best to move on without her. In Simenon's novels of the 1950's it is the well-respected businessman and husband, father and bourgeois citizen, who makes a break with his comfortable life to dig deeper in the underworld. Often a crime is what plunges him into that world and makes the break for him. Here there is no crime: M. Monde withdraws a sum of money, buys a second hand suit to change into and takes the train for parts south. He is inexorably drawn to the sea (we glimpse it at various times in the novel) but it is more of distant lure than an acknowledged desire. He takes up with a woman who's been abandoned by her lover on the train. The two, more partners and friends than lovers (though they have sex, they do not succumb to obsessive desire and jealousy that lovers often do), restart daily life & routine in Marseilles among the dance halls, gambling parlors, seedy hotels. M. Monde finds a place for himself in this world (with a new name) until someone from his past surfaces and he feels compelled to act.
M. Monde is not passive; he seems sure about what he wants and what he must do, but neither is he driven by the torment and obsession we see in other Simenon novels. His is a quieter desperation and his solution, his newfound milieu, is interesting and unexpected. The ending comes as a surprise (to me, at least) and is cause for the unsettling nature of the novel. M. Monde is not afraid to confront himself and his ghosts. His is a quiet bravery. One feels great affection and sympathy for him, making this one of my very favorite Simenon novels.
August 17, 2011
"I will go my way. For instance, all the critics for twenty years have said the same thing: “It is time for Simenon to give us a big novel, a novel with twenty or thirty characters.” They do not understand. I will never write a big novel. My big novel is the mosaic of all my small novels."
- Georges Simenon
Never Say Never
Simenon's vast output of Maigret detective titles never appealed to me, but the non-formula mysteries always have. There seems to be some kind of comfort zone, for authors, of continuing-character mystery series-- that contrarily allows the non-series ones to shine. The comfort-zone does little for the novel itself, beyond being ingratiating to the reader. Something more difficult, original and risky about striking out into untested waters.
The Maigret books always seemed so prosaic and a bit boring, all the cleverness clamped down under a bit of circumstantial coincidence or a knowing turn of phrase. Once released from the outlines of a series detective, an author-- certainly Simenon-- is forced to show the origins, the works, the whole machine coming to life.
After a few of the Un-Maigret crime novels, and a few of the "psychological" novels or romans durs (which intersect, of course)-- it occurs to me that the subtlety and nuance involved here may just spur a revisit to those banal, nothing-happening Maigret titles after all.
Feasible, Plausible, Logical Even
In the L'Étranger style of the day, Monsieur Monde is a novel of dense, glacially dynamic surfaces that conceal existential conflict. Unlike the Camus novel, though, here we have a discourse on the easy life, the settled and uneventful trappings of the upper middle class. Morphing into a first-person account of the shapes & colors of bourgeois discontent and self-loathing, perhaps typical of the era as well, but leading to a visit to the underworld.
The reasons for the move, the hinge points, are various and banal indeed. But there is something of a universal quality to the weighing-up of the alternatives, the what-if and what-next questions, that drive the decision from below the surface.
Most interesting about the second phase, where M.Monde has landed in an entirely different swirl of narrative-- is that the outlook doesn't change even with the descent into the depths. This isn't the brain-numbingly familiar dangerous-equals-fascination equation we've seen so many times. Rather, the quietly introspective Monsieur continues a quest for meaning that already existed in the respectable world, albeit with much more interesting backgrounds.
Simenon is determined not to betray his main character with some trash-novel change-of-heart nonsense; that's for best-sellers and christmas classics with Mr. Magoo. I want to say this is the crux of this little book, a kind of battle between first principles and absolute doubt, but ... I'm not sure.
Mysterious
For me, the Un-Maigrets and the Psychologicals have been way more intriguing than the average police procedural because they are an attempt to bridge the idea of Mystery Novel with just-plain Novel.
I know my review here isn't too specific or focussed; but there is a lot going on, as mentioned, under that apparently calm & composed surface. And I don't have a handle on what's really being measured, so I'll just leave it that I intend on adding a Non-Maigret-Psych-Simenon each month or so to my reading stack, at least until I start to get the lay of the land... then maybe an attempt on the Mountain Of Maigret looming in the distance. Although right now, I'm thinking the path is through the forest below and not up the Mountain ....
