The Magician
French title: Antoine
et Julie
First published: 1953
Translation: Helen Sebba, 1954
In Simenon’s existential thrillers, or non-Maigret noir
downers if you prefer, his main characters are often lonely. Emotionally flat
and socially inept, they seek connection to others in dysfunctional ways. In Justice, a delinquent seeks suspect
companionship among low lives. In A New
Lease on Life, alienation drives an accountant to seek the shabby carnality of prostitutes. In The Man on the Bench
in the Barn, a middle-aged lawyer has an ill-advised fling with the widow
of the man that he thinks he’s killed.
But in The
Magician, when the main character drinks, he chases “that contact, that way
of looking at humanity and of feeling at one with it.” He reaches the impaired
conclusion that people don't commit suicide because there comes a moment, “if
you know how to manage things, when it is no longer necessary.” Antoine's
“managing things” – i.e., drinking himself stupid - gets out of control and he
has one of those miserable experiences – such as an accident, an arrest – that
finally persuade alcoholics that they have hit bottom and better stop drinking. The precise writing makes this one a forceful if sad novel, especially to those interested in a literary treatment of the greed of
alcoholics, examples of craving and triggers to drink, and how alcoholism
damages not only the drinker but at least three or four other people around
him.
Married in their forties, Antoine and Julie live in an
apartment on rue Daru in Paris. Their first years of marriage were less than
idyllic since Julie's mother did not like her son-in-law, whose conjuring and
prestidigitation she despised as professions unfit for an adult male. She
claimed Antoine married Julie for her
money, since Julie was overweight, middle-aged, and prone to anxiety.
But death solves problems like this. With the mother-in-law
in her grave, you’d think things could be hunky-dory. They don't roll in money
but he makes enough for them to make their modest ends meet. The lack of money
is not the problem. The problem that life presents is that like a lot of
alcoholics, Antoine knows perfectly well that he is one of those people who had
better not drink, because when they do bad things happen. For him, two are too
many and six are not enough. But as he works at night usually, all the chances
are too inviting to stop in a bar, whistle up a gin or a cognac, and repeat the drunk's logic, "Hell, if I
feel this good right now with just a couple, I may as well make a night of it."
In his cups, Antoine makes bad decisions. He hangs out
with Dagobert, who likes to assert, “We’re all bastards,” just the good news
alcoholics need to hear. He lends the worthless Dagobert money that he will
never see again. He gets home late and hassles the highly-strung Julie with the dicky ticker. He claims that he is
unhappy and pains his wife with unjust reproaches, blaming everybody and everything but himself for his problems. Of course, like lots of
drunks, he feels remorse the next day. But neither his monotonous drinking nor nervy Julie’s heart problem stop him from drinking again after only a short
period of abstinence.
On Christmas Eve, Julie notices that she has no heart
medicine left. She asks Antoine to go to the pharmacy and fetch her the
medication. Stuff happens - as the old song goes, "there's a thousand swingin' doors gonna let you in" - the upshot of which you can guess if you’ve read the
other existential thrillers listed below. And Antoine ends up being the kind of
man “who never drinks and never asks questions.”
Georges Simenon, thanks to his immense talent and subdued
writing, looks at the ordinary and makes it
important.
Other Non-Maiget Psychological-Existential Thrillers
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