Blind Alley  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Chemin sans issue (1938) is a roman dur by Georges Simenon.

It was first translated as Blind Path in Lost Moorings and later as Blind Alley.

Contents

Summary

Vladimir and Blinis, two white Russians united by a long friendship of misery that goes back to the time of their youth and the October Revolution 1917, are both in the service of Jeanne Papelier, an extravagant woman who lives the high life on the French Riviera: they are more particularly assigned to the maintenance of her yacht, " l'Elektra ", which hardly leaves the port of Antibes. However, something separates Vladimir from Blinis, and that is suddenly revealed with the arrival of Helen, Jeanne's daughter: Blinis, despite everything, has retained a natural serenity that immediately earns him the affectionate interest of the girl. The latter, on the other hand, has nothing but contempt for Vladimir, who gets drunk every day "at Polyte", and is the slave of this rogue mother who she barely knows and who has been married three times. Out of jealousy, Vladimir slips a brilliant of Jeanne into Blinis' clothes and has him fired for stealing. Nevertheless, this departure does not change the attitude of Helen, who later will speak to Vladimir only to ask for a large sum of money, a service whose shameful nature is always commensurate with his contempt: Helen, who is expecting a child from Blinis, would like to abort. Vladimir does not hide the truth about the theft to Jeanne. But, while she sees it as a sign of the cowardly despair that binds her body and soul to Vladimir, he is increasingly eaten away by remorse that one day leads to revolt. He strangles this ugly, alcoholic and distorted woman, who is guilty of all the evil, and then, freed from her, goes in search of Blinis, whom he finally finds in a night shelter in Warsaw. Blinis is a wreck: Vladimir arrives as a savior, driven by the dream of reliving with him the happy times of their youth when they loved each other like brothers. A foolish dream which he renounces to send Blinis back to Hélène, who is waiting for her child near Melun, after having left her almost all the money he owns. As for him, he will assume the misery that was Blinis' in Warsaw.

Special aspects of the novel

A friendship between two men sealed by the origin of a common misery: broken by the jealousy of one, it is renewed after the ordeal of a liberation that will however reject them far from the other.

Work description

Space and Time

Space

Golf-Juan, near Antibes, Cannes, Warsaw.

Time

Contemporary time (allusion to the Russian Revolution).

The characters

Main character

Vladimir, Russian emigrated to France. Domestic and lover of Jeanne Papelier. Single. Middle-aged.

Other characters

  • Jeanne Papelier, a wealthy woman of about fifty
  • Hélène, daughter of Jeanne's first marriage
  • George Kalenin, known as Blinis, a compatriot and friend of Vladimir, also in the service of Jeanne.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Blind Alley" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools