Intimate Memoirs

There are more than enough prolific memoirists in the literary world, and quite a few popular writers who have written hundreds of books, but Simenon seems to be one of the very few crossovers between the two categories. In the 1940s he wrote the childhood memoir Je me souviens and the autobiographical novel Pedigree ; in the 1970s, after he stopped writing fiction, there was a whole string of audio-diaries, the Dictées, and then this massive Casanova-esque tell-all memoir, over 1000 pages of it.

The book is addressed to Simenon's four children, especially to his daughter Marie-Jo, who had taken her own life in 1978, and it's clearly meant as a reply and defence to the hostile memoir that had been published by his estranged second wife, show more Denyse Ouimet. Obviously, in those circumstances you don't necessarily have to believe every word, especially as Simenon was clearly working largely from memory and didn't take much trouble to revise the text even when he realised that he had got details in the wrong order. All the same, it's an interesting read, and it gives nice insights into his view of life as someone who, thanks to a lot of hard work, had risen from humble origins in Liège to become one of the highest-paid writers of his generation.

The detailed account of his life starts with the appearance of his first child, Marc, on the eve of the second World War, but there's a summary of his early career which only looks condensed if you compare it with what follows. Then we get a full description of family life with his first wife, "Tigy", in the Vendée during the war, the move to Canada and the US, the appearance of Denyse ("D.") as his secretary and lover, the divorce and remarriage when she became pregnant, the move back to Europe and the two chateaux near Lausanne, D.'s spells of mental illness, the troubled adolescence of Marie-Jo, and eventually Simenon's old age and retirement.

Simenon's pleasure in being so wealthy and being able to treat his family to all kinds of luxuries is almost endearing -- until you stop to think about it -- and there's a certain voyeuristic pleasure in seeing into all the exclusive hotels where the family holidays, as well as the showers of dropped names along the way. If it isn't "my old friend Jean Cocteau" in the next room, it's bound to be the Chaplin family or the Beatles. When Simenon attends a party at the home of his son Marc, now a trainee director, the young film-makers attending inevitably include Deneuve, Godard and Truffaut.

It's fun to learn about Simenon's approach to writing, as well, even if it doesn't have much relevance to any mere mortal. A Maigret novel takes him about two or three hours of planning on the back of a file-cover, then ten mornings of actual writing (he got it down to seven days when he was in his sixties, less time than many people would take to read it).

One of the most enjoyable parts of the book for me was Simenon's account of his first trip back to Liège after his sojourn in America, a long series of extravagantly Belgian civic feasts and receptions for the boy who had left town as a trainee reporter some thirty years earlier. The humility and constant surprise that comes through in those passages, and the real pleasure of rediscovering old friends and mentors (and one old enemy) makes you feel that he might not have been altogether spoiled by success.

Of course, what made headlines at the time this book came out was Simenon's claim to have had sex with 10,000 women in the course of his life, mainly prostitutes. Happily, he doesn't find it necessary to list them all here, but he does try to explain his attitude to sex, not so much to justify himself but more to make the point that we should judge his actions by their consequences and not by arbitrary standards of bourgeois morality. Either way, it's pretty clear that he was happy to take advantage of his position as a rich and successful male to exploit women who didn't have the same kind of freedom of action, and it's hard to avoid the suspicion that his irresponsible attitude to sex at least contributed indirectly to the mental health issues of Denyse and Marie-Jo. show less

Un'autobiografia, una confessione, un epistolario di oltre mille pagine: così uno dei massimi autori del novecento consegna al pubblico senza pudori e senza falsità tutto se stesso. L'uomo e lo scrittore Simenon che conosciamo attraverso questa lunghissima lettura ci sorprende e talvolta ci fa anche inorridire. Una personalità dominante e una fame insaziabile di vita. Nel corso di un'esistenza disordinata, tra cambi di residenza e viaggi, mogli e amanti, eccessi in tutte le forme, dipendenza dalle pulsioni improvvise, Simenon si rivela sempre un padre generoso e partecipe, gioioso e sensibile. Le sue donne e i suoi figli vivono nel lusso, malgrado lui abbia avversione per tutto ciò che è borghese. Un uomo dalla visione fatalista, show more consapevole della bassezza che alberga negli esseri umani insieme al senso del bello e del buono. Dopo il suicidio dell'amata figlia egli riprende quanto cominciato con "Je me souviens e Pedigree", del 1941, mai completato e vi aggiunge il "Livre di Marie-Jo", eliminando alcune pagine dal manoscritto originale per espressa volontà dell'ex moglie. Marie -Jo era la prediletta, pur amando intensamente i tre maschi, poiché in lei ravvisava una grande fragilità e una pericolosa inclinazione alla disfatta. Nel 1978 la ragazza si uccide, lasciando una drammatica lettera di addio al padre.
"Memorie intime" è un volume molto impegnativo che ci conduce ben oltre la storia individuale e familiare. Potremmo definirlo un'autopsia, lucida e dolorosa, una forma di gioco d'azzardo, perché Simenon gioca se stesso sul tappeto verde della confessione e in verità, è consapevole di avere perso. show less