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fantaghiro23's review
5.0
My first Simenon. Wow. Short, clear, and beautifully haunting sentences. A central character who feels real, evokes empathy, but also horror. A story, though set in WWII, shows isolated patches of beauty.
I am happy I finally got to read him. Will definitely be looking for more of his 400+ novels.
I am happy I finally got to read him. Will definitely be looking for more of his 400+ novels.
browncluny's review
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
100reads's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
A reflection on WW 2 and the human response to traumatic situations and the bonds we create with people out of the instinctual need to grasp at life. Well written.
iainkelly_writing's review
5.0
The more Simenon you read, the better he gets. It is extraordinary to think one writer produced such a high quality body of work, created so many memorable characters and plots and of such volume. It is also incredible that he is mostly remembered for the Maigret novels - as good as they are - when he also wrote books as outstanding as this one. A war novel without battles or high action or heroism, just one man's tale of his own events, with romance, loss, pain, death and life. Exquisite.
kamee's review
3.0
չեմ յիշում, թէ ոնց էի աւելացրել ցանկումս։
հեղինակն անծանօթ էր։
նոր թեմա չի շօշափում, պատերազմի ընթացքում ձեւաւորուող անտարբերութիւնն ա ներկայացնում, բայց հետաքրքիր էր ներկայացնելու ձեւը, ոճը։
հեղինակն անծանօթ էր։
նոր թեմա չի շօշափում, պատերազմի ընթացքում ձեւաւորուող անտարբերութիւնն ա ներկայացնում, բայց հետաքրքիր էր ներկայացնելու ձեւը, ոճը։
misslin's review
3.0
I would give this 3.5 stars if I could. It is too good for a 3 but not quite up to a 4-star rating in my book anyway.
I am on a bit of a Georges Simenon binge at the moment and enjoyed this lovely easy to read book. I was reading it at the same time as something much denser and more psychological and The Train offered me welcome respite when all I wanted to do was read and not think.
Simenon is certainly a beautiful writer and his text uncritically takes you on a journey on a refugee train fleeing the German invasion. Reading the text I could almost understand Marcel's contentment at having met his fate and embarked on a journey that he had no control over. It is a wonderful almost luscious feeling to just ride away in a freight car and leave all your responsibilities behind, including the responsibility to make decisions about your future.
On the refugee train, you go where the train takes you and there is nothing that you can do about it. Marcel certainly doesn't fret. He doesn't fret when he is separated from his heavily pregnant wife and daughter. He makes enquiries about their whereabouts but happily embarks on an affair with a foreign woman who shares the cattle car he is being evacuated in. When his wife and newborn baby are located, he sheds the foreign Anna without a backward glance and returns with his wife and children to his predictable pre-war life.
Marcel comes across in the text as a passive conformist. He did make the decision to flee the German's in the first place, but after that, he was more than happy to lie back and let his fate unfold. Part of this was probably the result of his incarceration in a TB sanatorium in his teenage years. In a sanatorium, you have to get used to laying back and letting life flow over you. But in Marcel's final meeting with Anna, he has to choose - to act or not to act. I didn't particularly like the choice he made but then I didn't particularly like the way Anna let him off the hook so easily either. She might understand but I found myself judging. It was an interesting ending.
I am on a bit of a Georges Simenon binge at the moment and enjoyed this lovely easy to read book. I was reading it at the same time as something much denser and more psychological and The Train offered me welcome respite when all I wanted to do was read and not think.
Simenon is certainly a beautiful writer and his text uncritically takes you on a journey on a refugee train fleeing the German invasion. Reading the text I could almost understand Marcel's contentment at having met his fate and embarked on a journey that he had no control over. It is a wonderful almost luscious feeling to just ride away in a freight car and leave all your responsibilities behind, including the responsibility to make decisions about your future.
On the refugee train, you go where the train takes you and there is nothing that you can do about it. Marcel certainly doesn't fret. He doesn't fret when he is separated from his heavily pregnant wife and daughter. He makes enquiries about their whereabouts but happily embarks on an affair with a foreign woman who shares the cattle car he is being evacuated in. When his wife and newborn baby are located, he sheds the foreign Anna without a backward glance and returns with his wife and children to his predictable pre-war life.
Marcel comes across in the text as a passive conformist. He did make the decision to flee the German's in the first place, but after that, he was more than happy to lie back and let his fate unfold. Part of this was probably the result of his incarceration in a TB sanatorium in his teenage years. In a sanatorium, you have to get used to laying back and letting life flow over you. But in Marcel's final meeting with Anna, he has to choose - to act or not to act. I didn't particularly like the choice he made but then I didn't particularly like the way Anna let him off the hook so easily either. She might understand but I found myself judging. It was an interesting ending.
rcsreads's review
3.0
It took me ages to get into this which since it's only 151 pages means that apart from the last few chapters I just didn't care. It's an interesting take on the German invasion of France but it didn't hold my attention.
