Crime Fiction in Other Climes - France, Italy, Russia
Part I
Crime Writing in the Other Europe
In this series, we look at crime writing in a trio of countries/regions that is currently not so hot on the crime reader's radar.
Although the UK consistently skirts belonging, it manages to eclipse the rest of Europe. This is, mostly, due to the hegemony of English. However, though translations tend to lag, there is, recently, an increasing trend towards bridging the gap. Witness the phenomenal rise of Nordic Noir.
It is not that no one reads anything but British or American crime novels, though. In my own childhood, my father frequently traveled to Europe for conferences and such. It was in those years that he acquired some George Simenons.
I never got around to reading them but what I retained was my father's view of the way the French tackle crime in cinema. He quivered with suppressed laughter as he described car chases, the volubility and the extravagant gesturing.
Find below trailers of some films based on Maigret novels.
The Blue Room
Simenon, however, was Belgian, it turns out. Surprising how a lot of the time when we say 'French' we mean Belgian!
France has possibly produced crime literature before the famous Arsène Lupin - gentleman thief (Robin Hoodesque?) series.
And we have a French Connection, in any case. Not only the thriller but Poirot and his ilk.
However, let's return to the present and see what it has to offer us in terms of translated crime writing in France today.
Read a write-up about five names in the game.
Since I can't see anything surfacing for 'Best of Fred Vargas', I chose one that looked creepy.
There are just too many Vargas for me to even selectively offer something of a sampling. Indeed, there are television serials and films too. I can't seem to find any snippet of those for viewing here, alack and alas!
Here are links to some books reviewed.
I can see Vargas books being remade as Hollywood or British films or TV dramas sometime soon. After all, there's always room for more variety in the genre on screen and as novels.
To know more about Lemaitre, try this comprehensive Note.
With Pascal Garnier, I selected the one below. Possibly, as I age, this one will read deliciously into age-appropriate fears.
About another of his, The Guardian says
Pascal Garnier's posthumously published novel is often bleak, often funny and never predictable
Of the five here, Antonin Varenne seems the most neglected. So far, there appear to be three novels of his translated into English.
A review of the second of those has an interesting take on translated crime fiction:
it's a constant complaint of crime writers that their efforts are regarded (at best) as mere entertainment, or (at worst) as cynical exercises exploiting the darkest aspects of human nature. There is, however, one strand of the discipline that is granted a certain cachet: crime writing in a foreign language, translated by one of the new breed of A-list translators.
In the third, Varenne has
created a sprawling epic evoking great adventure novelists such as Joseph Conrad and John Buchan.
His The Wall, The Kabyle and The Sailor is loved by reviewers - a cop hired to beat up people realises he's being used to bully intellectuals. Looks like the novel packs a powerful punch.
With that we fold up this post. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did composing it.
With that we fold up this post. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did composing it.
Tomorrow it's Italian crime writing. Another mystery to me, so far!
No comments:
Post a Comment