- Georges Simenon
Never Say Never
Simenon's vast output of Maigret detective titles never appealed to me, but the non-formula mysteries always have. There seems to be some kind of comfort zone, for authors, of continuing-character mystery series-- that contrarily allows the non-series ones to shine. The comfort-zone does little for the novel itself, beyond being ingratiating to the reader. Something more difficult, original and risky about striking out into untested waters.
The Maigret books always seemed so prosaic and a bit boring, all the cleverness clamped down under a bit of circumstantial coincidence or a knowing turn of phrase. Once released from the outlines of a series detective, an author-- certainly Simenon-- is forced to show the origins, the works, the whole machine coming to life.
After a few of the Un-Maigret crime novels, and a few of the "psychological" novels or romans durs (which intersect, of course)-- it occurs to me that the subtlety and nuance involved here may just spur a revisit to those banal, nothing-happening Maigret titles after all.
Feasible, Plausible, Logical Even
In the L'Étranger style of the day, Monsieur Monde is a novel of dense, glacially dynamic surfaces that conceal existential conflict. Unlike the Camus novel, though, here we have a discourse on the easy life, the settled and uneventful trappings of the upper middle class. Morphing into a first-person account of the shapes & colors of bourgeois discontent and self-loathing, perhaps typical of the era as well, but leading to a visit to the underworld.
The reasons for the move, the hinge points, are various and banal indeed. But there is something of a universal quality to the weighing-up of the alternatives, the what-if and what-next questions, that drive the decision from below the surface.
Most interesting about the second phase, where M.Monde has landed in an entirely different swirl of narrative-- is that the outlook doesn't change even with the descent into the depths. This isn't the brain-numbingly familiar dangerous-equals-fascination equation we've seen so many times. Rather, the quietly introspective Monsieur continues a quest for meaning that already existed in the respectable world, albeit with much more interesting backgrounds.
Simenon is determined not to betray his main character with some trash-novel change-of-heart nonsense; that's for best-sellers and christmas classics with Mr. Magoo. I want to say this is the crux of this little book, a kind of battle between first principles and absolute doubt, but ... I'm not sure.
Mysterious
For me, the Un-Maigrets and the Psychologicals have been way more intriguing than the average police procedural because they are an attempt to bridge the idea of Mystery Novel with just-plain Novel.
I know my review here isn't too specific or focussed; but there is a lot going on, as mentioned, under that apparently calm & composed surface. And I don't have a handle on what's really being measured, so I'll just leave it that I intend on adding a Non-Maigret-Psych-Simenon each month or so to my reading stack, at least until I start to get the lay of the land... then maybe an attempt on the Mountain Of Maigret looming in the distance. Although right now, I'm thinking the path is through the forest below and not up the Mountain ....
March 4, 2020
Η ιστορία του Μοντ που αποφάσισε να αφήσει την δουλειά του την οικογένεια του και να ζήσει μακρυά από όλους και όλα γιατί απλά είχε βαρεθεί. Θα φθάσει στην Μασσαλία όπου εκει θα συναντήσει διαφορά άτομα και ζήσει διαφορές περιπέτειες. Ο Μοντ έκανε την επανάσταση του!! Πόσοι άνθρωποι δεν θα ήθελαν το ίδιο!!
March 12, 2012
My first Simenon, and what a disappointment. It feels less like a novel of existential discourse, but more an exercise in existential padding. After a wonderful opening where the main character, M. Monde (a wealthy, ritualized man of mild tastes) breaks his everyday mode, goes to the barber and shaves off his mustache before embarking on an aimless journey to the south of France. He meets people along the way, but nothing Simenon does paints these figures as interesting - despite the odd observation that paints a memorable, standalone image. I don't mind languid, but this novel lingers uninspired on the boring side.
I'm not going to give up on Simenon, but this short novel could have worked as a ten page short, or possibly, as a bigger more absorbing novel. As it moves into Monde's new identity, there's nothing to it, and while some descriptions are wonderfully sublime (one comparing his desire to sleep as a cork rising up through dark waters to float on top of a conscious state is especially remarkable), there are sloppy transitions of present to past, choppy descriptions of the world around him, and flaccid characters spewing some flaccid dialogue, especially at the end when Monde encounters a woman of his past. Grit-less, tepid.
