Status
Available
Call number
Publication
[Kbh.] : Carit Andersen, [1961].
Description
Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML: Nineteen-year-old Frank Friedmaier lives in a country under occupation. Most people struggle to get by; Frank takes it easy in his mother's whorehouse, which caters to members of the occupying forces. But Frank is restless. He is a pimp, a thug, a petty thief, and, as Dirty Snow opens, he has just killed his first man. Through the unrelenting darkness and cold of an endless winter, Frank will pursue abjection until at last there is nowhere to go. Hans Koning has described Dirty Snow as "one of the very few novels to come out of German-occupied France that gets it exactly right." In a study of the criminal mind that is comparable to Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, Simenon maps a no man's land of the spirit in which human nature is driven to destruction--and redemption, perhaps, as well--by forces beyond its control..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member MacsTomes
Fascinating character development. Simenon never, ever fails to paint a vivid picture of characters setting.
LibraryThing member dougwood57
Dirty Snow is Georges Simenon’s noir masterpiece of one corner of Occupied Europe. And it is truly noir. As William Vollman notes in the Afterword, the noir tag has gotten a bit overused and applied to pretend noir, but Simenon delivers the real deal.
The protagonist, Frank, is a youth of the
Inevitably, the Occupiers stick Frank in a nasty little school-turned-jail; not, however, for killing the German officer. Frank’s black-market work for a German general was well paid, but it turns out the general got the money to pay Frank by stealing it from his own HQ and that is very much a cause for concern. This details sounds quite important and so it may seem I give away too much of the story. You’ll have to take my word that it is just an insignificant part of Frank’s story. Because now, subjected to lengthy interrogations, Frank has moved into another world that no one from his old world could grasp, if they even suspected its existence. Simenon’s tale calls to mind other notably dark and simply notable works such as Victor Serge’s [[ASIN:1590170644 The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics)]], Arthur Koestler's [[ASIN:1416540261 Darkness at Noon: A Novel]], and Robert Littell’s [[ASIN:1416598650 The Stalin Epigram: A Novel]].
Brilliantly disturbing.
The protagonist, Frank, is a youth of the
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urban slum, the Occupied urban slum (no country is specified). He lives with his mother – who runs a bordello. He hangs around in a shady bar and wants to kill someone just – just why? Just to do it, to be known to have killed, who knows? He picks a disgusting low-level German officer as his victim. He gets involved in the black market, committing some heinous offenses in the process; offenses that would seem even worse were his victims worthy of sympathy. He falls in love, as much as he can anyway, and betrays this naïve young girl. Inevitably, the Occupiers stick Frank in a nasty little school-turned-jail; not, however, for killing the German officer. Frank’s black-market work for a German general was well paid, but it turns out the general got the money to pay Frank by stealing it from his own HQ and that is very much a cause for concern. This details sounds quite important and so it may seem I give away too much of the story. You’ll have to take my word that it is just an insignificant part of Frank’s story. Because now, subjected to lengthy interrogations, Frank has moved into another world that no one from his old world could grasp, if they even suspected its existence. Simenon’s tale calls to mind other notably dark and simply notable works such as Victor Serge’s [[ASIN:1590170644 The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics)]], Arthur Koestler's [[ASIN:1416540261 Darkness at Noon: A Novel]], and Robert Littell’s [[ASIN:1416598650 The Stalin Epigram: A Novel]].
Brilliantly disturbing.
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LibraryThing member gaskella
For most of us, Simenon is famous, justly, for his creation of Maigret, the pipe-smoking French detective that appeared in over a hundred novels and short stories from the 1930s to early 70s. The Maigret novels are light and the detective is a delight, but Simenon also wrote many other novels that
Dirty Snow was written in the USA after Simenon had left France in 1945 where he was under some suspicion for being a collaborator, having negotiated German film rights during the occupation. His observations of living in occupied France obviously influenced the writing of this novel which is set in an unspecified occupied country – it could be France, it could be Germany itself. It is the story of one young man’s fall. Frank Friedmaier is nineteen. Fatherless, he lives with his mother Lotte who runs a whorehouse in an apartment block, tolerated by the other residents as she caters mainly to the town’s oppressors which keeps the attention away from them. Frank is itching to show that he can play with the big boys at Timo’s – the bar they all frequent. He decides it’s time to make his first kill …
"And for Frank, who was nineteen, to kill his first man was another loss of viriginity hardly more disturbing than the first. And, like the first, it wasn’t premeditated. It just happened. As though a moment comes when it’s both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.
