Kees Popinga is an average man, a solid citizen who might enjoy a game of chess in the evening. But one night, this model husband and devoted fathe...
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Apr 16, 2011
mp
rated it: 
While discussing Black Swan with friends the other day, I realized this novel has a similarity or two with Darren Aronofsky movies. Remember those movies ( Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Wrestler, Black Swan ) where we have one or more characters going on with their lives when somehow things begin spiraling out of control. And how!. The Man Who Watched Trains Go By has a similar premise, except the transition in the protagonist's life is relatively more sudden. He steps around a corner from where
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Jul 21, 2008
Tom
rated it: 
So I have this friend named...ummm...Bobby. Yeah Bobby. He told me that he feels a strange connection to Kees Popinga of this title and Meursault of The Stranger. Is this reason for alarm? I mean, its not like he would strangle a prostitute that brazenly laughed in his face at expression of desire....or even shoot an Arab while in an extreme heat induced daze on a sun drenched beach. Could it be he just relates to the characters extreme sense of free will even though by contemporary means they a
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Feb 24, 2008
Tosh
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Another classic 'human' study by Simenon. The theme has been used before in literature, but I never get tired of it. A person who wants to forget their current life and become another identity or break out of their 'mode' of living. And yeah bad things happen. But what's more important bad things are happening in your old life. The strict order of doing things, working at the same company year after year - well, you are going to break down!
For instance, me trying to write five b More...
For instance, me trying to write five b More...
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Dec 21, 2007
Stephan
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Outstanding. I was re-directed in the bookstore to "Mystery" to find this. I thought I was getting myself into something campy. But if this is what the whole mystery genre is like (which, I'm sure it isn't), then I'm in. This book is sparse, psychological, short and so fluid. It follows one mans slow self-inflicted breakdown after he learns everything in his life he paraded is gone.
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Feb 20, 2008
J
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Best known as the creator of Inspector Maigret (one of the top sleuths in detective fiction), Georges Simenon also authored more than 100 romans durs -- hard or difficult novels -- which he considered his real work. Of the four I've read (hardly a representative sample), I thoroughly enjoyed two -- The Man Who Watched Trains Go By and Red Lights -- while finding the other two wanting -- Dirty Snow and The Strangers in the House. All four are short (150-200 pages), written in simple unadorned p
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Sep 24, 2011
Patrick
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I first became aware of of Georges Simenon from Akira Kurosawa who said that he intended Stray Dog to be a Simenon mystery and actually wrote the screenplay as a novel at first. Paul Theroux is also a big fan-he mentioned reading Simenon, and enjoying his novels, while traveling in his book Ghost Train To The Eastern Star-also he wrote an article, The Existential Hack for The Times. The narrator of Truman Capote's Breakfast At Tiffany's mentioned in one scene that he had a night cap of bourbon a
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Oct 27, 2011
Leslie
rated it:
A blurb on the back cover of the NYRB edition (love this imprint) by John Banville calls this book "existentialism with a backbone of tempered steel." That seems right. Kees Popinga is a prosperous Dutch businessman who keeps his life carefully controlled and limited because somewhere inside he knows that if he steps outside those rigid limits even slightly, he'll never stop. And then one day the boundaries crack a bit, and there's no stopping him. He comes to fancy himself a sort of N
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Jan 09, 2011
Antonio
rated it:
Più leggo Simenon, più lo apprezzo!
Questo lo ritengo un capolavoro.
Attenzione, perché è la storia (possibile) di ognuno di noi.
Di noi "normali" cittadini, mariti/mogli, padri/madri di famiglia che guardiamo passare quel treno che è la nostra vita.
A volte, qualcuno improvvisamente decide di salirci, su uno di quei treni, e le conseguenze sono spesso tragiche.
Anche perché se alla fine anche un abile giocatore di scacchi come Kees Popinga ha perso la sua partita, come potremmo mai cavarce More...
Questo lo ritengo un capolavoro.
Attenzione, perché è la storia (possibile) di ognuno di noi.
Di noi "normali" cittadini, mariti/mogli, padri/madri di famiglia che guardiamo passare quel treno che è la nostra vita.
