Dirty Snow, George Simenon 3-2-2013

    [ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 7/5/2025] 

 Georges Simenon created Inspector Maigret. Dirty Snow is not a Maigret novel. To me, Dirty Snow has more to do with Albert Camus' The Stranger and Franz Kafka than to Maigret.

The novel ostensibly concerns itself with Frank Friedmaier. The novel opens thus:

If not for a chance event, what Frank Friedmaier did that night wouldn't have had much meaning. Obviously Frank couldn't have foreseen that his neighbor, Gerhardt Holst, would pass him in the street. But Holst did pass by, and he recognized him, too, which changed everything. And, yet, that and all that later followed, Frank accepted.

Part One, Timo's Customers, Chapt. 1

I disagree with William T. Vollman calling this noir. It is dark, but as The Stranger or The Plague are dark, and not dark as the works of James M. Cain or Jim Thompson. (I completely disagree with his classifying Philip Marlowe as a noir character.)

The occupying forces occupy without an apparent ideology or overt force. Even when Frank becomes enmeshed in this force's web, it is never clear what is his transgression. Therein, lies the resemblance with Kafka.

Destiny interests Simenon:

It was funny. He had spent the greater part of his life - it wasn't an exaggeration - hating destiny with an almost personal hatred, to the point of looking for it everywhere, wanting to defy it, to wrestle with it.

***

"I know nothing about whatever it is you're investigating. That I swear. But if I did know something, I wouldn't tell you. You could interrogate me as long as you wanted, but I wouldn't tell you a word. You can torture me. I'm not afraid of torture. You cna promise me my life. I don't want it. I want to die, as soon as possible in whatever fashion you choose.

Chapter 4; Part Three: The Woman at the Window. 

Simenon creates a world of a political vacuum, which is then a moral vacuum. A girl from a good family becomes a whore and possible terrorist. Hannah Arendt could have found her banality of evil in this novel. In the end, Frank creates his own morality.

[7/7/2025:

One thing missing from prison is information. No Google. I would have liked to see what others thought about the books I noted above. Well, I got that chance now, and you can decide if I am a moron or not. You may also want to follow the links provided in the text.

The Snow Was Dirty is bleak and uncomfortable - but it's also a masterpiece (The Guardian) - has me rethinking whether nor not this was noir.

Philip Marlowe (The Thrilling Detective Web Site)

sch]