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149th out of 349 books
—
180 voters
Red Lights
It is Friday evening before Labor Day weekend. Americans are hitting the highways in droves; the radio crackles with warnings of traffic jams and crashed cars. Steve Hogan and his wife, Nancy, have a long drive ahead—from New York City to Maine, where their children are in camp. But Steve wants a drink before they go, and on the road he wants another. Soon, exploding with...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
July 18th 2006
by NYRB Classics
(first published 1953)
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Until reading The Man Who Wasn't Maigret yesterday I had never really felt any urge to read a Simenon that wasn't a Maigret but the amount of praise heaped upon his roman dur oeuvre and collected in his biography I knew this would be the next thing I read.
A dark noir-like tale of one mans weaknesses and the unravelling of a life over one reckless night reminding me of both David Goodis (a recent discovery of mine) and the characters contained within Men Without Women. It even called to mind part...more
A dark noir-like tale of one mans weaknesses and the unravelling of a life over one reckless night reminding me of both David Goodis (a recent discovery of mine) and the characters contained within Men Without Women. It even called to mind part...more
This is the third of Simenon's roman durs that I have read, and even though it is my least favorite so far I admire the lean prose and psychological complexity. But at times the story read like an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Steve and Nancy Hogan, Long Islanders who work in Manhattan, head out on Labor Day Weekend to pick up their kids at Camp Walla Walla in Maine. Even by the lax standards of the 1950's, when the novel takes place, Steve has a "drinking problem." He sneaks extra drink...more
Steve and Nancy Hogan, Long Islanders who work in Manhattan, head out on Labor Day Weekend to pick up their kids at Camp Walla Walla in Maine. Even by the lax standards of the 1950's, when the novel takes place, Steve has a "drinking problem." He sneaks extra drink...more
«Non leggere Luci nella notte, non è il momento giusto per te»
«Ma figurati! Dopo aver letto Fitzgerald e Yates, nulla può più abbattermi»
«Sei emotivamente instabile, Simenon non ti aiuterà»
«Scusa, non è quello che scrive noir? Il commissario Maigret di qua, il commissario Maigret di là… tutti ne parlano sempre con toni così entusiasmanti! Cosa vuoi che mi faccia un libretto di 166 pagine?»
«Qui non c’è il commissario Maigret. Ci sono un uomo e una donna. E poi c’è la vita. E tu non hai mai letto...more
«Ma figurati! Dopo aver letto Fitzgerald e Yates, nulla può più abbattermi»
«Sei emotivamente instabile, Simenon non ti aiuterà»
«Scusa, non è quello che scrive noir? Il commissario Maigret di qua, il commissario Maigret di là… tutti ne parlano sempre con toni così entusiasmanti! Cosa vuoi che mi faccia un libretto di 166 pagine?»
«Qui non c’è il commissario Maigret. Ci sono un uomo e una donna. E poi c’è la vita. E tu non hai mai letto...more
Not Simenon’s strongest noir novel, however, a compelling one nonetheless. I love these noir novels that take place around and just after WWII in the United States, it shows a country in transition: heavily influenced by a European sensibility yet careening into amoral, capitalist decadence straining against the emerging self-awareness of minorities and women. It would also be interesting to compare Simenon’s take on this subject to another American writer of the same time period.
The novel's plo...more
The novel's plo...more
Although he is most famous for creating the character Inspector Maigret, Georges Simenon dabbled in a particularly dark form of fiction called romans durs. (I would have just called it noir, but what do I know?) According to Anita Brookner's introduction to RED LIGHTS, Simenon's romans durs followed a simple formula: "A life will go wrong, usually because of an element in the protagonist's make-up which impels him to self-destruct, to willfully seek disgrace, exclusion, ruin in his search for a...more
This book is the worse for wear in the time machine. Supposedly it is set in the 50s in New England, but it doesn't seem to be any New England I recall. Of course, the names of cities are there, but merde, I could write about France and look up a few French towns along the highway, too.
The writing and the plot are a bit sophomoric, too. It's almost like bad TV when you read the newspaper accounts of this dude's wife gone missing and when you hear radio reports. Like a kid might imagine such repo...more
The writing and the plot are a bit sophomoric, too. It's almost like bad TV when you read the newspaper accounts of this dude's wife gone missing and when you hear radio reports. Like a kid might imagine such repo...more
Set along New England highways (with many a shout-out to my current home of Providence, RI), this is a sort of Little Red Riding Hood in which "Red" is a 32 year old father/drunkard (and sometimes his 34 year old wife). En route to fetch his spawn from a summer at camp, he obstinantly turns to drink even though the roads are a wreck. Dismayed, his wife storms off without him to teach him a lesson. Emasculated by his bitter half, he allows himself to become overfed on the sauce with the same "i'l...more
this took two sittings to get through; a really quick read. it's my third simenon and it's in the middle, quality-wise. while nowhere near as unusual or insightful as dirty snow, as a minimal character study it works pretty well. it's basically 150 pages of character study, wrapped around a crime story. as was popular in mid-century europe, crime and violence are seen as acts of insurrection - and the umpteenth simenon-writes-like-camus'-the-stranger comparison applies here quite well. claude ch...more
“E’ stupido, vero? Capiamo solo quando è troppo tardi. Quando siamo felici non ci facciamo caso.”
