The Venice Train

by Georges Simenon

'There were some weeks that were painful, nerve-racking. At the office or at home, in the middle of a meal, he would suddenly find his forehead bathed in sweat, a tightness in his chest, and at those times, feeling everyone's eyes on him was unbearable.'

During a chance meeting on the train from Venice to Paris, a stranger asks Justin Calmar to deliver a briefcase for him to an address in Switzerland. Soon this ordinary family man will become hopelessly, fatally, ensnared in a world of guilt, lies and paranoia.

Originally published in 1965, shortly after Simenon moved into the new home he had built in Épalinges, Switzerland, this chilling novel is a powerful exploration of the fragility of the human psyche.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, France, Noir, Classics

143 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

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

[Glenn Russell]

The Venice Train - Georges Simenon’s 1965 tale of mystery and suspense wherein a man's life is transformed forever by a chance meeting with a stranger on a train on route from Venice to Paris could be studied as a major work of existentialism focusing on themes of alienation, anxiety and absurdity.

The man is Justin Calmar and the chance meeting is with a gentleman having an Eastern European accent who asks Calmar for a favor - pick up a small case from a locker and take it to a Paris apartment. Sounds innocent enough, so he answers "yes."

But as Calmar discovers, his simple mission soon turns complex: the gentleman from the train mysteriously disappears after Calmar agreed to perform the favor; when he reaches the designated apartment, he sees a young woman has been the victim of murder; and, later that same day, when Calmar finally musters up the courage to break open the attaché, there’s an enormous amount of cash in French, Swiss and American bills.

Justin Calmar, an ordinary family man of conventional routine, is thrust into crisis. Should he go to the police? Impossible. His story is too far-fetched. It quickly dawns on Calmar: he is entangled in a crime, perhaps even involving an international syndicate, and from this point forward, he must watch his every word and action.

Reading Simenon’s slim work I was repeatedly reminded of the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Below are my specific observations linked with direct quotes from The Venice Train:

"I'm an honest man!"
He always had been. He had always done his best. He had often made sacrifices for other people, as he had done this time, spending his holidays on a beach he had hated from the first moment."

Calmar is married to Dominique and has his young daughter Josée and son Bib to consider, thus he continually acquiesces to their desires. But if one is forever remaining passive and doing things one hates, is this an authentic life? Sartre insists: “We are our choices.” Crisis forces Calmar to comes face to face with this stark truth.

"He would never admit it to Dominique, of course, but he had married primarily in order not to be alone."

If we feel at ease and relish our freedom and independence when we are alone, we will never be lonely. But how many people feel the opposite, isolated and cut off, sensing a certain dread in silence and solitude, forcing them to constantly reach for their cell phone to chat, chat, chat in order to fill the void? As per Sartre: "“If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.”

"A blunder. The slightest detail might draw attention to him. It is just such unimportant facts that stick in people's memory and suddenly come back to them at the opportune moment."

Careful, careful, Justin. One false move and you could land yourself in jail. Simenon preforms surgery on the psychology of a man caught in the web of absurdity. Calmar wonders: of all people, why me?

"That morning he had made a momentous discovery that affected him more than he had realized at the time: at home, in his own apartment, he, a man of thirty-five, married with children, a man with responsibilities, did not have a single place where he could hide an object."

Justin Calmar is in a quandary: he must hide the money before his family returns from Venice but he doesn't have an inch of private space. And he knows he can't tell his wife a word about either the money or his predicament. He's isolated and any choices he makes must remain secret. Bye, bye, freedom! Bye, bye, tranquility!

"All this was far more complicated than it had seemed at first. Never until his return from Venice had he realized that he was the prisoner of a routine and that for twenty-four hours a day his acts and gestures were observed either by his wife and children or by his boss, colleagues, and the typists at the office."

Oh, my, not only is Calmar not able to hid the money, he doesn't have any space to himself, anywhere he goes he remains under the spotlight of other people's judgements. Recall Sartre's famous: "Hell is other people."

"He simply had to find a solution. It was vital. He was sufficiently lucid to realize that he was undergoing a moral and nervous deterioration, that he was prey to panic more and more frequently, and that people looked at him with added interest."

