Georges Simenon and the terrain vague: indirect representations of war

This thesis examines works of Belgian-born author, Georges Simenon, in particular those published in the two decades from France’s 1939 declaration of war. Themes of occupation and war-especially as they relate to Paris-and political biases about Franco-American relationships are prevalent in these works. The approaches of contemporary authors and Simenon’s own serious writings, memoirs and correspondence are cross-referenced to show how he approaches these issues. In this way, the popular belief that Simenon ignored the existence of world conflict in all but a handful of novels will be shown to be misleading. By simultaneous production of the Maigret novels, typically seen as apolitical and dyssynchronous, and what he called his romans durs, Simenon sought to meet the needs of a wide variety of readers. The Maigrets perpetuated the Golden Age of crime fiction, where to a certain degree a detective maintained order in an indistinctly defined and nostalgic era into which world events did not consciously intrude. In the roman durs, which have been compared with Duhamel’s Série noire, a dysfunctional protagonist, unresolved storylines and pessimistic outcomes served as more realistic representations of the postwar period. In both of these formats, the author’s own opinion about contemporary and retrospective political and world events is expressed through the subliminal history of suburbs of Paris, the names of characters, symbols, allegory and a complex system of terrains vagues. Finally, novels from three different genres are discussed to show how Simenon’s recapture of weather conditions of the drôle de guerre and of his childhood experiences of German occupation in Liège add substance, imagery and occult meaning to his novels. In particular, a snowbound landscape blurs the boundaries between participants to isolate the issues of occupation and conflict in a work which can be read as a comment upon the morality of war. All create a subliminal space from which to negotiate an uncertain future.