Going in a different direction in music. Honestly, I wasn't listening to classical music while writing this. This is a recording by a group that got music degrees from University of North Texas in Denton. My little niece is getting a degree in Interior Design there. North Texas has a top notch music school; I almost went there but decided to go north. The band is called Midlake and the song is Roscoe. I personally love the subtle harmonies that are above and below the main singer. They blend so well.
I first became interested in this book because of one of my favorite detectives, Columbo. If I ever get another bird, I will name him after the lovable, squint-eyed Lieutenant.
I came across an article where the creator of the TV series wrote where he got the idea for the Columbo. He mentioned the detective in Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and another detective in the movie Les Diaboliques. Curious, I watched the movie. Then I read the book. Below is my review.
She Who Was No More by Boileau-NarcejacMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is undoubtedly one of the most suspenseful and unexpected stories I have read.
I first saw the movie, which took a little away from the book since I had foreknowledge of certain key elements and, honestly, I don't know whether to advise seeing the movie first or reading the book, because whichever one you do first, it will rob you of a great surprise. But both the movie and the book are extremely good.
Incidentally the movie is titled, Les Diaboliques and is in French with sub-titles. Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make the film but French film director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, beat him out by a nose. It would be interesting to have seen how Hitchcock would develop the film, but I do not know if Clouzot's version could be surpassed.
I will tell you just enough of the plot to know what the storyline is about but I won't give anything away, because that would be robbing you of what makes this story so successful.
Fernand Ravinel leads an existential life and is sick of it. His wife, Mireille, is faithful and good, but a bore. Yet he knows that he is also bore. He acquires a mistress, which alleviates some of the emptiness in his life but he knows that he bores her as well.
The mistress, Lucienne, hatches a horrible plan that should turn their lives in a better direction. Or so she claims. Together they plot to murder Mireille. Afterwards they will start new lives away from Paris and down to southern France.
I say together they hatch a plot, but really Lucienne is the mastermind. She instructs Ravinel to take out a life insurance plan on himself. Mireille decides to do the same. After Mireille's life insurance is secure, Ravinel lures his wife to a hotel where he is staying (he is a traveling salesman).
When she arrives, he prepares a drink for her which is drugged, but not too much. Just enough to knock her out. Lucienne is a doctor and has taken every precaution. After Mireille is unconscious, Ravinel and Lucienne drag her to the bath tub, which is full of water and put her under with weights on top and leave her for forty-eight hours.
Two days later, they pick up the body and take it to Ravinel and Mireille's house and dump it in a stream behind the yard. It should look like she slipped and knocked herself unconscious and drowned.
And that is all you're going to get.
The movie's strength is that everything is visual with very little talking. The book's strength is the opposite. The narrator is Ravinel in third-person, limited. We read every single thing Ravinel is thinking. His observations about his life, about Mireille, Lucienne, about what he did, why he did it. The suspense and torture of trying to work out their plan. His desperate hopes for a new life.
And his thoughts about the shocking things that happen next.
Boileau-Narcejac were a writing team, several of whose books were turned into film versions, most famously by Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo; and Eyes Without a Face by Jean Redon.
View all my reviews
12 comments:
I have seen Les Diaboliques. It was an extraordinary film. I first heard about it when I took a film class on Hitchcock. The book sounds fantastic. It is interesting that it takes us so deeply into Ravenil’s head.
I also love those old Colombo shows.
Wow, what a great find! Thanks for the introduction. It certainly sounds like a worthwhile read.
i like Colombo but Mrs. M doesn't, so... i've never seen the movie or read the book; maybe i would have liked it fifty years or so ago, but my tastes have withered to a state of nonviolence and boredom... it's really weird how being old, one can look at one's previous self and know what one was like but isn't that way anymore... life lived has a sort of pageant appearance that seems to not resemble the present very much, leading one to wonder if they're still there... hard to explain... nice review, though; it warned me away pretty well...
HI Brian. I am glad, in one sense, that I saw the movie first because it's impact was so strong since I did not know what was going on.
Although I do wonder what my impression would have been when reading the book, if I did not already know the ending. I think the suspense would have been greater, however, it was still pretty suspenseful.
Hi Cleopatra. It is a good find. I have bought a couple more by these authors and I hope they are just as good.
Hi Mudpuddle. I can understand your feelings. I have a good friend, my best friend in fact, who cannot watch or reading anything that has anything remotely suspenseful in it. It causes her too much anxiety.
I think about my past self sometimes. It was me but a diminished me. I am more fully who I am now. Once parts of our lives are memories they do take on a similar form as dreams.
sharon: in answer to your question over at RT's: i do think about the future, but i also think about the past and what i've learned over the last 70 years about how things happen... and that is, that they're very hard to predict, except very generally, and that there's no point in worrying about the events to come because the odds are very great that what you think will happen isn't what will happen... if that makes any sense... i realize i may have contradicted myself, but that's normal: just part of the unpredictability of time and thought considered from a larger perspective...
Hi Mudpuddle. I don't think you have contradicted yourself. I was just reading the book of James, where he warns people not to say, "tomorrow or next year I will do such and such," because tomorrow is promised to no man.
I'm not sure what you think about eternity, I know you have an interest in Buddhism, or are you Buddhist? Anyway, as a Christian I see the future as unknown, but I know Who is there waiting for me and I don't need to fear.
My mother thinks about this a lot since she is 81 and has stage four lung cancer. It's interesting, she was always an anxious person, but lately she has had a peace that is paradoxical as you would say.
When she was healthy, she was anxious and depressed a lot. Now that she is dying, she has peace and also contentment.
One more comment: I think of death as that big water slide in those amusement parks. As you are approaching it, you can not see over the edge because it is so steep. But once you actually go over, gravity keeps you safely pressed against the slide and it's so much fun!
I might be blathering now. I'm not even sure I correctly responded to what you said. I guess when I think of the future it is more on an eternal plane.
i don't think about things that way... but i'm glad you do since it's you doing it... every one has their own conceptions... i'm not Buddhist; i'm not anything, really... i just try to live today the best way i can, which involves kindness, quiet, and peace, not in any particular order...
Well, I'm glad I've gotten to know you through BlogWorld and I always look forward to reading your viewpoint.
tx and the same back...
:)
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