The Disappearance of Odile by Georges Simenon
November 17th 2006 07:23
Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon has a huge cult following for his Inspector Maigret series and has made a huge impact on French cinema. Around thirty of his novels have been made into movies.
I have read around 15 to 20 Simenon novels myself. I don't like Maigret and sometimes the Maigret novels can get too wishy washy and I stopped reading them after I read one particularly pitiful example. Nevertheless, there is one novel of Simenon which I prize as one of the most effective novels written on teenage angst ever.
The Disappearance of Odile is about Odile, a teenager who runs away from home with the vague notion of a suicide. She comes from a dysfunctional family and her parents couldn't care less. It is her elder brother who is studying sociology in colleger who starts searching for her. The novel mostly describes the young man's rookie search for his sister.
It is interesting that today we almost club American together with the words "dysfunctional family" whereas a century ago, the French were being excoriated for it. It actually shows the middle-class and upper-class bashing by the stiff lip liberals. This was going on in every country, in France, in Russia at the turn of the century. Before any nomads ruled a town they captured, they first erased the older inhabitants. It is clear then that if a liberal state has to erected then the resisting classes have to dehumanised.
After a century of relentless dehumanisation by its artists who paved the way for the revolutionaries, every society had fallen and given in, except of course America. Curiously, America was a newcomer to this treatment and as it fell to America to halt the onward march of our brothers, America recieved this treatment in spades. It is worth noting that Simenon modeled his detective in explicit contra-distinction to the American detective prototype (ya know the cigar chewing, foul mouthed, gun-happy, moralistic Humphrey Bogart types).
Simenon's novels then, most of them anyway are an attempt to simlutaneously dehumanise the upper classes and sympathising or understanding "society's rejects". Usual libaloney. I gave up reading him when he pressed on with this agenda at the expense of readabilit and his unique style of writing had no more surprises for me.
Unlike his other novels though, Simenon prevents this from becoming another bourgeoise-bashing novel by working in the perimeters of his theme. Simenon has this unique ability to convey vast pscychological truth through simple means and his technique comes in handy in this novel.
It tears open the mind of a teenager who is beset with bordeom, has nothing to do in life and wants to commit suicide. There are many like that and we can palpably touch the inside of such a brain. Sad for the most part, it ends on a hopeful note. A necessary read.
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