No one had pushed him to do it. No one had laughed at him. Besides, only fools let themselves be influenced by their friends.
For weeks, perhaps months, he had kept saying to himself, because he had felt within himself a sort of inferiority. ‘I’ll have to try …’
Not in a fight. That would have been against his nature. To have it count, it seemed to him, it would have to be done in cold blood."
And so by page four we know where we are with Frank. He chooses and kills his prey, but tellingly, also allows himself to be seen in the locality by Holst, a neighbour. However, he intuitively senses that Holst won’t tell. Blooded and with a gun in his pocket, Frank becomes fearless, but it is one callous and totally despicable act that I won’t say any more about, that will make him feared and lead to his downfall.
The second half of the book follows Frank’s few weeks under interrogation. Yes, he was caught – hoorah! After an initial beating, the interrogation is carried out by an old gentleman who takes his time with Frank to winkle out every single thing he knows about all of the people in his life, playing mind games with him, never telling him what he was arrested for. The sleep-deprived and starving Frank remains strong, determined to make it last as long as possible until the day he’s ready.
Told entirely from Frank’s perspective, this novel is really bleak. He is an amoral piece of scum; friendless, increasingly cold and emotionless. In the nurture versus nature debate, undoubtedly, his lack of a father figure in his life, and his over-protective mother have both helped to make him what he becomes. Simenon takes us down all the way with Frank, but allows him one little glimpse of what could have been, before he meets his end. Maybe writing the book in the sunshine of Tucson, Arizona, Simenon needed to come up for air before ending it. I amongst others, (see Lizzies Literary Life review here), would have preferred that he stayed down – Frank didn’t deserve it.
The afterword by William T Vollmann (NYRB edition) was interesting – after positioning Dirty Snow as ultimate noir more akin to Chekov than Chandler, he compares Frank to characters in Middlemarch by George Eliot – in their failure to meet their potential – which was surprising, yet I could sort of see the sense in it. Personally, I was reminded throughout by Pinkie in Brighton Rock by Graham Greene – another very nasty young man, (and due for a re-read). The book also brought to mind Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada which I read earlier this year in terms of the sense of living under suspicion.
The Maigret books, yet wonderful, are as a mere bagatelle in comparison with this look into the abyss from Simenon.
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are very different in tone - La neige était sale – Dirty Snow (1948) being one of them.Dirty Snow was written in the USA after Simenon had left France in 1945 where he was under some suspicion for being a collaborator, having negotiated German film rights during the occupation. His observations of living in occupied France obviously influenced the writing of this novel which is set in an unspecified occupied country – it could be France, it could be Germany itself. It is the story of one young man’s fall. Frank Friedmaier is nineteen. Fatherless, he lives with his mother Lotte who runs a whorehouse in an apartment block, tolerated by the other residents as she caters mainly to the town’s oppressors which keeps the attention away from them. Frank is itching to show that he can play with the big boys at Timo’s – the bar they all frequent. He decides it’s time to make his first kill …
"And for Frank, who was nineteen, to kill his first man was another loss of viriginity hardly more disturbing than the first. And, like the first, it wasn’t premeditated. It just happened. As though a moment comes when it’s both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.
No one had pushed him to do it. No one had laughed at him. Besides, only fools let themselves be influenced by their friends.
For weeks, perhaps months, he had kept saying to himself, because he had felt within himself a sort of inferiority. ‘I’ll have to try …’
Not in a fight. That would have been against his nature. To have it count, it seemed to him, it would have to be done in cold blood."
