George Simenon: The Art of Fiction (The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 3)
George Simenon
George Simenon was a highly prolific novelist -- perhaps the most prolific of the twentieth century. Due his iconic character Commissaire Maigret, Simenon's works have likely touched us even if we (21st-century Americans) don't recognize his name. In addition to his Maigret novels (some based in America, many translated to film and tv), Simenon wrote several "psychological novels," including Le fils (1957). The difference between commercial writing and literary writing formed a part of The Paris Review's interview. "The big difference would be in the concessions. In writing for any commercial purpose you have always to make concessions," Simenon says. Concessions might be made, for example, to the idea of an orderly and sweet life -- but always the concessions are to "current morals":
Maybe that is the most important. You can't write anything commercial without accepting some code. There is always a code -- like the code in Hollywood, and in television and radio. For example, there is now a very good program on television, it is probably the best for plays. The first two acts are always first class. You have the impression of something completely new and strong, and then at the end the concession comes. Not always a happy end, but something comes to arrange everything from the point of view of a morality or philosophy -- you know. All the characters, who were beautifully done, change completely in the last ten minutes.
Perhaps because of these codes and how they organize our twentieth century understanding of life and art, Simenon firmly believes that one cannot return to the kind of novel written in the twentieth century (a wish of mid-century critics, the interviews as a whole suggest). It has to do with the kind of story we're in:
It is impossible, completely impossible, I think. Because we live in a time when writers do not always have barriers around them, they can try to present characters by the most complete, the most full expression. You may show love in a very nice story, the first ten months of two lovers, as in the literature of a long time ago. Then you have a second kind of story: they begin to be bored; that was the literature of the end of the last century. And then, if you are free to go further, the man is fifty and tries to have another life, the woman gets jealous, and you have children mixed in it; that is the third story. We are the third story now. We don't stop when they marry, we don't stop when they begin to be bored, we go to the end.
Simenon is speaking of the mid-1950s. I wonder if we've gone on to another story by the 21st century, or if we continue explore this one -- if finally from a woman's perspective.
Simenon's interview contains a number of interesting tidbits and anecdotes sure to thrill a writer. For instance, Simenon, famous for producing his novels in two-week spans, shares his writing regiment (with doctor's visit), which is surely not for the faint of heart (literally). But my favorite is this piece of advice on prose. It remains applicable today.
Writers, take note:
Share on FacebookSimenon: Just one piece of general advice from a writer has been very useful to me. It was from Colette. I was writing short stories for Le Matin, and Colette was literary editor at that time. I remember I gave her two short stories and she returned them and I tried again and tried again. Finally she said, Look, it is too literary. So I followed her advice. It's what I do when I write, the main job when I rewriting.
Interviewer: What do you mean by "too literary"? What do you cut out, certain kinds of word?
Simenon: Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence--cut it.
