William2's Reviews > The Man Who Watched Trains Go By

This was diverting, though not my favorite of the six or so Simenons I have read so far, all on the New York Review Books imprint. Kees Popinga, a buttoned down manager of a ships chandlery in Holland, goes on a bit of a rampage after his boss tells him that he has run the business into the ground. This is the same business, the watchword for rectitude and probity in the little port town in which it operates, into which Kees has invested every cent of his savings. Kees subsequently (inadvertently?) kills a hooker by the name of Pamela whom he has lusted after for years when, bereft of his illusions, she laughs at him. Then he goes to Paris and becomes a subject for the tabloids ("Sex Fiend") as he remains at large for several weeks. However, once the newspapers lose interest and relegate his story to inner pages, he starts to write letters to the editor in which he pathetically tries to keep the thrill alive; his ostensible motive being to explain himself since they "have him all wrong." The book is troubled early on, in my view, by some hardboiled-sounding dialog, generally something the titles I've read are free of. I felt it was very good but lacking in action, and by contrast, too heavy on the ruminations of its protagonist, mostly rendered as free indirect speech. My favorite NYRB Simenons so far have been Dirty Snow and The Strangers in the House. The latter being, in my opinion, dazzling on a sentence by sentence basis. Recommended with reservations.