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ars410's review against another edition
fast-paced
4.5
Lovely and heavy and reflective. Somehow it moves along at a fast pace and feels very slow at the same time (in a good way). This is the second Simenon novel I've read (and I liked this a lot more than The Train), but it won't be the last.
greeniezona's review against another edition
5.0
Every once in a while, I fall in love with a particular publisher. The first time I remember it happening was with Soft Skull Press. Then, the New York Review Books. There have been other, more fleeting crushes, of course, but when I'm fully in love with a publisher, I haunt their website, constructing long wishlists of titles. I consider how many books I'd have to buy at once to get the wholesale discount. In bookstores, I look for a certain spine dimension, color scheme, logo. Right now, I am in love with Melville House Publishing -- specifically, the Neversink collection. So when I was at the library, but NOT to check out books, as I already had one overdue and was in the middle of three more, and I turned around to see the familiar graphics of a Neversink cover design on the New Titles shelf, I knew I was doomed.
Of course I took it home with me.
I did not give myself permission to start reading it until I finished at least one of the books I was reading. Still, it was like a ticking time bomb sitting on my shelf. I have let too many library books go overdue lately. I finished 400 Years of the Telescope, and immediately replaced it (in its place in my purse) with The President. Still, chances to read it kept slipping by for one reason or another until a Friday, I finally got to dip into it during a short lunch at Zoup!
I read the rest of the book on Saturday.
I don't even know when was the last time that I got to sit down and read a whole book in one day, but it's something I've been missing. Especially over the holidays, as that was exactly the sort of thing I would do when I was young and had no kids. It was hard, at times, due to my lack of practice, to fully devote myself to the book. Through no fault of The President, which I loved, I would read a few pages and my mind would wander. One page -- "Wait, should I go check the laundry?" Three pages -- "I wonder if there are any new pins on Pinterest?" Two pages -- "Oh! Now I need to make a new cup of tea!" And so on.
I did get better at shutting out these wandering thoughts as the day wore on and this book moved closer to its conclusion. I was supremely satisfied when I reached the end, yet I find I am struggling to articulate the reasons why. Every attempt at summary seems a gross over-simplification to my mind. Though I do feel compelled to list some of the themes it touches on -- retirement, death, power, ambition, reckoning...
Suffice it to say, it is a tragedy that this book was out of print for 40 years, and I cheer Neversink for bringing it back. This book is wonderful. I plan to read it again, perhaps many times, later in life.
Of course I took it home with me.
I did not give myself permission to start reading it until I finished at least one of the books I was reading. Still, it was like a ticking time bomb sitting on my shelf. I have let too many library books go overdue lately. I finished 400 Years of the Telescope, and immediately replaced it (in its place in my purse) with The President. Still, chances to read it kept slipping by for one reason or another until a Friday, I finally got to dip into it during a short lunch at Zoup!
I read the rest of the book on Saturday.
I don't even know when was the last time that I got to sit down and read a whole book in one day, but it's something I've been missing. Especially over the holidays, as that was exactly the sort of thing I would do when I was young and had no kids. It was hard, at times, due to my lack of practice, to fully devote myself to the book. Through no fault of The President, which I loved, I would read a few pages and my mind would wander. One page -- "Wait, should I go check the laundry?" Three pages -- "I wonder if there are any new pins on Pinterest?" Two pages -- "Oh! Now I need to make a new cup of tea!" And so on.
I did get better at shutting out these wandering thoughts as the day wore on and this book moved closer to its conclusion. I was supremely satisfied when I reached the end, yet I find I am struggling to articulate the reasons why. Every attempt at summary seems a gross over-simplification to my mind. Though I do feel compelled to list some of the themes it touches on -- retirement, death, power, ambition, reckoning...
