Books & Reviews Archive

The novel is set in the late seventeenth century, during the reign of Louis XIV, and recounts the exploits of a Frenchman, Poncet, who journeys to Abyssinia on an expedition mounted by the Jesuits to restore ties with the empire fifty years after the expulsion of Catholic priests. The protagonist is an adventurous young man who commits himself to this enterprise out of love for the daughter of the French consul in Cairo. He thus finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue between rival religious orders (the Capuchins against the Jesuits) and competing factions within the court of the French king. The story predictably features a happy ending, with the two lovers managing to wed after numerous adventures. The work reads like a cross between *The Three Musketeers* (the great French novel) and the tales of Maalouf, yet it completely lacks historical atmosphere, narrative momentum, and character analysis. For instance, the transformation of the consul’s young daughter from a devout maiden into an adventuress unfolds so flatly as to render it entirely implausible.

Maigret returns to the village where he grew up, as an elderly countess has died and he suspects she was murdered. All the figures of a potentially sordid affair are present: the countess’s young lover, the playboy son living the high life, a young parish priest who perhaps knows more than he lets on, and so forth. What emerges is a portrait of a provincial milieu, sketched, in truth, in a superficial and unengaging manner. The characters, too, emerge flat, devoid of any genuine analysis of the motivations underpinning their actions and the events. The detective element is virtually nonexistent, and Maigret feels more like an extra than a police superintendent capable of steering and managing the investigation. Perhaps I am simply unlucky, as I cannot seem to read a book by Simenon that I truly enjoy.

Set between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the novel recounts the life of Hassan al-Wazzan, known as Leo Africanus. Forced to leave Granada following the Castilian conquest, the protagonist leads an adventurous life: first in Fez in North Africa, then in Cairo, and subsequently in Rome; he also undertakes numerous journeys, encountering widely disparate figures and milieus. As with all the author’s novels, the unfolding narrative and the depiction of Mediterranean civilizations serve as an occasion to address the themes of religious and cultural diversity, and to envision a society where coexistence and exchange among different peoples and traditions are possible. What also emerges is a portrait of Muslim society that is markedly more tolerant and open than that typical of Christian nations. A prevailing sense of nostalgia pervades the work for a historical and social context—such as that of Mediterranean societies prior to the sixteenth century—that was destroyed by the fanaticism of the Christian kingdoms, particularly the nascent power of Spain, as well as by the drive for dominance of the Turkish Empire, which was likewise in an emergent phase. From a narrative standpoint, the novel is compelling in its first part (life in Granada and Fez), only to lose its way in an acceleration of events that precipitates a decline in pacing and style. In particular, the fourth part, set in Rome and Italy more broadly, feels rushed: the protagonist's conduct is insufficiently explored, coming across as peculiar and superficial; his embrace of Roman life and of Catholicism itself ought to have been far more thoroughly examined and analyzed.

Elie Nagéar is a young cosmopolitan who grew up and lived for a long time across many countries, particularly in Turkey. On his journey to Europe, he meets Sylvie, with whom he has a relationship. The young woman works in a nightclub, and in no time the two squander what little money they possess. Seized by desperation during a train journey from Brussels to Paris, Elie robs and kills a wealthy patron of the nightclub. To hide him, Sylvie sends him to her mother, who runs a boarding house. The life of the landlady, of Antoinette, her other daughter, and of the lodgers revolves around the kitchen, where relationships intertwine and where Elie soon becomes the center of attention with the incredible stories of his life and the countries he has lived in: > like the prelude to an orchestra, one could hear the clatter of forks, plates, and glasses rising and intensifying; whenever a voice was heard, it was Elie’s... He was not lying, yet he felt as if he were. He searched his memory for something more to tell, something comforting and flowing like a Neapolitan song . Thus a surreal atmosphere is created, disrupting the house’s mediocre and monotonous existence. All the inhabitants of the boarding house are so fascinated by the new lodger that, once it becomes known that he is the killer, far from reporting him, they actually help hide him in the hope that he might escape. Even when Elie, by then captured and sentenced, is boarded alongside the other deportees onto the ship that will carry him to forced labor, the landlady will be there on the pier to see him off, filled with nostalgia for a young man who, for a brief time, brought novelty to her mediocre bourgeois life. The milieu is the Belgian petite bourgeoisie. The story unfolds slowly, attentive to the details of life in a boarding house, where the tenants can barely make ends meet and where, paradoxically, all concern is devoted to propriety, to upholding a good name: the landlady’s husband is a conductor for the Belgian railways!! Why, then, does everyone let themselves be captivated by the new lodger’s stories? Why do they not turn him in? Perhaps because, Simenon seems to tell us, we all feel constrained by the flatness of everyday life. Why not read it? It reads very well owing to its concise and effective style. Yet the narrative pace is too slow to make for an enthralling read.