William2's Reviews > The Strangers in the House

Of the five or six Simenons I've read, The Strangers In the House strikes me as the one generating the most narrative pleasure. A discussion of the plot-line would tell you little about the joys of this volume--it's all in the actual writing--so I'll limit myself to the following. At the core of the novel is a man, Loursat, a lawyer, who has lived a deadened life since his wife left him for another man eighteen years ago. Now, with the commission of a murder that takes place in his own home, he returns to life. He is awakened when he undertakes the defense of an innocent young man and is driven to stands of principle he had previously thought beyond his burgundy-numbed mind. I found the book an emotionally powerful marvel. The final trial scene is handled in a way that seems fresh and appealing even today, seventy-two years after publication (1940). Instead of hauling each witness through the dock, Simenon let's us know of all the preparation that has gone into the defense and, while the prosecutor is prattling on and everyone listens, Loursat mentally makes his argument, mostly by recalling bits of deposed testimony. I don't say this is a striking innovation on Simenon's part, but it is, again, so perfectly executed. The book's considerable pleasures lie in its compression, in the author's ability to emphasize only the most salient aspects of the story. No word, as they say, is wasted. One last note, I have never been so gripped by the simple description of a physical structure since Bleak House. Though Dickens had the luxury of length, Simenon does not. He merely possesses a model linguistic economy. Many thanks to New York Review Books for winnowing this one from the Andean heap.