A volte, qualcuno improvvisamente decide di salirci, su uno di quei treni, e le conseguenze sono spesso tragiche.
Anche perché se alla fine anche un abile giocatore di scacchi come Kees Popinga ha perso la sua partita, come potremmo mai cavarce More...
Dec 16, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
My first Simenon but not, barring unforeseen horrific circumstances, my last.
Here's my problem: as it's a well-known fact that Georges Simenon wrote in excess of 7.6 trillion books during his lifetime, I'm a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out which ones to read. I mean, it's impossible that they're all equally good, right? And since I could read a Simenon book every day for the rest of my life and still barely make a small dent his oeuvre, I'd love to have some guidance on which to t More...
Here's my problem: as it's a well-known fact that Georges Simenon wrote in excess of 7.6 trillion books during his lifetime, I'm a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out which ones to read. I mean, it's impossible that they're all equally good, right? And since I could read a Simenon book every day for the rest of my life and still barely make a small dent his oeuvre, I'd love to have some guidance on which to t More...
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Sep 25, 2011
Roberta
rated it: 
Sapeva che sarebbe stato l'unico a comprendersi.
Infatti al medico venne in mente di chiedergli il quaderno dove lui doveva scrivere le sue memorie e dove ancora si leggeva soltanto:
La verità sul caso Kees Popinga.
Il medico levò occhi attoniti, parve chiedersi come mai il suo paziente non avesse scritto altro. E Popinga, con un sorriso forzato, si sentì in dovere di mormorare:
“ Non c'è una verità, ne conviene? “.
********************************************** More...
Infatti al medico venne in mente di chiedergli il quaderno dove lui doveva scrivere le sue memorie e dove ancora si leggeva soltanto:
La verità sul caso Kees Popinga.
Il medico levò occhi attoniti, parve chiedersi come mai il suo paziente non avesse scritto altro. E Popinga, con un sorriso forzato, si sentì in dovere di mormorare:
“ Non c'è una verità, ne conviene? “.
********************************************** More...
Oct 29, 2011
Ralph
rated it:
Kees Popinga has always played by the rules, and enjoyed the rewards of doing so. When he is ruined financially by his boss's fraud, he suddenly stops watching the train (as metaphor for life) and decides to get on it -leaving it all behind: job, wife, kids, status and friends. The ties that bound him, once removed, free his most base impulses, leading to terrible crimes and the life of a fugitive. Most of the book revolves around the tension of his life on the run, and his internal monologue. H
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Jul 01, 2009
Ken
rated it:
He was a quiet man. That’s what they always say about the guy who one day picks up an axe and wipes out the whole family. Kees Popinga, the central character of Georges Simenon’s The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, is just such a fellow. He’s got everything dialed nice and tight. He’s obsessed with having constructed a first rate life: a wife, a daughter, a stove, and a house all of the “highest quality.” And then in the course of one evening, as Popinga discovers that the company that helped prov
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Jul 20, 2011
Adriana
rated it:
A par da loucura dos acontecimentos, o que mais me cativou neste livro foi, decididamente, a "estranha angústia que podia dar a impressão de nostalgia" de cada vez que Kees Popinga ouvia passar um comboio. Apesar da vida estável, controlada e planeada que leva, com família formada e um emprego, Kees Popinga é um homem que anseia por verdadeira liberdade, por deixar de ser, por hábito, procurador, marido, pai. Quer viajar sem dar satisfações, entrar num hotel ao acaso, em vez de telefon
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Jun 03, 2011
Dave
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A unique book about a man whose life changes immediately. He was a timid man who followed the rules and did everything by the letter. Then Everything falls apart and he loves it. Murder, confusion, adversity, happiness, sadness. Set in the early 20th century. I know this review is odd and confusing but it's a good slim easy read by Simenon. The author wrote as many books as Bob Pollard wrote songs it seems. Check it out.
Dec 18, 2010
Patty
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L'assassino, un uomo qualsiasi. Questa l'inquietante tesi di Simenon che fa viaggiare il lettore nella testa dell'assasino ancor prima che si concretizzi l'idea del delitto, quando l'assasino era ancora un uomo qualsiasi, uno di noi.
