Monsieur Monde Vanishes

by Georges Simenon

Other authorsLarry McMurtry (Introduction), Jean Stewart (Translator)
Paperback, 2004

Status

Available

Call number

843.912

Collection

Publication

NYRB Classics (2004), Paperback, 192 pages

Description

Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML: "A truly wonderful writer...marvellously readable, lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with that world he creates.". HTML: Monsieur Monde is a successful middle-aged businessman in Paris. One morning he walks out on his life, leaving his wife asleep in bed, leaving everything. Not long after, he surfaces on the Riviera, keeping company with drunks, whores and pimps, with thieves and their marks. A whole new world, where he feels surprisingly at home--at least for a while. Georges Simenon knew how obsession, buried for years, can come to life, and about the wreckage it leaves behind. He had a remarkable understanding of how bizarrely unaccountable people can be. And he had an almost uncanny ability to capture the look and feel of a given place and time. Monsieur Monde Vanishes is a subtle and profoundly disturbing triumph by the most popular of the twentieth century's great writers..… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member William345
I am beginning to see why Anita Brookner and so many others--the introduction here is by Larry McMurtry--love Georges Simenon so much. He is an exemplar of the spare style. This comes across quite well in translation since much of what he writes about is concrete: acts and things, showing versus
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telling. Though Simenon does have his philosophical flights, they are usually brief. Sartre he isn't, thank goodness. The storyline is simple: a Parisian businessman, fed up with life, drops out of sight, vanishes. The adventure he then has marks him in a way not entirely expected. The following is a cliché said about certain writers but here it is also true. One feels that Simenon does not waste a single word. Everything works harmoniously. He upends expectations, surprises and excites. He entertains. Apparently, he would write about six or seven such books per year. In a bad year only two or three. ; )
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LibraryThing member TomChicago
character driven, good read. interesting introduction to this edition by Larry McMurtry.
LibraryThing member MacsTomes
A minor effort by Simenon. Not nearly as engaging as other novels of his that I have read.

Language

Original language

French

Original publication date

1945 (French)
1967 (English translation)

Physical description

192 p.; 8.04 inches

ISBN

1590170962 / 9781590170960

Local notes

French title: La Fuite de Monsieur Monde
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