Suffice it to say, it is a tragedy that this book was out of print for 40 years, and I cheer Neversink for bringing it back. This book is wonderful. I plan to read it again, perhaps many times, later in life.
komet2020's review against another edition
4.0
Simenon has crafted a thoughtful, interesting short novel about a former French Premier, who, in his prime, had been a master political operator and adroit manipulator of people. Now, in his early 80s, retired from politics, quasi infirm, and living on a small estate in Normandy with a small staff attentive to his needs and whims, he reflects upon his life and career. He comes to realize that for all his secretive, circumspect ways, he is being spied upon. But by whom? What's more: his former protege is now poised to assume a position of supreme influence in forming a new government in Paris. The old man, remembering his former protege's treachery, possesses a damnable piece of evidence that could destroy his political career. Will he float this disclosure or not? This is a gripping story showing the vagaries of the mind and heart of people consumed with the acquisition and use of political power. It is also a subtle, psychological study of the first degree loosely based on the life of Georges Clemenceau, former Premier of France (1917-1920).
chalicotherex's review against another edition
4.0
“Man is the only animal who finds it necessary to decorate the corpses of his victims in order to whet his appetite. Look at those neat rounds of truffle slipped under the skin of the capons to make a symmetrical pattern, that cooked pheasant with his beak and tail so artistically put back in place. . . . ”
Pretty good book about a statesman dying slow.
Names were of no importance to him, so he had not altered the one the property went by when he bought it.
The local people had told him that the word “ébergues” referred to portions of the codfish prepared for use as bait, and as Fécamp was a codfishers’ port and fishing was the mainstay of the whole coast, he had been satisfied with that explanation. Probably the skipper of a fishing smack or the owner of a small fleet had lived in the house at one time?
But one day when Emile was tearing away the ivy that had crept over the parapet of an old well, he had brought to light an inscription, roughly cut in the stone:
Les Ebernes
1701
The Premier had happened to mention this to the schoolmaster, who was also Secretary of the District Council and sometimes came to borrow books from him. The schoolmaster had had the curiosity to look up the old land-survey maps, and had found the property marked on them by the same name as that on the well.
However, nobody could tell him what “ébernes” were, until at last he found the explanation in the big Littré dictionary:
“Eberner: to wipe excrement off a child.
“Eberneuses: women who wipe excrement off children.”
What kind of women had once lived in the house and been given the nickname that had stuck to the place afterwards? And what later and more prudish occupant had given that cunning twist to the spelling of the name?
Pretty good book about a statesman dying slow.
The local people had told him that the word “ébergues” referred to portions of the codfish prepared for use as bait, and as Fécamp was a codfishers’ port and fishing was the mainstay of the whole coast, he had been satisfied with that explanation. Probably the skipper of a fishing smack or the owner of a small fleet had lived in the house at one time?
But one day when Emile was tearing away the ivy that had crept over the parapet of an old well, he had brought to light an inscription, roughly cut in the stone:
Les Ebernes
1701
The Premier had happened to mention this to the schoolmaster, who was also Secretary of the District Council and sometimes came to borrow books from him. The schoolmaster had had the curiosity to look up the old land-survey maps, and had found the property marked on them by the same name as that on the well.
However, nobody could tell him what “ébernes” were, until at last he found the explanation in the big Littré dictionary:
“Eberner: to wipe excrement off a child.
“Eberneuses: women who wipe excrement off children.”
What kind of women had once lived in the house and been given the nickname that had stuck to the place afterwards? And what later and more prudish occupant had given that cunning twist to the spelling of the name?
oldpondnewfrog's review
3.0
My second Simenon novel, and while I happened to like The Train more (much more), this was good enough to convince me to keep reading Simenon. He apparently wrote hundreds of books. I find that hard to believe, because he writes so well.
expendablemudge's review
3.0
Rating: 3.8* of five
The Publisher Says: Restored to print for the first time in more than forty years, The President was hailed by the New York Times as a “tour de force.”
At 82, the former premier lives in alert and suspicious retirement—self exile—on the Normandy coast, writing his anxiously anticipated memoirs and receiving visits from statesman and biographers. In his library is the self-condemning, handwritten confession of the premier’s former attaché, Chalamont, hidden between the pages of a sumptuously produced work of privately printed pornography—a confession that the premier himself had dictated and forced Chalamont to sign. Now the long-thwarted Chalamont has been summoned to form a new coalition in the wake of the government’s collapse. The premier alone possesses the secret of Chalamont’s guilt, of his true character—and has publicly vowed: “He’ll never be Premier as long as I’m alive... Nor when I’m dead, either.” Inspired by French Premier Georges Clemenceau, The President is a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a probing account of the decline of power.
