Magnet of Doom (Simenon novel)
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L'Aîné des Ferchaux (1945) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon.
The novel takes place in 1945, in Paris, Caen, Courseulles (Normandy), Dunkirk, Brussels, Cristobal and Colón (Panama), after a transit by Tenerife.
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Summary
Michel Maudet, an ambitious young man, becomes the secretary of Dieudonné Ferchaux, a former colonist, whom the Caen justice system suspects of having, twenty-five years earlier, committed embezzlement in Africa and murdered three natives. Despite his boss's rather troubled past, Maudet admires Ferchaux, a symbol for him of a man who has succeeded against all odds. So, when Ferchaux's situation becomes untenable, Maudet accompanies him to Dunkirk, where the former settler embarks with part of his fortune on a cargo ship bound for the Canary Islands. Abandoning his young wife, the secretary decides on a whim to follow his boss.
After a long journey, the two men disembark in Panama, then settled under false names in the city of Colón, the northern entry point of the Panama Canal on the Caribbean Sea. Embittered and ill, Ferchaux becomes more and more surly, egotistical and demanding. Maudet, who has become indispensable to his boss, understands that he must rely only on himself to make his fortune. He distances himself from his boss and becomes a friend of the local underworld. He meets Mrs. Lampson, a rich American woman whose ship, the "Santa Clara", makes a longer than expected stop in Colón. He then sees the possibility of getting out of the impasse in which he finds himself. Soon, he has the project to rob Ferchaux. To achieve his goal, he kills his boss in cold blood with a hammer and delivers his corpse to a trafficker of shrunken heads (Jivaroan peoples, which includes the Shuar, Achuar, Huambisa and Aguaruna tribes from Ecuador and Peru, are known to have shrunken human heads). He then joins Mrs. Lampson in Chile, then leaves her to live his life as a rich adventurer.
Special aspects of the novel
A foreword by Simenon recalls the Ferchaux affair (and its antecedents) which was a major issue in the 1930s in the world of colonial business and justice, an affair which ended with the disappearance of Dieudonné Ferchaux after his indictment.
From this fact, the novelist has imagined a sequel where the elder of the two Ferchaux brothers (the second having in the story only a minor role) resumes with the adventure in distant countries. The game is played between two men who are initially brought together by a secret connivance: the old colonial shark who believes that he has found in his secretary a boy of his own caliber, and the ambitious young man who sees, in a boss whose ascendancy he first undergoes, the big shot he would like to become. But their evolution in the opposite direction shows that there is, on both sides, a mistake about the person.
Characters
- Michel Maudet, Dieudonné Ferchaux's secretary, about twenty years old at the beginning of the novel.
- Dieudonné Ferchaux, "the man from Oubangui-Chari", former colonist and businessman.
- Emile Ferchaux, his younger brother, also involved in colonial affairs.
- Lina, wife of Michel Maudet.
- Mrs. Lampson, a wealthy American whose ship stopped in Colon.
- Rénée, Maudet's mistress in Panama.
Adaptations
Movies
- 1963: L'Aîné des Ferchaux, French film by Jean-Pierre Melville, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Vanel and Michèle Mercier
Television
- 2001 : L'Aîné des Ferchaux, French téléfilm by Bernard Stora, with Samy Naceri, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Julie Depardieu