Quando sono soli non si parlano e riempiono i vuoti accendendo la radio oppure si mettono a sfogliare le riviste. Non si capiscono, viaggiano su strade differenti. Lei sempre su binari dritti, senza mai una svolta, una sbandata. Lui invece le vuole le svolte, i cedimenti , le sbandate e allora beve, e quando è un po’ alticcio riesce anche a dirglielo in faccia quello che pensa di lei. Ma quel giorno,...more
Quando sono soli non si parlano e riempiono i vuoti accendendo la radio oppure si mettono a sfogliare le riviste. Non si capiscono, viaggiano su strade differenti. Lei sempre su binari dritti, senza mai una svolta, una sbandata. Lui invece le vuole le svolte, i cedimenti , le sbandate e allora beve, e quando è un po’ alticcio riesce anche a dirglielo in faccia quello che pensa di lei. Ma quel giorno,...more
Simenon can write noir. Hell, he never even visited the United States and he seemed to encapsulate the U.S. - or encapsulate a version of the U.S. that I recognize from Mad Men, 50s movies, and 50s fiction. Everyone drinks and smokes a lot, even when driving, or eating, or talking, or, well, they seem to be drinking and smoking just about all the time. You can picture people from the 50s drinking and smoking while having sex, calmly repositioning a leg over the head in order to maneuver a free h...more
It's Labor Day weekend in New York, and like countless others, Steve and Nancy Hogan are headed to Maine to pick up their kids from summer camp and return to the fall domestic routine again. Steve has a drink too many, which leads to some more drinks too many. There's a nightmare feel to this crush of traffic heading north in the dark, accentuated by the news bulletins predictions of how many will die over the holiday.
No wonder things start to go so badly wrong...
My blog post about the books is...more
No wonder things start to go so badly wrong...
My blog post about the books is...more
This was a disturbing read, but in a captivating way, and to a thought-provoking end. I love me some disturbing, after all. For most of this short novel, I thought to myself, "Oh God, don't let me ever be like these people," and still I sympathized with the pathetic protagonist. The entire plot takes place over the course of a holiday weekend as a bickering couple heads north on 95 to pick up their kids at camp. The tension between this married couple builds along with the traffic patterns. Soon...more
What do you do when you are rushing toward the unknown, possibly a dangerous situation, and you are unable to stop? Georges Simenon takes us through just such an experience in this novel as we join Steve Hogan as he begins an unexceptional Labor Day weekend sharing a drink with his wife before they head north to Maine to retrieve their two children from Summer Camp. What we know is that Steve has premonitions about the trip almost from the beginning. What we don't know is how serious and dangero...more
1 like · like · see review
Di questi tempi, continuo ad imbattermi in libri che raccontano di svolte sbagliate ("Ero Jack Mortimer" di Holenia). E continua a tornarmi in mente "Detour", il famoso b-movie noir di Edgar G. Ulmer (chissà se Simenon lo conosceva).
Detour, una svolta. Un colpo di sterzo per uscire dai binari, per cambiare vita, per dimostrare qualcosa.
Forse solo per scoprire che la linea tra la norma(lità) e la devianza\deviazione è sottile e per di più scolorisce facilmente con il whisky.
Così un tale senza g...more
Detour, una svolta. Un colpo di sterzo per uscire dai binari, per cambiare vita, per dimostrare qualcosa.
Forse solo per scoprire che la linea tra la norma(lità) e la devianza\deviazione è sottile e per di più scolorisce facilmente con il whisky.
Così un tale senza g...more
This book was well-written and a nice, psychological piece of fiction that really delved into the ambivalent nature of Steve Hogan, the lead character of the story.
I felt that it could have been even more compelling, however, if he didn't quite find his wife right away. There was a point where I mistook what Steve was saying for what Mr. Keane was saying and thought that Steve's belief in having finally found his wife had been totally destroyed. But that wasn't the case. It was just me reading...more
I felt that it could have been even more compelling, however, if he didn't quite find his wife right away. There was a point where I mistook what Steve was saying for what Mr. Keane was saying and thought that Steve's belief in having finally found his wife had been totally destroyed. But that wasn't the case. It was just me reading...more
Oct 06, 2007
Michael
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Crime Noir fans
Shelves:
read_in_2007,
nyrb-classics
I was pleasantly surprised by this noir gem from NYRB classics. This was my first exposure to Simenon, the famously prolific creator of Inspector Maigret.