And so by page four we know where we are with Frank. He chooses and kills his prey, but tellingly, also allows himself to be seen in the locality by Holst, a neighbour. However, he intuitively senses that Holst won’t tell. Blooded and with a gun in his pocket, Frank becomes fearless, but it is one callous and totally despicable act that I won’t say any more about, that will make him feared and lead to his downfall.
The second half of the book follows Frank’s few weeks under interrogation. Yes, he was caught – hoorah! After an initial beating, the interrogation is carried out by an old gentleman who takes his time with Frank to winkle out every single thing he knows about all of the people in his life, playing mind games with him, never telling him what he was arrested for. The sleep-deprived and starving Frank remains strong, determined to make it last as long as possible until the day he’s ready.
Told entirely from Frank’s perspective, this novel is really bleak. He is an amoral piece of scum; friendless, increasingly cold and emotionless. In the nurture versus nature debate, undoubtedly, his lack of a father figure in his life, and his over-protective mother have both helped to make him what he becomes. Simenon takes us down all the way with Frank, but allows him one little glimpse of what could have been, before he meets his end. Maybe writing the book in the sunshine of Tucson, Arizona, Simenon needed to come up for air before ending it. I amongst others, (see Lizzies Literary Life review here), would have preferred that he stayed down – Frank didn’t deserve it.
The afterword by William T Vollmann (NYRB edition) was interesting – after positioning Dirty Snow as ultimate noir more akin to Chekov than Chandler, he compares Frank to characters in Middlemarch by George Eliot – in their failure to meet their potential – which was surprising, yet I could sort of see the sense in it. Personally, I was reminded throughout by Pinkie in Brighton Rock by Graham Greene – another very nasty young man, (and due for a re-read). The book also brought to mind Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada which I read earlier this year in terms of the sense of living under suspicion.
The Maigret books, yet wonderful, are as a mere bagatelle in comparison with this look into the abyss from Simenon.
Show Less
LibraryThing member William345
This is wonderful. It's the first Simenon I ever read and I found it vivid, engaging and moving. Dirty Snow is my second favorite Simenon, outranked only by The Strangers In The House.
LibraryThing member Linus_Linus
Minimal and absurdly insightful. Simenon's psychological stories are the find of the year.
LibraryThing member ffortsa
Not a Maigret book at all, this novel is set in a vaguely WWII time, and follows a young man, son of a madame, through his self-appointed initiation into the criminal world and his eventual fall. As with many Simenon novels (even the Maigrets), the emphasis is psychological. The narration is third
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person, but with a viewpoint so close to that of the main character that it feels almost first-person. It is left to the reader to decide if the young man is redeemed or lost. Show Less
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
It's winter in an occupied country. Frank, a 19-year old living on the fringes in the brothel his mother runs, wants to kill someone because every else has. Somehow, I had envisioned Simenon as the writer of somewhat tidy police procedurals, but this is deep, dark noir, as unlike a "cozy" mystery
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as anything I can imagine. It works as a psychological study of a disturbed, murderous mind, as a picture of the bleakness of life in an occupied country (unnamed, but presumed to be France during WW II), and as a cat and mouse game of crime solving. I'll be reading more Simenon, a lot more. Show Less
LibraryThing member stef7sa
wow how dark and dirty can you get? Simenon surpasses the likes of Camus, Kafka in this bleak novel. close to five stars, its just the third part gets a bit annoying, but how to describe a senseless life in an interesting way? excellent afterword. there is just one tiny spark of light in this novel
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as Frank has a desire to be part of a family, exemplified by the obsession with the young woman in the window of an apartment building opposite of the prison. in a world as dark as this, this tiny light shines as bright as the morning star. Show Less
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1948
Physical description
205 p.; 22.5 cm
Local notes
Omslag: Ikke angivet
Omslaget viser verden set gennem et stakit eller noget i den stil
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra fransk "La neige etait sale" af Karen Nyrop Christensen
Omslaget viser verden set gennem et stakit eller noget i den stil
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra fransk "La neige etait sale" af Karen Nyrop Christensen
Similar in this library
Series
Pages
205
DDC/MDS
| 843.912 |