Faure is one of my favorite composers. I love French music in general, but his vocal music has such a wistful, haunting quality to it. I have played the piano part of this song with many singers over the years. Here is Claire de Lune by Gabriel Faure.
Maigret and the Wine Merchant by Georges Simenon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another good mystery by the French master, Georges Simenon. Briefly, a wine merchant is murdered. Maigret must find out who did it. That, of course, is the premise of every murder mystery.
Where Simenon makes the mystery genre his own is how he develops his story, his characters and the psychology of a murderer.
The wine merchant is a case study by himself. As Simenon interviews the people who knew him, he finds a man who felt that since he could not make people love him, he could at least make them hate him. This he went about doing with great effectiveness. He made men hate him by sleeping with their wives. He made the women hate him by treating them like dirt. He made his employees hate him by doing both of the above and acting as loathsome as possible.
Then there are the others. The wine merchant's wife who decides that her husband is who he is and she will live her life to the fullest in spite of him. Taking her own lovers, she quite happily lives her life with him and without him, too, when he is dead.
There is one young woman who loves the murdered man, even though he treated her as callously as everyone else. Why? It was all she got and she accepted that.
So who murdered him? Is there one person who has more motive than the others? Or less stable a temperament? Maybe other pressures that finally push him (or her) over the edge?
It turns out there is, but you must read the book to discover who.
This books was a good entertaining read, but also thought provocative as I thought of the reasons people might allow themselves to be used, abused, and then someone who decided otherwise.
View all my reviews
Maigret and the Wine Merchant by Georges SimenonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another good mystery by the French master, Georges Simenon. Briefly, a wine merchant is murdered. Maigret must find out who did it. That, of course, is the premise of every murder mystery.
Where Simenon makes the mystery genre his own is how he develops his story, his characters and the psychology of a murderer.
The wine merchant is a case study by himself. As Simenon interviews the people who knew him, he finds a man who felt that since he could not make people love him, he could at least make them hate him. This he went about doing with great effectiveness. He made men hate him by sleeping with their wives. He made the women hate him by treating them like dirt. He made his employees hate him by doing both of the above and acting as loathsome as possible.
Then there are the others. The wine merchant's wife who decides that her husband is who he is and she will live her life to the fullest in spite of him. Taking her own lovers, she quite happily lives her life with him and without him, too, when he is dead.
There is one young woman who loves the murdered man, even though he treated her as callously as everyone else. Why? It was all she got and she accepted that.
So who murdered him? Is there one person who has more motive than the others? Or less stable a temperament? Maybe other pressures that finally push him (or her) over the edge?
It turns out there is, but you must read the book to discover who.
This books was a good entertaining read, but also thought provocative as I thought of the reasons people might allow themselves to be used, abused, and then someone who decided otherwise.
View all my reviews
5 comments:
like Faure', don't know about "love", though... i used to like French clarinettists quite a bit and the obscure french composers who wrote theme and variations for that instrument...
a Maigret i haven't read... to be added to the hundred or so others... sounds interesting, tx...
Super review Sharon. Murder mysteries where the victim is loathsome have a strange appeal. Perhaps it is because sometimes the stories are studies in the dynamics of abuse and other bad stuff.
Simenon sounds like a very fun writer.
Have a great Sunday Sharon!
Hi Mudpuddle. I love Faure and most French composers. Their music is so haunting and wistful. I know that they cared more about rhythm than harmony, so the harmonic progressions can sometimes come across as a little cold.
I am grateful Simenon was so prolific. I figure by the time I've read the last one, I can begin again.
Hi R.T. I agree about the serious subtext. His stories reveal a lot about 20th century French culture, in my opinion.
Hi Brian. It does seem like a popular plot device. To make someone so hated, the mystery is which one of the people who hated him finally killed them.
It's Sunday evening so I will wish you a happy week!
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