Currently reading: Maigret and the Murderer by Georges Simenon. Currently on the TV but being somewhat ignored: The Ring.
I love the Maigret novels because they are short and spare and perfectly formed. Not a lot of extra philosophizing or gratuitious anything. I don’t think Simenon was against violence — he simply did not seem to need it.
In this particular book, the son of a rich and prominent perfume manufacturer is (seemingly) stabbed to death at random on a rainy Paris street. This young man, however, had an extremely odd hobby: secretly taping people’s voices at random throughout Paris. The spareness makes it even more intriguing.
We both called Mom this morning. She was nasty — figured that we’d “ruined her car” on purpose. Whatever. We kept it going as best we could. It’s a pimp-mobile style Cadillac that’s a joke with us and our friends. It took three years for the smell of her perfume to leave it. Random other nastinesses — my stepfather, it seems, gets back into her good graces (or at least her house) by badmouthing me. But this conversation has confirmed me in my opinion not to go there for the holidays.
white pebble 