Die Zeit mit Anaïs

by Georges Simenon, Ursula Vogel (Übersetzer)

Albert Bauche bleibt mit seinem Wagen in einem Wald zwischen Paris und Orléans liegen. Er geht in einen Gasthof, trinkt ein paar Gläser Schnaps und ruft anschließend die Polizei. Er hat einen Mord zu gestehen, den Mord an seinem Geschäftspartner Nicolas. Bald schon muss Bauche um seinen Kopf kämpfen, denn die Geschworenen verurteilen brutale Mörder, wie Bauche einer zu sein scheint, zum Tode. An dieser Stelle kommt Anaïs ins Spiel

Genres: Fiction

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.

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 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.

During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).

Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).

In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy Simenon! Here, he makes us his Camus because this novel is, in a way, his "Stranger." Albert Bauche, an insignificant loser, killed a man badly (a bullet in the face, poker blows, and finally, a skull shattered by a bronze statuette). Simenon slips us into the skin of this man, who, in mental confusion, perceives the change in the gaze of others, then his confrontation with the police, justice, and psychiatry, the progressive exposure of his mind beyond modesty and masks. It's clinical, chilling, and proof that Simenon is a great novelist.

[Paula Mota · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mas não era de medo que se tratava e, quando se deu conta disso, Bauche sentiu-se surpreendido. O que lia nos olhos do camponês era um sentimento que ainda não conhecia, de cuja existência nunca suspeitara. Não era horror. Não era repulsa. Era pior.

“O Tempo de Anaïs” é frequentemente comparado com “O Estrangeiro” de Camus e realmente faz algum sentido. Um homem comum sem antecedentes criminais mata barbaramente o seu chefe e, quando interrogado, parece não perceber a dimensão do que fez, não demonstra arrependimento nem providencia uma explicação convincente, mais preocupado em defender a sua imagem de homem de bem e aflito com as suas necessidades mais básicas: comer, beber, dormir, urinar.

- Volto a fazer a mesma pergunta noutros termos. Porque é que fixaste há meses o projecto de matar Serge Nicolas?
Bauche abriu a boca, voltando imediatamente a fechá-la. Também àquilo não era capaz de responder.
(…)
- Um momento. Talvez eu comece agora a perceber melhor as coisas. Não estarás por acaso a tentar passar por louco?
- Não sou louco.
(…)
- Mas não respondes à pergunta principal.
(…)
- Desculpe, lamento muito.
E acrescentou em voz baixa, desviando os olhos:
- Tenho muita fome.

Neste “romain dur”, o protagonista elege Anaïs como o marco que divide a sua vida, a da adolescência na sua terra natal e, posteriormente, na cidade, quando conhece outras mulheres, que são igualmente promíscuas, que são aparentemente o único género que Georges Simenon, célebre pela sua insaciabilidade sexual, conheceu.

- Queria ser alguma coisa, alguém. Queria andar bem vestido, ter um automóvel e frequentar lugares elegantes (…)
- Porquê?
- Porque tinha de ser uma coisa ou outra.
- Isso ou Grou-du-Roi com Anaïs?
- Mais ou menos. Bem entendido, quando digo Anaïs, não é necessariamente dela que se trata.
- É um símbolo, claro.
- Se quiser. Comecei então outra parte da minha vida, a parte negra.
(…)
- E tem a certeza de que não ganhou o gosto das coisas de cá?
- O gosto de quê? De Paris?
- Disso a que chama o negro, o escuro, as coisas pouco limpas, a multidão anónima (…), as raparigas fáceis e baratas.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

O Tempo de Anaïs é um "romance duro" - como Simenon chamava aos "não Maigret" - que conta a história de um homem que matou o amante da mulher.
Apesar de envolver assassinato, não o considero um policial, mas um romance psicológico, cuja personalidade, vivências e memórias da personagem a conduziram, inevitavelmente, ao crime.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Simenon novel that is most like Camus’s THE STRANGER. A man is on the run after killing someone. He stops at a country store to confess to the police. From that moment on, he feels alienated from humanity. Detached, carrying secret guilt, but entirely passive in the face of his prosecution, he confronts his true self at last. Is Bauche mad or is he a sane man in a mad world? What passions, or fears, drive us? This is a bleak look at crime as it truly is.

