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A review by oldpondnewfrog
The Train by Robert Baldick, Georges Simenon
5.0
First read March 2013
I'm not sure what it was about this book, but lately, for some reason, it's been the one I think of first.
"I want to make it clear right away that I was not an unhappy man, nor a sad man either."
Second read October 2014
What a novel. It just works for me. I am taken in all the way. Great chapter endings. Great familiarity among the strangers-become-roommates on the train. And a really poignant, believable love affair.
There is this sense of inevitability that I can't quite express, but which I experience strongly. It's also present in other works—like Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence."
The translation by Robert Baldick is, I think, especially good.
"When I woke up, a yellowish light which I knew so well was filtering into the bedroom through the holland curtains. Our windows, on the first floor, have no shutters. None of the houses in the street has any."
I love that has.
I love the ending, which is unusually satisfying for a thing like this that has to come to an end.
I love the narrator, whose mention of irrelevant details is integral to the pleasure of his tale, and whose uncertainty about his own feelings somehow makes me understand better.
I'm not sure what it was about this book, but lately, for some reason, it's been the one I think of first.
"I want to make it clear right away that I was not an unhappy man, nor a sad man either."
Second read October 2014
What a novel. It just works for me. I am taken in all the way. Great chapter endings. Great familiarity among the strangers-become-roommates on the train. And a really poignant, believable love affair.
There is this sense of inevitability that I can't quite express, but which I experience strongly. It's also present in other works—like Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence."
The translation by Robert Baldick is, I think, especially good.
"When I woke up, a yellowish light which I knew so well was filtering into the bedroom through the holland curtains. Our windows, on the first floor, have no shutters. None of the houses in the street has any."
I love that has.
I love the ending, which is unusually satisfying for a thing like this that has to come to an end.
I love the narrator, whose mention of irrelevant details is integral to the pleasure of his tale, and whose uncertainty about his own feelings somehow makes me understand better.