I'm not going to give up on Simenon, but this short novel could have worked as a ten page short, or possibly, as a bigger more absorbing novel. As it moves into Monde's new identity, there's nothing to it, and while some descriptions are wonderfully sublime (one comparing his desire to sleep as a cork rising up through dark waters to float on top of a conscious state is especially remarkable), there are sloppy transitions of present to past, choppy descriptions of the world around him, and flaccid characters spewing some flaccid dialogue, especially at the end when Monde encounters a woman of his past. Grit-less, tepid.
August 7, 2015
Mister Humdrum's Holiday. MMV is about a company heir who bails on his job, family and straight life to venture down a backalley world of thugs, junkies, whores, etc. Of course he falls for a cheap, shallow slut half his age. Maybe I would have been more game for this kind of tale if I hadn't read Laughter In The Dark so recently, but no, that's not it.
Monde has no personality, the dark underworld never really bleeds across the page, even the horses don't get frightened much. Nothing stands out or reaches any level of intensity. Dial M for Mediocre.
Monde has no personality, the dark underworld never really bleeds across the page, even the horses don't get frightened much. Nothing stands out or reaches any level of intensity. Dial M for Mediocre.
April 2, 2022
I saw some mentions of this being noir & I suppose it is, in a way. (It's also a bit blatantly obvious about the main character's "everyman" status since he is named named "Monsieur Monde".) The everyman here is a rich & successful businessman who walks away from his Parisian life one day, just disappearing from work & home life. A short time later he resurfaces in Nice, living with a pseudonym, a lower class job, mingling with "regular" people, living a "regular" life. While there are some deeper philosophical & psychological musings to be made, they aren't made in the novel itself as it is a fairly straight retelling of Monde's actions day to day & not much more. Overall, the book was fine, but Monde had such a flat affect as a character that I never felt fully pulled into his journey. True to its everyman status, it is a book I neither disliked nor loved, a squarely okay novel about which I mostly feel ambivalent.
March 15, 2015
Fuggire per capire che fuggire non si può. Possono non piacerti le ‘carte’ che ti sono capitate in sorte nella ‘smazzata’ della vita, ma con quelle devi giocare. Basta saperlo. O meglio, averne la consapevolezza.
Poi non è che ti sentirai meglio, a dire il vero, ma almeno non vivrai di rimpianti “come un cardellino accecato”. E, forse, qualcosa di buono ci potrai ancora cavare da questa esistenza. Ma magari anche no. Chissà. Il simbolo del punto interrogativo è quel che meglio descrive l’essenza della vita.
E’ questo il “male di vivere”.
Poi non è che ti sentirai meglio, a dire il vero, ma almeno non vivrai di rimpianti “come un cardellino accecato”. E, forse, qualcosa di buono ci potrai ancora cavare da questa esistenza. Ma magari anche no. Chissà. Il simbolo del punto interrogativo è quel che meglio descrive l’essenza della vita.
E’ questo il “male di vivere”.
August 7, 2017
Come se ce ne fosse bisogno, ancora una volta Simenon dimostra di saper scrivere. Qui, come in altri romanzi, costruisce magistralmente, su una trama scarna, un mirabile ordito di analisi psicologica e di tratteggio dei personaggi.
July 10, 2011
I was a Maigret fan three years back; now, after my fifth of Simenon's 'romans durs', I'm a fully paid-up Simenon fan.
This is the story of a tightly-reined man who, in his 48th year, finally gives in to his urge to taste life on the wrong side of the tracks. What follows isn't a debauch but a strangely sombre descent into the abyss.
Monsieur Monde is the rare Maigret protagonist who returns from that descent. Read this slim, indelible novel to find out how and why.
This is the story of a tightly-reined man who, in his 48th year, finally gives in to his urge to taste life on the wrong side of the tracks. What follows isn't a debauch but a strangely sombre descent into the abyss.
Monsieur Monde is the rare Maigret protagonist who returns from that descent. Read this slim, indelible novel to find out how and why.
January 4, 2020
Everyone deserves a vacation.
From time to time he frowned. The stare of his pale eyes became more intense. These were the only visible signs of his anguish, and yet at such moments he felt out of his depth, and if he had not retained a certain self-respect he would have been capable of tapping the shiny walls of the compartment to make sure they really existed.
He was in a train once more, a train that had the special smell of all night trains.
