The Man With the Little Dog (Simenon novel)  

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L'Homme au petit chien (1964, English: The Man With the Little Dog) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon.

Contents

Summary

Félix Allard lives in a modest apartment on Rue des Arquebusiers with his dog Bib as his companion.

Since his release from prison, he has been haunted by the thought of suicide, especially since a doctor has only given him the hope of a two-year survival. In a school notebook that he has just bought, he proposes to tell his life story.

For eight years, he has been working as a clerk in a bookshop run by an authoritarian and lucid woman, the old Mrs Annelet, who once had a rather irregular life. Little by little, we learn that Allard, before taking up this job, had served a five-year prison sentence. His life before that had been without great problems. A mediocre student at the Sorbonne, he had abandoned his studies to take over the family construction business after his father's death. Then at the age of thirty, he met Anne-Marie, who he married after three months. The business flourishes: Allard becomes a partner with Cornille, which allows him to move into a luxurious apartment. Two children are born.

The night outings are frequent. Anne-Marie is exuberant: she likes to drink and dance. Monique, Cornille's wife, is calmer, less frivolous. And the evenings are often spent for Allard and Monique looking at his wife dancing with her husband. One day, Allard discovers that his wife and Cornille meet afternoons in a hotel of the rue de Longchamp. Félix finds his father's old gun, goes to the hotel and shoots his rival.

In prison, he has time to think: finally, wasn't he attracted to Monique? Was his murder really motivated by jealousy? Was it not rather the humiliation he felt when he learned, in an unpleasant circumstance, that Cornille thought he was "a conceited fool"? And wasn't that the lowest point of his dignity as a man?

By chance, the bookstore where Allard works is close to the neighborhood where his wife and children and Monique and her son live. To have seen them both, isolated in the street, makes him want to see them again, simply to watch them live. They end up noticing him, always with his little dog, and report him to the police. The fact of writing his life seems to have calmed him down and he now appears resigned.

On January 13, at the corner of Boulevard Beaumarchais, Félix Allard was hit by a bus and killed instantly. His little dog, unharmed, was taken to the pound.

Special aspects of the novel

A first-person narrative in the form of a diary form, mixing the present (essentially what relates to the life of the life of the bookstore) and the narrator's memories. His accidental death is announced by a news item, fictitiously reproduced from a daily newspaper.

Description of the work

Spatial and temporal setting

Paris (quartier du Marais). From 13 November 1963 to 13 January 1964.

The characters

Main character

Félix Allard. Clerk in a bookstore. Separated from his wife and two children. 48 years old.

Other characters

  • Anne-Marie Varennes, wife of Allard
  • Fernand Cornille and Monique, his wife and then his widow, two children
  • Clarisse Annelet, bookseller, Allard's boss.

Éditions

  • Édition originale : Presses de la Cité, 1964
  • Tout Simenon, tome 12, Omnibus, 2003 Template:ISBN
  • Livre de Poche n° 32047, 2011 Template:ISBN
  • Romans durs, tome 11, Omnibus, 2013 Template:ISBN

Adaptation

Adapté pour la télévision en 1979, dans une réalisation de Jean-Marie Degesves, avec Gilles Ségal (Félix Allard), Ann Peterson (Template:Mme Annelet).

Source

  • Maurice Piron, Michel Lemoine, L'Univers de Simenon, guide des romans et nouvelles (1931-1972) de Georges Simenon, Presses de la Cité, 1983, p. 222-223 Template:ISBN

Article connexe

Liste des œuvres de Georges Simenon




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