I'd rather read a book about Anna.
I'd rather read a book about Anna.
laurenbdavis's review
5.0
Most people are familiar with Georges Simenon as the creator of Commissaire Maigret, but the man wrote over 400 novels. The Train was first published in 1961, re-issued here by Melville House Publishing as part of their "Neverlink Library" (which I encourage all serious readers to explore). It is arguably one of the most accomplished of his work. And that's saying something.
Set in France, in this novel we meet Marcel Feron, an Everyman, an ordinary man, even perhaps a bit of a bland person, in the midst of extraordinary times -- the outbreak of war, just as the Germans are invading. Marcel's mother disappeared when he was young, after being labelled a collaborator during WWI. His father returned from the war broken and alcoholic. Marcel himself has suffered TB as a young man and never expected to live a normal life, with wife and children, but has managed to create just such a life, and now his wife is pregnant with their second child.
As word spreads that the Germans are advancing, Marcel takes his wife and daughter and abandons his home and his radio repair shop. He is not, however, surprised this is happening. Ever since the alarming events of his childhood, he felt such a destiny was awaiting him, and so he settles into a strange calm. It's a testament to Simenon's writing -- the 1st person narration is the perfect choice -- that we are drawn so far into Marcel's reality, and never question his state of mind.
On the refuge train he is separated from his wife and child, but meets a tragic-looking girl in a black dress. With her, and in this aberrant parenthetic span of time, Marcel finds passion. The book might have no more than an albeit satisfying psychological study of an ordinary man in wartime, but the end of the book is so shattering (I shan't give it away), that it transforms the work into something deeply thought-provoking, not to mention unsettling -- a trait of Simenon's work.
Recommended.
Set in France, in this novel we meet Marcel Feron, an Everyman, an ordinary man, even perhaps a bit of a bland person, in the midst of extraordinary times -- the outbreak of war, just as the Germans are invading. Marcel's mother disappeared when he was young, after being labelled a collaborator during WWI. His father returned from the war broken and alcoholic. Marcel himself has suffered TB as a young man and never expected to live a normal life, with wife and children, but has managed to create just such a life, and now his wife is pregnant with their second child.
As word spreads that the Germans are advancing, Marcel takes his wife and daughter and abandons his home and his radio repair shop. He is not, however, surprised this is happening. Ever since the alarming events of his childhood, he felt such a destiny was awaiting him, and so he settles into a strange calm. It's a testament to Simenon's writing -- the 1st person narration is the perfect choice -- that we are drawn so far into Marcel's reality, and never question his state of mind.
On the refuge train he is separated from his wife and child, but meets a tragic-looking girl in a black dress. With her, and in this aberrant parenthetic span of time, Marcel finds passion. The book might have no more than an albeit satisfying psychological study of an ordinary man in wartime, but the end of the book is so shattering (I shan't give it away), that it transforms the work into something deeply thought-provoking, not to mention unsettling -- a trait of Simenon's work.
Recommended.
msand3's review
3.0
On the surface, this novel is about a man with his wife and child fleeing Belgium as refugees when the Nazis invade. He gets separated from them on the train and meets a dark, mysterious woman named Anna, with whom he falls deeply in love. But the subtext beneath this plot is the way in which war reveals man's truest self. Marcel's life is defined by two chaotic moments: his abandonment as a child during WWI (during which he was placed on a train by himself) and his life's upheaval during WWII when forced to flee his home on a refugee train. We tend to think of the middle part in-between the madness--the steady years of marrying, having a child, owning a small business, and living a quiet, routine existence--as "life." But Marcel sees this almost as a dull stasis. The invasion gives him a chance to encounter Fate, which he does without any evaluative judgment. He accepts his position as flotsam on the ocean of War, and allows himself to be carried where it takes him. I can't say anything more so as not to present spoilers, but the novel causes us to question the paths we choose to take in life, suggesting that the moments of chaos directing us against our will might not be so much "against our will" as we think, and that these moments might be better indications of our "true" selves than the conscious decisions we make during the long moments of stability that we refer to as our "regular life."
While Simenon's novel offers this interesting shift in perspective, I didn't find the plot to be necessarily the best way to go about parsing the idea. It felt too dull to be a thriller, but not deep enough to be a philosophical novel. Still, it kept my attention enough to make me want to explore Simenon's better known crime fiction at some point down the road.
While Simenon's novel offers this interesting shift in perspective, I didn't find the plot to be necessarily the best way to go about parsing the idea. It felt too dull to be a thriller, but not deep enough to be a philosophical novel. Still, it kept my attention enough to make me want to explore Simenon's better known crime fiction at some point down the road.
ncinsley's review
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0