February 28, 2016
Η ιστορία ενός ανθρώπου που τα παρατάει όλα οικογένεια,φίλους και δουλειά γιατί βαρέθηκε,κουράστηκε,επαναστάτησε και ήθελε λίγο να ζήσει κάτι διαφορετικό απ'τη ρουτίνα της ζωής του.Ο Σιμενόν όπως σε κάθε βιβλίο του είναι μοναδικός (τουλάχιστον για μένα)
May 10, 2014
The editors for New York Review of Books are the worst. In the previous Simenon book I read ("The Widow"), Paul Theroux writes an unremarkable introduction that (1) ruins the plot and (2) compares the book to Camus' "The Stranger." Having learned my lesson, I skipped the introduction to "Monsieur Monde Vanishes," saving it for after I finished the book. I'm glad I did. Larry McMurtry, like Theroux, ruins a key part of the plot (although not nearly as much as Theroux does) and compares the book to "The Stranger." I feel like these introductions exist solely to add a famous author's name to a (now) lesser-known author's book. Kind of annoying.
I found "Monsieur Monde Vanishes" to be entertaining, but forgettable. It's not as dark as the other Simenon books I've read, but also not as gripping. I think I like Simenon more when he's writing about bad people committing sinister acts. Still, it's an interesting change.
Simenon seems to hint at some existential angst in "Monsieur Monde Vanishes." The title character, unsatisfied with his comfortable life, leaves it completely. Monsieur Monde doesn't explain his reasons, but suggests just a general need for change and perspective. The act is selfish--Monde "disappears" and his family assumes he has died. But, as a disappeared man, Monde repeatedly acts for others--he saves a young woman's life and helps his ex-wife get back on her feet.
Maybe taking time off from our seemingly fixed lives can, as with Monsieur Monde, make us better people? In "Monsieur Monde Vanishes," Simenon suggests as much. It's a simplistic argument, but Simeon, as always, conveys it through an entertaining story.
I found "Monsieur Monde Vanishes" to be entertaining, but forgettable. It's not as dark as the other Simenon books I've read, but also not as gripping. I think I like Simenon more when he's writing about bad people committing sinister acts. Still, it's an interesting change.
Simenon seems to hint at some existential angst in "Monsieur Monde Vanishes." The title character, unsatisfied with his comfortable life, leaves it completely. Monsieur Monde doesn't explain his reasons, but suggests just a general need for change and perspective. The act is selfish--Monde "disappears" and his family assumes he has died. But, as a disappeared man, Monde repeatedly acts for others--he saves a young woman's life and helps his ex-wife get back on her feet.
Maybe taking time off from our seemingly fixed lives can, as with Monsieur Monde, make us better people? In "Monsieur Monde Vanishes," Simenon suggests as much. It's a simplistic argument, but Simeon, as always, conveys it through an entertaining story.
June 18, 2012
!...era ormai come una cariatide finalmente libera del suo fardello."
Il sig. Monde fa quello che forse ognuno di noi ha sognato di fare almeno una volta nella vita. Lui desiderava farlo da quando aveva diciotto anni, ma ha sempre rimandato, quasi non fosse il momento giusto. Ora invece, il giorno del suo quarantottesimo compleanno, non può più fingere di non sentire quel richiamo, deve sparire, dileguarsi, fuggire dalla quotidianità. Vivere una vita diversa, anonima, con un'altra identità. Perdersi fra la gente che non sa, osservare le loro vite senza essere notato. E più di tutto, il sig. Monde vuole vedere il mare: “era corso lì da lontano, era corso verso il mare sconfinato e azzurro, più vivo di qualsiasi creatura, anima della terra, anima del mondo, respirava placido accanto a lui” e vuole raccontare al mare “della sua stanchezza infinita, del suo lungo viaggio di uomo”. A Marsiglia incontra una donna che non gli chiede nulla e vive con lei giornate diverse. Ma poi qualcuno torna dal suo passato: una donna che lo aveva lasciato, e che ora conduce una vita miserevole, distrutta nel corpo e dipendente dalla morfina. L'incontro sarà foriero del ritorno del sig. Monde alla sua vera identità, alla sua azienda, alla sua famiglia. Tornerà cambiato, “senza più fantasmi, né ombre”, ora “egli guarda la gente negli occhi con fredda serenità”.
