Titre : | The old man dies | Type de document : | texte imprimé | Auteurs : | Georges Simenon, Auteur ; Bernard Frechtman, Traducteur | Editeur : | London : Hamish Hamilton | Année de publication : | 1967 | Importance : | 144 p | Langues : | Anglais Langues originales : Français | Résumé : | This is a story of Les Halles in Paris, the old marketplace torn down in 1970. It is the story of Auguste Mature who comes to Paris and opens a restaurant called Chez l’Auvergnat and prospers. With supreme economy Simenon creates what is virtually a two generation family saga in his usual scope of 120 pages. Auguste grows old, still vain of his virility, mustache and muscles. He stays in close touch with other shopkeepers from his district of the Auvergne. His health is poor now, and he is on a strict regime set by his doctor which he rebels against when he can. His wife Eugénie, whom he married when she was sixteen, has grown old too, and has lost her reason, spending her time in a dream world where no one can contact her. Auguste has three sons. The eldest, Ferdinand, has become a magistrate, though he and his wife and children have to struggle on a low salary to survive. The second son, Antoine, works with his father in the restaurant, and has become his partner. The youngest, Bernard, is a wastrel living on borrowed money.
Both Ferdinand and Bernard have grown apart from their family: involved with their own affairs, they seldom have time to visit. With loving detail, Simenon gives the daily routine of Antoine and his wife Fernande. They rise at five, Antoine does the shopping then sets the menu. He is as well known and liked in the area as his father was before him. The routine of preparing food, greeting customers, ordering supplies, dealing with staff, give an extremely realistic flavour to the story. The other brothers are treated with as much detail. We understand their life and their values and concerns. Then, quite suddenly, Auguste has a stroke and dies.
The brothers and their families gather to plan the funeral. Ferdinand and Bernard realise for the first time that the restaurant is a prosperous business, and that their father has been putting substantial sums of money away for years, and that therefore there is an inheritance for them. Both are needy men, and the realisation slowly affects their judgment till they turn against their brother Antoine, suspicious he is trying to defraud them.
| Nature du document : | Roman | Genre : | Récit de vie/Sentimental |
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