Un romanzo da leggere, da assaporare e che lascia in bocca un retrogusto amaro.
Grande l'abilità di Simenon nel costruire la trama, proiettando di colpo la gente comune in una vicenda che la supera e la catapulta al di là del destino che si pensava già d More...
Un romanzo da leggere, da assaporare e che lascia in bocca un retrogusto amaro.
Grande l'abilità di Simenon nel costruire la trama, proiettando di colpo la gente comune in una vicenda che la supera e la catapulta al di là del destino che si pensava già d More...
Dec 27, 2008
Ian
rated it:
The introduction makes a point of comparing this to Sartre's The Stranger, which is apt. The story of a bourgeois family man who radically changes his life following a business disaster is delightfully sinful, atmospheric, and arrogant. It never quite rises above the level of "fairly immoral," though, and the ending stumbles a bit.
Mar 05, 2008
Gabriel
rated it:
Clearly a big influence on Auster's "City of Glass," (as well as several films). The natural male impulse is to attack women, without attempting to violate them? Simenon obviously took notes when Freud was in town. In his introduction, Luc Sante says that Simenon's "Roman durs" often read like psychological case studies. May be true here-- Simenon actually brings in psychiatrists at the conclusion-- but something else is going on, too. More like reading Dostoevesky than a cas
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Jul 10, 2011
Matt
rated it:
Reminiscent of a serving of Patricia Highsmith, with a couple dashes of Bret Easton Ellis. By a Belgian writer I'd not heard of before, but who is famous for having published nearly 200 novels. Reading about the author's m.o. in the intro by Luc Sante was also fascinating.
Jun 20, 2011
Anka
rated it: 
a story about very frustrated man who wanted to get rid of his own stereotypical thoughts what has been offered by the high class. at some point we all have these kind of problems but what I didn't like in this book was simplicity of describing ones mind and an attempt to make it psychological was very dry and shabby...Also there was an attempt to write a detective but I can't put this book in detective genre .there was lack of tensity and facts what makes story interesting and intrigue ...
Dec 13, 2010
Agent Zero
rated it:
L'uomo che guardava passare i treni si domandava quali misteriose vite conducessero gli occupanti delle carrozze, dietro i finestrini oscurati dalle tende, dove fossero diretti, quali affari avessero in corso.
D'un tratto anch'egli volle scoprire cosa significhi vivere liberi dalle oppressioni della grigia vita di tutti i giorni, dalla famiglia asfissiante, dal lavoro, dalla noia quotidiana.
E così impazzì.
D'un tratto anch'egli volle scoprire cosa significhi vivere liberi dalle oppressioni della grigia vita di tutti i giorni, dalla famiglia asfissiante, dal lavoro, dalla noia quotidiana.
E così impazzì.
Dec 04, 2008
Justin
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My first foray into Simeon's Roman Dur. So far so good! Amazing that Simenon could put out 14 of these books in one year...
Dec 17, 2008
Nickbrown
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If you're Dutch and realize you're a sociopath, it's a relief apparently.
Jun 19, 2011
Adrian
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A fascinating main character and a great story. This is actually the second time I've read this book.
Jun 04, 2010
Lido há vários anos... recordo-me de pensar "esta história poderia ser de qualquer um"
Jul 27, 2009
Gregor
rated it:
Extremely readable. Simenon infects the reader with a sort of morbid curiousity.
Jul 05, 2010
Karen
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This book is a study of what one man does when he finds out he is ruined. Kees Popinga has worked the same job for years and put all his savings into the company. One night he runs into his boss drunk in a bar. The boss tells him the company is bankrupt. The rest of the book is about how Kees reacts to the change in his life...in the past he delayed gratification for the good of his family but tjat got him no where. What happens if he starts to do whatever he wants and let his impulses run f
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Jan 30, 2010
Troy
rated it:
Not as great as Dirty Snow but amazing. Simenon loves stripping away the social pleasantries and leaving his protagonists with nothing, dumping them into a world without protections, government, etc., a world in Hobbes' terms, which is "the natural state of men, before they were joined in society, was a war, and not simply, but a war of all against all," and that, "the life of man [stripped away from society is:], solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