Il sig. Monde fa quello che forse ognuno di noi ha sognato di fare almeno una volta nella vita. Lui desiderava farlo da quando aveva diciotto anni, ma ha sempre rimandato, quasi non fosse il momento giusto. Ora invece, il giorno del suo quarantottesimo compleanno, non può più fingere di non sentire quel richiamo, deve sparire, dileguarsi, fuggire dalla quotidianità. Vivere una vita diversa, anonima, con un'altra identità. Perdersi fra la gente che non sa, osservare le loro vite senza essere notato. E più di tutto, il sig. Monde vuole vedere il mare: “era corso lì da lontano, era corso verso il mare sconfinato e azzurro, più vivo di qualsiasi creatura, anima della terra, anima del mondo, respirava placido accanto a lui” e vuole raccontare al mare “della sua stanchezza infinita, del suo lungo viaggio di uomo”. A Marsiglia incontra una donna che non gli chiede nulla e vive con lei giornate diverse. Ma poi qualcuno torna dal suo passato: una donna che lo aveva lasciato, e che ora conduce una vita miserevole, distrutta nel corpo e dipendente dalla morfina. L'incontro sarà foriero del ritorno del sig. Monde alla sua vera identità, alla sua azienda, alla sua famiglia. Tornerà cambiato, “senza più fantasmi, né ombre”, ora “egli guarda la gente negli occhi con fredda serenità”.
November 30, 2018
There’s a peculiar addictiveness to Simenon’s romans dur novels that I find it difficult to explain. At the time of reading them I don’t find them especially significant but I do keep going back to them. This is a really good example of them.
Simenon catches the reader off guard almost straight away. Madame Monde arrives at her local Parisian police station, “I have come to tell you that my husband has disappeared.”. But very soon the action switches to Monsieur Monde’s story and stays with him. This isn’t a detective story, rather one of suspense.
Involving three women, all at some stage linked romantically to Monde, I suspect there is an element of the autobiographical in the story. It also asks the question that in just a day, can you change your life completely, can you escape? The wealthy Monde takes only his small bag with him to the south, but without knowing it, has he brought the old life with him as well? Is the grass on the other side of the fence necessarily greener?
It did cross my mind that this sort of Simenon may be overrated, but I soon pooh-poohed that idea when I realised I was looking forward so much to the next one...
Simenon catches the reader off guard almost straight away. Madame Monde arrives at her local Parisian police station, “I have come to tell you that my husband has disappeared.”. But very soon the action switches to Monsieur Monde’s story and stays with him. This isn’t a detective story, rather one of suspense.
Involving three women, all at some stage linked romantically to Monde, I suspect there is an element of the autobiographical in the story. It also asks the question that in just a day, can you change your life completely, can you escape? The wealthy Monde takes only his small bag with him to the south, but without knowing it, has he brought the old life with him as well? Is the grass on the other side of the fence necessarily greener?
It did cross my mind that this sort of Simenon may be overrated, but I soon pooh-poohed that idea when I realised I was looking forward so much to the next one...
November 29, 2008
A very satisfying read, somehow reminding me of Graham Greene's Tenth Man. Driven by obligations and by routine, not aware of any clear choices he's ever made of of his own desires and goals, with everything in his life set up by others, Monsieur Monde, without forethought, decides to escape his comfortable but confining life and try on a new existence. I ended up oddly inspired.
This book raises many questions, but one that comes to mind is, when was the last time you weren't hiding from yourself?
I can't say I respect Simenon's characterization of women (though I wasn't surprised after learning he'd boasted of sleeping with 10,000 women), but I do respect his writing. And yes, his sentences do become less tedious.
****************************************************************
Me: "Ugh, this guy is so his annoying. His sentences go on forever."
Frank: "Who're you reading?"
Me: "Simenon."
(I show him my book, he looks at bookmark at bottom of page)
Frank: "How much have you read?"
Me: "Two sentences."
This book raises many questions, but one that comes to mind is, when was the last time you weren't hiding from yourself?
I can't say I respect Simenon's characterization of women (though I wasn't surprised after learning he'd boasted of sleeping with 10,000 women), but I do respect his writing. And yes, his sentences do become less tedious.
****************************************************************
Me: "Ugh, this guy is so his annoying. His sentences go on forever."
Frank: "Who're you reading?"
Me: "Simenon."
(I show him my book, he looks at bookmark at bottom of page)
Frank: "How much have you read?"
Me: "Two sentences."
November 29, 2012
I've found a new author. Well, he's not so "new", since he started publishing in the early 1930s and has been dead for a dozen years, but I've never read him before. For those of you who are mystery lovers, perhaps you know him as the author of the 75 novels that comprise the Commissaire Maigret series. There are also another 150 (or so) novels, of which Monsieur Monde is one.