Red Lights is the story of a regular couple from New York, Steve and Nancy Hogan, who become fatefully entwined with Sid, a hardened criminal; a hard case. As they prepare to embark on a trip to retrieve their children from a Maine summer camp, Steve finds himself going where he calls "into the tunnel", an imaginary zone where he can shake out...more
Red Lights is the story of a regular couple from New York, Steve and Nancy Hogan, who become fatefully entwined with Sid, a hardened criminal; a hard case. As they prepare to embark on a trip to retrieve their children from a Maine summer camp, Steve finds himself going where he calls "into the tunnel", an imaginary zone where he can shake out...more
The boomerang shape of the plot returns Steve Hogan, a dazed Odysseus, to his wife and to sobriety. But the bend of the boomerang is the sharp angle where apparent freedom and crumpling nihilism meet. Simenon writes in the book's best passages with an enthralling attention to the uncomfortable detail and to the atonal undercurrents running beneath the thoughts of a character who mistakenly thinks himself sane.
It is Friday evening before Labor Day weekend. Americans are hitting the highways in droves; the radio crackles with warnings of traffic jams and crashed cars. Steve Hogan and his wife, Nancy, have a long drive ahead—from New York City to Maine, where their children are in camp. But Steve wants a drink before they go, and on the road he wants another. Soon, exploding with suppressed fury, he is heading into that dark place in himself he calls “the tunnel.” When Steve stops for yet another drink,...more
Un raro Simenon "americano", certo non uno dei più noti, rispolverato oggi a causa di un film ad esso ispirato (leggo però che l'hanno ambientato in Francia! Mah..).
Una storia anni '50, protagonisti una coppia della piccola borghesia, appena affacciata al benessere economico. Lui un po' frustrato, quasi alcolista, lei "donna in carriera", rapporto in crisi. Un breve viaggio per andare a riprendere i figli al campeggio estivo si trasforma in un avventura tragica che cambierà le loro vite "comuni...more
Una storia anni '50, protagonisti una coppia della piccola borghesia, appena affacciata al benessere economico. Lui un po' frustrato, quasi alcolista, lei "donna in carriera", rapporto in crisi. Un breve viaggio per andare a riprendere i figli al campeggio estivo si trasforma in un avventura tragica che cambierà le loro vite "comuni...more
I liked it a lot. It's worth noting that even though it's set in the USA, against the background of a Labour Day weekend and a jailbreak from Sing Sing, this exotic (to a non-American) setting contains another foray into the quotidian and the deviance that lies beneath its surface in the shadowy realm of people's psyches, very much in the spirit of the Maigret novels. However, without having to churn out and resolve a mystery, Simenon instead charts one man's journey 'into the tunnel' of his own...more
Non è che ci sia molto da dire.
Questo romanzo sfiora a larghi tratti la perfezione.
Sembra un Revolutionary Road ante litteram, e fa specie considerare che questa lucida scheggia di vita di una giovane coppia negli anni cinquanta d'america l'abbia scritta un belga.
Questo romanzo sfiora a larghi tratti la perfezione.
Sembra un Revolutionary Road ante litteram, e fa specie considerare che questa lucida scheggia di vita di una giovane coppia negli anni cinquanta d'america l'abbia scritta un belga.
No breaks in the tension, no letup, a single-sitting read in 150 pages that feels alternately like no time is elapsing, or like a lifetime lashed to the wheel. A family roadtrip upstate, circa 1953, set on the east coast of the United States... goes off the tracks.
Tension leads to white-knuckle dread, in the traditional noir vein wherein familiar turns strange, the rules have all changed, and the options are disappearing by the minute. I think the word 'harrowing' does it justice. Put this one...more
Tension leads to white-knuckle dread, in the traditional noir vein wherein familiar turns strange, the rules have all changed, and the options are disappearing by the minute. I think the word 'harrowing' does it justice. Put this one...more
4 likes · like · see review
Not like any of his other books that I've read, this story is set in America, not Paris. There is no inspector, no murder. The characters, Steve and Nancy, could be any normal couple. They're going to Maine on Labor Day weekend to pick up their son and daughter at camp. Summer is over. They meet in the city after work to have a drink at their favorite bar. For Steve, the drinking begins and goes nonstop. What happens on the roadtrip is the story. It changes their lives. Not sure if the ending is...more
Non conoscevo Simenon fuori Maigret, ed è stato un piacevole incontro.
Storia sempre sul ciglio del burrone e un ultimo capitolo che ti fa trattenere il fiato.
Edizione Adelphi ottima, come al solito.
Storia sempre sul ciglio del burrone e un ultimo capitolo che ti fa trattenere il fiato.
Edizione Adelphi ottima, come al solito.
A noir novel that grabs you by the throat once they leave the city and never lets go. A tough plot for some I am sure, but one of my favorite pieces by Simenon.
Dark little story about a husband, a wife, a strained marriage, and a poorly-timed weekend getaway. A short book with noir overtones. Pretty good.
perfect for a holiday on the road. read it this (or labor day) weekend. it will explain everything.
Through the tunnel, he hits rock bottom; easier on him than her.
Good, tight read. He builds suspense nicely in just a few pages.
for a school book, not bad. at least it was short.
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Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
He is best known, however, for his 75...more
More about Georges Simenon...
He is best known, however, for his 75...more
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Aug 28, 2012 01:10pm