Using his wits, Calmar figures out where to hid the money and also over the next weeks devises a scheme to spend some of the money bit by bit: he tells Dominique he's following hot leads and gambling on the horses. But, alas, even this solution leads to more domestic turmoil. And more need to concoct fabrications. The consequence: Calmar's agitation increases and he resorts to frequent drinking.

"Bib had dictated to his sister a page-long list of presents he wanted; they included toys he had seen advertised on television."

With all the "gambling" money coming in, his children want more and more. Calmar is faced with another basic truth: as humans we are in the realm of desire - the more we have, the more we want.

"In short, he was tired, for no particular reason, because of everything in general, and he wondered whether he would go on wearing his new suit or his new overcoat, which made him feel as though in disguise."

Up to his neck in alienation and anxiety, Calmar begins to resemble Antoine Roquentin, the protagonist in Sartre’s novel Nausea, Life itself has become a sickness.

Georges Simenon once observed how an audience must view a tragic play in one sitting. Likewise, he wanted readers to follow his main character from beginning to end, from first page to last in one reading to order to gain the full impact of the protagonist's anguish. Simenon did not include politics or religion - he presented the modern human situation cut down to the bare bone.


Georges Simenon, 1903 - 1989

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a suspenseful and gripping novella by Georges Simenon written in 1965 that is less a focus on crime but more a psychological examination of the unravelling of an ordinary man, Justin Calmar, travelling on the Venice train, returning to Paris early. There is an encounter with an unsettling stranger who asks him to deliver a briefcase to a woman's apartment in Lausanne, which he agrees to do, an act that will have profoundly life changing repercussions for him, forcing him to confront the kind of man he is. He gets there and finds a dead woman, leaving with the briefcase that turns out to have rather a lot of money in it, but given who he is and the life he leads, it not easy to spend the money. Calmar is a married family man, under constant observation at home and work, with no privacy whatever, and nowhere he can hide the money.

Guilt, shame and anxiety begin to slowly weigh him down as his changed and deceptive behaviour does not escape notice, all culminating in the disturbing ending. This is a compulsive and classic Simenon read that I recommend to other readers. Many thanks to the publisher.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Was Calmar himself happy? Not just since Venice and the ridiculous episode on the train--but before? He never asked himself the question, or hardly ever, and when he did he quickly thought about something else.”



Justan Calmar is called back from vacation a few days early by his boss. He catches the train in Venice to go back to Paris and waves goodbye to his family. These prove to be the last few minutes that Calmar is the man that everyone has grown accustomed to him being.

Stable, corpulent, not overly ambitious, but he works hard enough to earn a good living for his family. He doesn’t really think about it, but his life is constricted down to a simple maze of traveling between his home and work with few, if ever, brief forays along the way. There is nothing remarkable about him, and if he were to suddenly do something remarkable or even do something differently than he always has, it would be a stunning revelation to those who know him. They would be made uneasy.

So the interest the man on the train takes in the most intimate details of his life is decidedly odd. ”Little by little, by asking one harmless question after another, the man had obtained a quantity of information about his life, his family, and his job, which he had supplied with a docility that made him feel slightly ashamed.” Certainly, Calmar would be amazed at the most intimate details people will share about their lives on a public forum, like Twitter, Snapchat, or Facebook. The man makes him uncomfortable, but for all that, when the man suggests he run an errand for him in Lausanne, Calmar readily agrees. I have visions of Strangers on the Train running through my head at this point.

He is supposed to pick up a suitcase from a locker at the station and deliver it to a woman at a specific address. Easy enough, except for what he finds when he arrives. ”At the foot of a pale-blue couch, he saw a pair of shoes, two legs, a petticoat, and then, finally, the neck and reddish hair of a woman. She was lying full length on a carpet of a darker blue than the couch, one arm stretched out, the other folded behind her back, as though it had been twisted.”