I was lulled into a sense of ease from the beginning, thinking this was a light novel of not much consequence. Apparently his prose will do that to you. Don't get me wrong - this is well-written with an interesting enough vocabulary and sentence structure. He's sort of matter of fact here, and I didn't feel my brain was going to be confronted.
The story continues, though, and the characterization becomes more complex, as does the story. We know Monsieur Monde runs off - I can read the title. Why is told in the early chapters. What happens to complete the characterization of Norbert Monde is thought provoking.
I was lulled into a sense of ease from the beginning, thinking this was a light novel of not much consequence. Apparently his prose will do that to you. Don't get me wrong - this is well-written with an interesting enough vocabulary and sentence structure. He's sort of matter of fact here, and I didn't feel my brain was going to be confronted.
The story continues, though, and the characterization becomes more complex, as does the story. We know Monsieur Monde runs off - I can read the title. Why is told in the early chapters. What happens to complete the characterization of Norbert Monde is thought provoking.
June 21, 2019
Prigioniero da troppo tempo, il signor Monde decide - così, all'improvviso - di aprire la porta della sua gabbia dorata e di uscir nella brughiera di mattina dove non si vede a un passo: per ritrovar se stesso, prima di tutto, e per provare, una buona volta, il brivido sconosciuto della libertà. Uomo nuovo, potrà poi - semmai - anche tornare.
May 7, 2022
3.5 stars
I kept thinking of what Graham Greene would have done with this novel. It surely wouldn't have ended the same; in his world (the real world, not Simenon's fantasy world), the man would only have risen above his angst in death.
I kept thinking of what Graham Greene would have done with this novel. It surely wouldn't have ended the same; in his world (the real world, not Simenon's fantasy world), the man would only have risen above his angst in death.
December 31, 2012
Monsieur Monde Vanishes was first published as La Fuite de Monsieur Monde in 1952. It was translated into English by Jean Stewart. The novel begins like a Maigret novel, with a depiction of a Paris police station. Ill-lit, grimy, a waiting room of working class people waiting to fill out identity forms, Simenon presents the bureaucratic side of police work here. Into this drab environment sweeps an arrogant, self-centered woman, Madame Monde, reporting the disappearance of her husband Norbert. In his delineation of Madame Monde Simenon adroitly both sets the atmosphere, and states the man’s problem. Monsieur Monde is the owner and manager of a successful export business, the fourth generation of his family to hold this position. He, it becomes clear, is both very able and very conscientious, and feels responsible as well, for those, family and employees, in his care. He has let himself become over the years a prisoner of his responsibilities. Unlike his father, who led an irresponsible, self-indulgent life which almost bankrupted the family firm, Norbert is disciplined, hard working and successful. On his 48th birthday (Simenon was 48 when he wrote the book) he does a kind of summing up, propelled to do this by the fact that no-one has remembered his birthday but himself. He has divorced his first wife, shocked by her lack of a moral sense, and married again, primarily out of regard for his two young children. His second wife, he has discovered, is one of those persons entirely taken up with her own wants and needs, and arrogantly dismissive of everyone who cannot share this obsession with her. Monsieur Monde considerately accedes to her wishes, defers to her demands, and yet earns her contempt. His daughter has married, lives with her husband in her family’s home, and has little contact with her father but to ask for money. His son, who has failed to do anything with his life, has been taken on in the family firm. It gradually becomes clear to Monsieur Monde, that while he loves his son unselfishly, the boy is, like his wife, self-obsessed, and effeminate as well, earning the contempt of his fellow workers by making sexual advances to a teenage truck driver, although ineffectually. The effort to care for others has only succeeded in attracting to Monsieur Monde a group of selfish, self-obsessed exploiters. He longs for release from this pressure, which is a constant challenge to his rather idealistic morality. He decides to leave it all behind, to just walk away, to vanish. He’s intelligent, and competent, and does so successfully.
