Brilliant Together in Paris
a selection from A Book Review By John Leonard:
Simenon.
By Pierre Assouline
Translated by Jon Rothschild.
Knopf. 447 pp. $32.50.
BIOGRAPHY
I am chided for my taste for publicity, as though God Himself had no need of his church bells!
He was not a nice man, maybe because his mother never kissed the boy or took him onto her lap, and always loved his brother best. Because of poor health, his insurance-agent father couldn't get a policy on his own life, and died with assets of 300 francs. Even before this death, mom took in boarders, some of whom were Russian Jews, who made Georges read Gogol. He quit school and the Catholic Church simultaneously, preferring women and sin. After brief military service, guarding a stable of cavalry horses, he caught on as a cub reporter at the right-wing Liège Gazette, soon achieved his own column and fell in with the local bohemian set, of which he made fun in his first published novel, at age 18, while also writing a series of articles based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: "The Jewish octopus thus extends its tentacles into all classes of society and into all spheres, where its influence is soon felt. And so it will be until the world finally decides to react. Unless by then it is too late."