My Review: I got a CARE package from one of my old pals from Texas, filled to the brim with Simenon works...but not the Maigret stories, to my relief (read 'em all) and delight (I've never read any of the non-Maigret books)! The President is a delicate and careful autopsy of a once-powerful man's reluctant and relieved laying down his armaments. His life always consisted of public service, unmarried and childless and grasping for the levers of power to make his isolation into welcome solitude.
Simenon's Maigret novels are, as murder mysteries must be, formulaic. Simenon's gift came from creating a rich and satisfying story from these commonly available materials. It's a bit like watching Meryl Streep in a movie: She IS the role, she can't be more than glancingly perceived as the actress who starred in any other movie. Chameleons have that talent...so do cuttlefish...yet to find the gift of remodeling one's self in our smelly, sweaty human selves amazes and delights us every time.
This 152-page tale is a welcome surprise in this era of bloated, dull series books that could and should have been short stories. In my view, the less an author says, the more s/he has to focus and deliver a high-quality experience. Simenon wrote what was necessary to illuminate the long career of the eponymous president and place it in an historical setting. The impact of the actions taken by the president become, by design but still of necessity, quiet bombshells...silent even in their death throes.
This is a book to savor, to sip and ponder the complex flavors mixed in exacting proportions. A simple story, made well, translated carefully, and presented without hype. It is a treat in a literary landscape as pillowy-soft and cloyingly sweet as today's is simply to be told that great hearts still beat faster in pursuit of desired items and outcomes. And they remain great hearts, giving their all and making no excuses.
The Publisher Says: Restored to print for the first time in more than forty years, The President was hailed by the New York Times as a “tour de force.”
At 82, the former premier lives in alert and suspicious retirement—self exile—on the Normandy coast, writing his anxiously anticipated memoirs and receiving visits from statesman and biographers. In his library is the self-condemning, handwritten confession of the premier’s former attaché, Chalamont, hidden between the pages of a sumptuously produced work of privately printed pornography—a confession that the premier himself had dictated and forced Chalamont to sign. Now the long-thwarted Chalamont has been summoned to form a new coalition in the wake of the government’s collapse. The premier alone possesses the secret of Chalamont’s guilt, of his true character—and has publicly vowed: “He’ll never be Premier as long as I’m alive... Nor when I’m dead, either.” Inspired by French Premier Georges Clemenceau, The President is a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a probing account of the decline of power.
My Review: I got a CARE package from one of my old pals from Texas, filled to the brim with Simenon works...but not the Maigret stories, to my relief (read 'em all) and delight (I've never read any of the non-Maigret books)! The President is a delicate and careful autopsy of a once-powerful man's reluctant and relieved laying down his armaments. His life always consisted of public service, unmarried and childless and grasping for the levers of power to make his isolation into welcome solitude.
Simenon's Maigret novels are, as murder mysteries must be, formulaic. Simenon's gift came from creating a rich and satisfying story from these commonly available materials. It's a bit like watching Meryl Streep in a movie: She IS the role, she can't be more than glancingly perceived as the actress who starred in any other movie. Chameleons have that talent...so do cuttlefish...yet to find the gift of remodeling one's self in our smelly, sweaty human selves amazes and delights us every time.
This 152-page tale is a welcome surprise in this era of bloated, dull series books that could and should have been short stories. In my view, the less an author says, the more s/he has to focus and deliver a high-quality experience. Simenon wrote what was necessary to illuminate the long career of the eponymous president and place it in an historical setting. The impact of the actions taken by the president become, by design but still of necessity, quiet bombshells...silent even in their death throes.
This is a book to savor, to sip and ponder the complex flavors mixed in exacting proportions. A simple story, made well, translated carefully, and presented without hype. It is a treat in a literary landscape as pillowy-soft and cloyingly sweet as today's is simply to be told that great hearts still beat faster in pursuit of desired items and outcomes. And they remain great hearts, giving their all and making no excuses.
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