Poor Monsieur Monde! He wants to run away from all this effort, to be carefree, to just exist, but he can’t run away from his own nature. In the seedy hotel in Nice where he ends up, he hears a quarrel in the adjoining room, hears a man leave in anger, hears a woman in hysterics, and goes in to offer aid. The woman has taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and Norbert calls a doctor. Slowly he gets involved in the woman’s life. They become lovers. Simenon draws an astonishingly concise and evocative picture of this woman’s whole life in a few paragraphs. Unlike Norbert’s wife, Julie has few expectations, illusions or inhibitions. Precisely because she does not expect Norbert to care for her or stay with her weakens the bond between them. The two remain friends and occasional lovers, but in the life Julie has led, men don’t stay around for long. And so when Norbert stumbles across his first wife, now living a drug addicted bohemian life and facing destitution, he begins to care for her, loses touch with Julie, and soon finds himself in his usual role of carer.
But Monsieur Monde is an intelligent man. He soon becomes aware of the pattern in his own life. This is something he cannot run away from. The awareness changes him profoundly. Instead of a life made up of well meant good intentions, it has become apparent to him that all people have needs, and that some people have needs that can never be satisfied. He is aware what a terrible thing this is. At the end of the book, when he has returned to his life in Paris, he is a colder, more disillusioned man, but a more accepting man as well, able to deal efficiently with other people’s limitations as he had never been before.
Poor Monsieur Monde! He wants to run away from all this effort, to be carefree, to just exist, but he can’t run away from his own nature. In the seedy hotel in Nice where he ends up, he hears a quarrel in the adjoining room, hears a man leave in anger, hears a woman in hysterics, and goes in to offer aid. The woman has taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and Norbert calls a doctor. Slowly he gets involved in the woman’s life. They become lovers. Simenon draws an astonishingly concise and evocative picture of this woman’s whole life in a few paragraphs. Unlike Norbert’s wife, Julie has few expectations, illusions or inhibitions. Precisely because she does not expect Norbert to care for her or stay with her weakens the bond between them. The two remain friends and occasional lovers, but in the life Julie has led, men don’t stay around for long. And so when Norbert stumbles across his first wife, now living a drug addicted bohemian life and facing destitution, he begins to care for her, loses touch with Julie, and soon finds himself in his usual role of carer.
But Monsieur Monde is an intelligent man. He soon becomes aware of the pattern in his own life. This is something he cannot run away from. The awareness changes him profoundly. Instead of a life made up of well meant good intentions, it has become apparent to him that all people have needs, and that some people have needs that can never be satisfied. He is aware what a terrible thing this is. At the end of the book, when he has returned to his life in Paris, he is a colder, more disillusioned man, but a more accepting man as well, able to deal efficiently with other people’s limitations as he had never been before.
March 20, 2016
I am writing this short review before I have really thought through all of my complex reactions to the work, but "Monsieur Monde Vanishes" seems at first blush to be a little masterpiece of existential angst, alienation, and ultimate resolution. Monsieur Monde, a man in his late forties who has passively let his life happen to him, decides one day to flee his wife, his children, and his business in Paris and simply disappear. I believe Simenon realizes that we all have felt this urge at one time or another. But as soon as Monsieur Monde lands in Marseille -- and experiences a great sense of relief to be shed of his past obligations -- he becomes enmeshed in a new set of complications and a world of seedy prostitutes, gamblers, and drug abusers. He eventually encounters his first wife, who left him some years previously and who is now a morphine addict. He takes a job as a steward in a hotel after all of the money he has brought with him is stolen, and his job is, in part, to gaze through a keyhole at the denizens of the establishment and monitor their behavior. If this is not symbolic of his essential passivity, I don't know what is. However, eventually Monsieur Monde sees with great clarity that one can never escape one's past or one's present, but it is possible for one to come to some sort of graceful accommodation with them. He returns to his wife in Paris and is a changed man. It is all captured in this brief exchange:
"She [Monsieur Monde's wife] felt impelled to remark: 'You haven't changed.'
"He replied, with that composure which he had brought back with him, and under which could be glimpsed a terrifying abyss: 'Yes, I have.'
"That was all. He was relaxed. He was part of life, as flexible and fluid as life itself."
These psychological novels of Simenon are far richer and more provocative than his Inspector Maigret books, and I look forward to reading even more of them.
"She [Monsieur Monde's wife] felt impelled to remark: 'You haven't changed.'
"He replied, with that composure which he had brought back with him, and under which could be glimpsed a terrifying abyss: 'Yes, I have.'
"That was all. He was relaxed. He was part of life, as flexible and fluid as life itself."
These psychological novels of Simenon are far richer and more provocative than his Inspector Maigret books, and I look forward to reading even more of them.
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