emsemsems's review against another edition
4.0
‘Saturday morning, or Friday evening, Isabel or I, or both of us, would go and pick up the girls in Litchfield. We would present, in the car, the image of a united family.
Except that I no longer believed in the family. I no longer believed in anything. Not in myself, not in other people. Basically, I no longer believed in mankind and I was beginning to understand why Ray’s father had shot himself in the head.’
Fuck, this is a 4.5. Simenon’s novel(la) takes a bit of patience. I was so ready to give up on it halfway through, but I eventually ‘understood’ what it was trying to convey. I had prematurely called the narrator in Simenon’s novel a Patrick Bateman ‘Lite’; no, I must take that back now, this one definitely hits harder (no pun intended) because Donald’s psychological make up is more subtle – more ‘real’. While Bret Easton Ellis’ ([b:American Psycho|28676|American Psycho|Bret Easton Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436934349l/28676._SY75_.jpg|2270060]) Bateman is a pulp-ey, satirical, overblown character. Simenon gets to the point without ‘playing around’ with loud and cheap literary tricks to incite/induce shock.
‘Modest, self-effacing, she is actually the most arrogant woman I have ever met. She never allows the slightest fault to show, none of our little human weaknesses.’
‘I don’t know any more. I lean now towards one hypothesis, now towards another. I live under her gaze, like a microbe under the microscope, and sometimes I hate her.’
‘If they could have known, every last one of them, how I hated her! But she was the only one who knew. For I had understood. I had sought the meaning of her look for a long time. I had made various suppositions without thinking of the quite simple truth.’
Simenon’s novel reminded me of [b:Sharp Objects|18045891|Sharp Objects|Gillian Flynn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475695315l/18045891._SY75_.jpg|3801] by Gillian Flynn. Both novels ‘hit too close to ‘home’’ for me. I’ve never felt so ‘close’ to a fictional character as I did/do with Camille Preaker. And with Simenon’s novel(la) – I’ve never read about a fictional character who reminds me so much of a real person. Donald is such a repulsive, yet unremarkable/run-of-the-mill, abusive, patriarchal figure. As with all the other novels that I’ve mentioned above, I think they share one very similar ‘point’, or rather – a ‘question’. Is ‘murder’ what it really takes to bring light to all these domestic ‘fuck-ups’. Is ‘murder’ and ‘suicide’ the only way to get the attention of ‘society’? I swear I can hear Mishima laughing, somewhere.
‘Strangers who live together, eat at the same table, undress in front of each other and sleep in the same room. Strangers who talk together as husband and wife.’
‘She watches me live, knows my slightest reactions and doubtless my least little thought . . . She never says a word that might suggest that. She remains quiet and serene.’
I believe that everyone has at one point in their lives (even, or especially if you don’t grow up in these kind of environment(s)) witnessed or suspected a household of someone you know bearing such ‘subtle violence’. And to ‘not bother yourself with it’ simply makes one a complicit, no? I’m not excluding myself when I say this. I have of course been in such situations and had done nothing at all – employing the cruel mindset of ‘well, that’s none of my business is it?’ And I suppose the most frustrating part of it all is that most of the times, the ‘law’ is not in favour of the one in need. For instance, they ‘stop’ one violent sesh from happening, right? But then – what? What about financial support, and etc.? Also, domestic violence and abuse is by far the most convenient and most complicated ‘crime’. I could go on about it, but I’d be straying away from my ‘review’ of Simenon’s novel. Money, clout, and cowardly, shrimp-ey penises make the world go round, yeah?
‘Ray had to remain the man I had imagined, hard on himself and on others, cold and ambitious, the strong man on whom I had taken revenge against all the strong men on this earth. I did not want a Ray disgusted with money and success.’
‘That night, I had discovered that for the entire time I had known him I had never stopped envying and hating him.
I was not the friend and neither was I the husband, the father, the citizen whose roles I had played. It was just a façade. The whited sepulchre of the scriptures.’
The end of Simenon’s novel was so brilliantly (yet simply) done. If one feels nauseated after reading it, well – that’s just the appropriate reaction. Like Ayn Rand’s novels, I think this particular Simenon novel(la) is a perfect social/literary litmus test. It’s worth knowing that ‘marital violence’ in the UK was only ‘recognised’ by the law as a ‘crime’ starting from the mid to late 90s. Simenon’s novel is set in America. And as with the UK, ‘marital violence’ was not ‘recognised’/treated seriously until the mid to late 90s. ‘The Hand’ was first published in 1968. I rest my case.
‘The children must have noticed that tension. I sensed a certain wariness, a certain disapproval in my daughters, especially when I pour myself a drink.’
‘As for Cecilia, I don’t know. She remains an enigma, and I would not be surprised if she possesses quite a strong personality. She watches us live, and I’m almost convinced that she does not approve of us, that the only thing she feels for us is a certain disdain.’
paulataua's review against another edition
4.0
There is a party and then a death and we get to experience it all and what follows through the thought processes taking place in lawyer Donald Dodd’s head. I was impressed by how the author was able to write from inside the character’s head and capture all his fears and anxieties, and especially how his wife Isabel was almost totally drawn from the man’s projections on her. I was unaware that Simenon wrote anything other than Maigret novels and will definitely search out other like novels him. A really good psychological novel.
middangeard's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
nymphna's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
thenameistheworstpart's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
agotakristof's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, Simenon is exceptional. There is nothing like his psychological novels.
nobodyatall's review against another edition
1.0
I don't know why I keep trying to read Georges Simenon. This is another one of his books I didn't enjoy and quit after a couple of chapters.
n1colez's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
mercybeecup's review against another edition
4.0
unfamiliar with his other work, i was originally going to give this a much lower score. then i got to part 2 of the book.
yikes.
the emancipation of donald dodd's emasculation
the careful derailment of donald dodd
what a ring to it
yikes.
the emancipation of donald dodd's emasculation
the careful derailment of donald dodd
what a ring to it