[António · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simenon tem um estilo, um estilo singular, tratem os livros dele do que tratarem, tenham ou não homicídios para decifrar. Este inclui um homicídio, porém decifrado desde o início e do que trata é das obsessões que podem conduzir à loucura, à autocomplacência, à autodesculplabização. Um tema forte tratado no estilo único de Simenon - o tal que nunca me enganou. O texto foi escrito em 1950 e publicado em 1951. Li a edição portuguesa da Dom Quixote, 1988, numa tradução muito boa de Miguel Serras Pereira.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

A swift, engaging first half that comes across like a male perspective version of Simenon’s “Bebe Donge” where are the intrigue isn’t in who done it but more so why and also why are they not going to any trouble to explain themselves? That other book succeeds largely because it refuses to provide pat answers and remains intriguing. This one offers an explanation but on the way to doing so descends into a curiously infantile mix of pop psychology, Penthouse forum letters, and really implausible interrogation room dialogue.

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não estamos perante um policial no seu sentido mais comum. Há um homicídio, sim, mas o enredo nem é o que mais importa aqui. Importa a viagem interior do homicida, o seu sentimento de desumanização e a carga das suas memórias a partir do momento em que confessa o crime.

Peguei neste livro sem saber ao que ia. E ainda bem!

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Slow burn. Man drives along a lonely highway, crashes his car, stumbles in the snow to the nearest cafe (dead of night) and finally (as an afterthought almost) says "i killed a man"- wants to be taken in. All the good normal people immediately scorn him (at least so he feels) .. Paris cops come out and bring him back to town to for a week of progressive interviews with cops, investigators, judges, his own attorney and finally his best interlocutor- the examining magistrate. He desperately wants to be understood. The man he killed had hired him to run a film company as a front for some seedy doings. That man is also sleeping with our guy's wife .. it's ok she sleeps with a lot of men and our guy doesn't mind- he understands. Turns out he is quite warped by a fixation on a woman who slept with all the men in his hometown (Anais) - he finally managed to - once - and it has cemented his life- as ... furtive, perverse... cuckoldry.. obsessed... and it is what led him to his.. wife. Who is so similar. But why kill? well- because the new guy didn't only sleep with his wife but also played him for a public fool in his business life (setting him up to be a fall guy for a shell company) .. all those years of perverse, abject shame ... shame of not being a man / hombre / Aner finally got to him and he strikes out. but it seems pathetic because he did it in a weird way and had to hit the man 22 times with a poker to kill him - so still the world looks at him as .. pathetic. It is a very dark, inward bitter tale. Perhaps there is some redemption? i'm not sure. At the end, he is consigned to talking to the examining magistrate for many more sessions and this is... a happy ending for our fellow.

[Sam Romilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in one day and was pleasantly surprised. Georges Simenon can be a bit dull with his detective stories but in this book he moves into high quality psychological literature. There were moments of Dostoyevsky and Kafka in this story of a murderer trying to come to terms with why he killed his employer. The original French title would imply it was due to childhood memories of a local women searching for anonymous continual sexual relationships that included his father and even once himself which had a violent revengeful streak. But it appears he is tormented by feelings of inadequacy in his professional and personal life. His wife is also suffers from a sex addiction which he knew from the start and seems to tolerate in return for a an intimate dependency between lost souls. A sad story that places the reader right in the mind of the killer struggling to understand his past and his relationship to the world and the inevitability of his actions.

[NoID · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simenon psychologue de cuisine se lance dans l’analyse de la vie d’un jeune homme pour tenter d’y trouver ce qui a fait de lui un meurtrier.

Un roman qui tourne autour de « ce qui fait un homme » dans les années 50. Quelles frustrations, gènes, envies, tabous ont façonné un homme pour le faire sombrer ?

Un roman fort daté qui éclaire toutefois bien des complexes de la masculinité qui ont encore cours aujourd’hui

https://www.noid.ch/le-temps-danais/

[Cristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi sono trovato un po' in difficoltà nel dare la mia opinione su questo libro. All'inizio sembra un giallo, poi più proseguivo nella lettura e più mi ricordava l'impostazione de "Il processo" di Kafka, un quasi totale monologo del protagonista ed un finale in sospeso...

[HansBlog · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grauenhaftes Geschwurbel, Begründung:

https://hansblog.de/romankritik-die-z...

[Piet van van Weerst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Korte recensie volgt later

[Mikee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"An interesting obsessive book about a man who commits murder because he has to. Because he is insane. Because there is, after all, nothing else he can do. Excellent, if unnerving."