Back to the Classics #5

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge

Classic Tragic Novel. The tragedy in this novel is not only that a death in the family makes its members realize they have zero emotional connection with each other. Also, the sad backdrop is that the government plans to “develop” the market district of Les Halles. Simenon makes us see Zola’s “Belly of Paris,” we believe in the solidarity between traders and the restaurateurs, it’s a beautiful community. And the government is going to destroy it for the sake of modernity and development.

The Old Man Dies (La Mort d’Auguste) – Georges Simenon (tr. Bernard Frechtman, 1967)

This novel is set in a changing Paris in 1961. The generation born in the late 19^th century is dying off. For instance, Auguste, the 78-year-old boss of Chez Auvergnat, the famous bistro near Les Halles, collapses one evening in front of 30 diners.

He quickly succumbs to his stroke and his three sons start the hunt for the estate in the form a will, bank books, stocks, deeds, cash. The wily old peasant was close-mouthed and mysterious about money matters so the sons have no idea where to start or what they might find. The more greed and alcohol mix, the more suspicious brothers Ferdinand and Bernard grow towards Antoine, who ran the restaurant with their father. Of course – this is France, after all - the sisters-in-law, animated by visions of comfy days, a new car, an Italian vacation, get involved and the situation accordingly deteriorates.

The family intrigue coming out of an ordinary crisis, as is often the case in Simenon's “hard novels,” is confusingly simple, and Simenon coolly observes typical behavior, devoid of moral judgments. Antoine is just an ordinary guy suddenly thrust into a normal situation – dealing with a death in the family - but without the pre-modern solace of religion, traditions, or family support. Under the pressure of craving and fantasizing about affluence, the brothers fail to pull together, and realize they have grown apart and become strangers.

At the funeral, Ferdinand and Bernard are indifferent to their father’s death, while Antoine, with them in the back of a funeral car, thinks of the sadness of things.