When I Was Old

Georges Simenon, as everybody knows, was a Belgian who went to live in Switzerland. Well, that's about what I knew of the fellow before reading this interesting partial autobiography. I think it says somewhere at the beginning that he had intended not to write about himself ever, but that some event involving a child of his changed his mind. Whatever the reason, this look at part of a writer's hectic life is not without interest. Simenon lived in a mist of rumour and legend. Of course, this was largely of his own making and he does little to correct matters in the book. Although known as something of a, to put it politely, lover of women's company, he does not go into this Paris Match side of things at all. Instead, he lets us see a bit of the inner man, or what a clever writer may be selling to us as such, and, all the criticism of him after his death notwithstanding, I for one felt that I got somewhat closer to the enigma. It was almost as if he was saying (in about 1963) that he wasn't such a bad fellow after all. There is much of interest to anyone wondering about the author of Maigret, but precious little about Maigret himself. Just some tedious details of how he could write a novel a week and live rather handsomely without even getting tendinitis. It's hard to know how you can take Georges Simenon seriously. He led a charmed life in many ways, and his famous temper (like that of Peter Sellers) and love of womankind if not mankind, made him a force to be reckoned with. In "When I Was Old," we get a glimpse of the man who held millions in thrall for so many years. It's worth the look.