Reviews

Die Komplizen by Georges Simenon

fxp's review

3.0

Gut geschrieben, interessantes Thema, aber irgendwie doch nicht genug Stoff für ein ganzes Buch.

blueyorkie's review against another edition

5.0

The hero of Les Complices is the archetype of the Simenonian hero: a man in crisis, feeling nagging loneliness, whose life turned upside down. I found two recurring themes in Simenon: fever with voluptuous pains and awakening with the inertia that intoxicates the soul. The novel is short, dense and powerful, characteristics that are the hallmark of this author. I highly recommend this novel!

furfff's review against another edition

3.0

Better than the Blue Room, which it was accompanied with in the edition I read, but still not in my top 20 Simenons. On the one hand, it does move along at a fairly exhilarating clip at first with an exhilarating premise. A guy making dubious carnal decisions finds himself at the center of a horrific bus crash in which many people including children are killed and decides to not say anything because (supposedly) no one saw anything. And then everything starts to close in on him. Maybe. Probably. It's that chronic unease/uncertainty that makes this book work when it does. The end isn't terrible, and in fact it's got a little bit of a modern non-resolution-resolution that strangely made me think "this ok book could be a really good HBO show", but it all just comes in a way that feels... insignificant, given the build up. There's just a loose corner or two on the structure of this one that makes me not really recommend it, but it did have me flipping pages quickly to see what happens next at certain points.

izziewithay's review against another edition

The Accomplices by Georges Simenon (1966)

shieymn's review against another edition

4.0

Tipicamente alla Simenon, è un noir ambientato in una cittadina della campagna francese che vede la discesa agli inferi del solito protagonista borghese. Puntuale come sempre nel cogliere le frustrazioni dell’ordinaria vita di provincia e le contraddizioni sessiste delle istituzioni della sua società, in primis matrimonio e famiglia; il racconto ha ambigui toni misogini, come spesso accade nei romanzi di Simenon, dove la controparte femminile viene spesso caricata di colpe e peccati originali. L’accento cade però sulla vigliaccheria di un protagonista maschio, che, incapace di liberarsi dalla gabbia delle proprie insoddisfazioni, diventa involontariamente lo strumento di violenza e morte.

Il titolo fa riferimento a una complicità che non esiste davvero nel romanzo: il protagonista è solo con la sua colpa e le sue elucubrazioni angoscianti, che Simenon segue dal principio alla fine accompagnando il lettore nella deriva del personaggio.