La Veuve Couderc
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"I have devoured and savoured La Veuve Couderc [...] Extraordinary analogies between this book and Camus's L'Étranger, about which so much has been said; but I find that your book goes much further, without seeming to do so [...] which is the pinnacle of art..."--André Gide letter of 1945, cited in Simenon "Simenon takes some sorting out, because at first glance he seems easily classified, and on second thought (after you have read fifty or sixty of his books) unclassifiable. The Camus comparison is not gratuitous -- Simenon often made it himself and André Gide brought the same subject up a few years after L'étranger appeared, favoring Simenon's work, especially La Veuve Couderc. And (in a 1947 letter to Albert Guerard) Gide went further, calling Simenon “notre plus grand romancier aujourd'hui, vrai romancier.”"--Figures in a Landscape: People and Places (2018) by Paul Theroux |
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La Veuve Couderc (1942) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon. The novel tells the story of a young man and a middle aged woman, profoundly distant from each other in origin and character, who find in the frustration they have suffered a an emotional bond that will explode in the light of passion.
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Translations
English
Translated as Ticket of Leave and The Widow.
Plot
Released after five years in prison, Jean is hired as a farmhand by Tati, the nickname of the widow Couderc. Tati, who started working for Couderc at the age of fourteen as a servant, married the family's son at seventeen and was widowed early, has taken over the running of the house. She lives there alone with Father Couderc, an old rundown man whose erotic needs she occasionally relieves, and who in return ensures her control over the farm. The Couderc sisters, hostile, try in vain to take it away from her.
Jean, treated like a son by this authoritarian woman who willingly grants him her favours, feels appeased and understood for the first time. But he is soon reminded of his past by an insult hurled by the young Félicie. His trial comes back to mind: the son of a large distiller in the region, he had a golden childhood, but without family affection. As a student in Paris, his need for money to satisfy the whims of a woman led him to a murder that his lawyer more or less disguised as an accident. Here he is again in anguish.
A more violent dispute than the others breaks out between the Couderc sisters and Tati, with a serious head injury, is forced to stay in bed for several weeks. Jean looks after her and takes care of the house alone, while he gradually gets closer to Félicie. Tati, ugly because of her illness and fearing that Jean will run away from her, feels an atrocious jealousy growing inside her. The young man nevertheless manages to deceive her and makes Félicie his mistress. However, one day, when the young girl has not come, the widow Couderc leads him to confess his affair. Exasperated by the pleas and reproaches of this unhappy woman, Jean kills her with blows of a hammer.
Themes of the novel
Themes in Simenon's work include the canal (The House by the Canal, Le Charretier de la Providence, L'Écluse n°1) ; the omnipresence (Le Bourgmestre de Furnes), or even here the omnipotence of women (the men are only fallible characters like the old Couderc, without morals like Tati's son, or vain like his cousin); the theme of freedom (L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains), but unlike that novel, the hero here goes from total and aimless freedom to confinement; a penniless family formerly in opulence (L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre, La Maison du canal) in which conflicts over money take on a predominant role in both wealthy and simpler circles.
The distance between Jean and the world is reminiscent of Meursault in Albert Camus' L'Étranger. André Gide would say that without seeming to do so, Simenon goes further than Camus in the sense that the strangeness of the hero's world is part of a more complex and more human logic and path.
The story, which is restricted in time and space, also focuses on the relationship between Tati and Jean, two characters who are very different in every way: Tati is 45 years old, Jean 28; their social background: Jean is the son of a wealthy industrialist; their culture: Tati is almost illiterate; their vision of the world: while Jean is a dreamer and contemplative, Tati has both feet firmly planted on the ground. Only their common solitude made them recognize each other when they met on the bus.
Félicie, Jean's lover, is like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. (Tati would have accepted all women but this one), is the one who will break the beneficial torpor in which the hero lives and who will provoke the crisis, like Edmée in La Maison du canal. Jean's dreams of a future life with Félicie will collide with reality, like Mr. Hire with Alice.
Characters
- The widow Couderc, nicknamed "Tati". Farmer. Widow, one son (left for Africa). In her forties.
- Jean Passerat-Monnoyeur, single, 28 years old.
- Old Couderc, Tati's father-in-law.
- Françoise and Amélie, Tati's sisters-in-law.
- Félicie, Tati's niece, single mother, about 16 years old.
Time and place
It takes place in Le Gué-de-Saulnois, a village between Saint-Armand and Montluçon (Allier) in 1942.
Editions
- Édition originale : Gallimard, 1942
- Folio Policier, n° 235, 2001 Template:ISBN
- Tout Simenon, tome 23, Omnibus, 2003 Template:ISBN
- Romans, tome I, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, n° 495, 2003 Template:ISBN
- Romans durs, tome 5, Omnibus, 2012 Template:ISBN
Film adaptation
- 1971 : The Widow Couderc, French film by Pierre Granier-Deferre, adaptation from the novel of the same name, with Simone Signoret and Alain Delon in the principal roles.
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. 108-109 Template:ISBN
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