The Innocents (Simenon novel)
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The Innocents (1972, Les Innocents) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon, the story of a goldsmith, married, with two teenage children, who loses his wife and will eventually find out her secret.
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Plot summary
For sixteen years, Georges Célerin has been associated with his friend Brassier in a jewelry business on rue de Sévigné: the former designs the jewelry and runs the workshop, the latter handles orders and sales.
Célerin lives in perfect harmony with his wife Annette, their two children (who are in high school) and his colleagues. A stupid accident will change the destiny of this happy man. Annette, who works as a social worker in the quartier de la Bastille, is run over by a truck while crossing Rue Washington, in a neighborhood where, apparently, she had nothing to do.
After this terrible blow, Célerin is no longer the same man. Despite his affection for his wife, he blames himself for not having paid enough attention to her. Detached from everything, he only aspires to get closer to the dead woman, by reconstituting through memory what had been her life and his since the beginning of their marriage.
The Brassiers, of a higher status, had given them access to a comfortable existence. They had hired a Russian maid, Nathalie, which allowed Annette, after the birth of the children, to continue the social activity she took very much to heart. It was Nathalie who ran the household - just as it was she who, with Annette gone, now looked after everything, while, for the distraught father, the life of the home closed in around the two teenagers.
A project is underway to expand Brassier and Célerin's association, thanks to a sponsor, when the latter makes a shocking discovery. While tracing the final days of the dead woman, he tries to find out what happened in the accident on Rue Washington. His investigation shows him that Annette was leaving an apartment building where an apartment rented in the name of Jean-Paul Brassier was used as a meeting place three times a week for the past eighteen years. But he and Annette had been married for twenty years! What crushed Célerin was not that his wife had cheated on him and lied to him for so many years, but that, during all that time, she had loved another man with true love. As for the children, whose are they?
Nathalie was aware of this: she explained to a distraught Célerin that Annette had not had the courage to take away his happiness, this blissful joy of living of his.
Now that the emptiness is complete, that Annette has died a second time, all that remains for Célerin is to ask Brassier for the painful confrontation that will put an end, with dignity, to their relationship.
Particularities
The novel of the couple seen from a particular angle: the good understanding of the two spouses conceals, in the wife, a frigidity towards her husband, with, as a consequence, the parallel affair and the shared love. Note the frequent allusions to the profession of jeweler and, in particular, the creation, by the main character, of one of his most beautiful jewels during a drunken scene.
Technical file
Space and time
Space
Paris. References to the Nièvre and to the countryside of Caen.
Time
1972.
Characters
Main character
Georges Célerin. Goldsmith and jeweler. Married, two children. Middle age.
Other characters
- Annette, wife of Georges Célerin, social worker
- Jean-Jacques Célerin, 16 years old, and Marlène Célerin, 14 and a half, their children
- Jean-Paul Brassier, former salesman at a jeweler's in the rue Saint-Honoré, Célerin's associate, and his wife Evelyne.
Editions
- Édition originale : Presses de la Cité, 1972
- Tout Simenon, tome 15, Omnibus, 2003 Template:ISBN
- Livre de poche n° 35057, 2008 Template:ISBN
- Romans durs, tome 12, Omnibus, 2013 Template:ISBN
Adaptations
- 1988 : Niji no aru heya, téléfilm japonais réalisé par Yuji Murakami, avec Isao Bîto et Takako Miki.
- 2006 : Les Innocents, téléfilm français réalisé par Denis Malleval, avec Olivier Marchal (Dominique Célerin), Stéphane Freiss (Jean-Paul Brassier), Jacques Frantz (Lieutenant Fernaud) et Virginie Peignien (Marie Célerin).
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. 250-251 Template:ISBN
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