Really Georges Simenon and Alfred Hitchcock would have gotten along superbly. Simenon wrote suspenseful novels that would have translated well to make Hitchcock type films. There is story that sounds so vintage Hitchcock I want to believe it is true. ”Alfred Hitchcock was said to have telephoned, only to be told by Simenon's secretary that he couldn't be disturbed because he had just begun a new novel. Hitchcock, knowing that Simenon was capable of writing one novel -- or two or three -- every month, replied, 'That's all right, I'll wait.'”

What Calmar finds in the case will have a profound impact on his life. It is certainly one of those situations, if I were reading this with a book club, where the morality of the situation could be discussed at length. What would you do? Calmar does not handle the stress of the situation very well. ”Some weeks were painful, agonizing, in the office and at home. Sitting at the dinner table, he would suddenly feel his forehead bathed in sweat, his nerves knotted, a sense of constriction in his chest; at moments like these, he couldn’t bear to have anyone look at him.”

The problem of course is that he feels guilty. He feels like he has done something wrong. His shame for his actions, he is convinced, is etched on his face. His behavior becomes erratic by Calmar standards. He might even stop and have a beer on his way home from work. OMG! His wife, used to the steady Eddie she married, begins to give him the third degree about everything he does that doesn’t fit his standard pattern. He can’t hardly stand it. Lies grow upon other lies, and the question is, can Calmar find a solution to his problems before he cracks up.

This is a vintage Simenon. The plot is compelling, and the ending is superb. A Georges Simenon book or two always finds their way into my luggage when I travel. His stories make for perfect travel companions. They are concise, twisty mysteries with literary nuances that never fail to please.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Hanneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, I know, I am overdoing it with the Simenon romans durs. Well, sorry, I could not resist the distraction of an in-between roman dur again between two enormous novels.

A conventional man from Paris, Justin Calmar, finds himself unexpectedly in a harrowing situation when travelling back on a train from a holiday in Venice when a fellow passenger asks him if he could do him a big favor and if he would be willing to deliver a briefcase to a person in Lausanne when the train stops there for a few hours. The fellow passenger has a flight to catch and has no time to deliver the briefcase himself. He will, of course, cover the taxi fee and pay for a nice lunch. Calmar agrees to deliver the briefcase, having nothing else to do while waiting for the train to Paris. This delivery is, however, the onset of a complete nightmare which will bring severe anxiety, fear and paranoia to Calmar, but nothing in the way of bodily injury or danger to himself personally. The story ends up in an overwhelming internal conflict and it is interesting to wonder what you would have done yourself when put in that same exceptional situation. A true vintage roman dur.

[Ray Nessly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I’ve read by Georges Simenon. If I were a completist, I would have a ton of reading ahead of me. His biographer confirms that Simenon wrote 193 books under his own name, plus more than 200 under 18 pseudonyms. More than 393 … let’s go crazy and just round that to 400, alright? Whoa. Four hundred books! And here I thought Brian Doyle was prolific. (Six novels and thirteen collections in six years. A wanker by comparison.)

Simenon is most known for his seventy-five Inspector Maigret novels, which to date have never interested me. This book though, The Venice Train, is among his roman durs , (literally “hard novels”)—novels the author considered more serious and sophisticated than the rest of his stuff. These roman durs zero in on the psychology of its protagonists, and offer sort of a combination of existentialism and noir, a recipe that does interest me. Angst, obsessions, crimes not-gone-unpunished, and maybe if I’m lucky, femmes fatale, too? … Sold! I read somewhere he wrote about 117 roman durs. Only about 18 of them, I believe, have been translated to English.

So ... how’s this one? Pretty good! Justin has to cut short his family vacation in Venice. He’s on the way home to Paris, without his wife and kids. A stranger on the train asks him to pick up a package for him at the next station. (Today, this would be unthinkably naïve of him. But remember, this was written in the 60s, before all the warnings. “Did you pack your own bags,” etc.) Justin happens on a load of cash. What could possibly go wrong? Ha-ha. Well, often, what goes wrong is that the bad guys want their money back even more than you want to hang onto it. One example, No Country for Old Men. This one’s more along the lines of other stories where the protagonist implodes from the pressure. A windfall becomes a curse. Here, the usual sense of guilt and paranoia fights with the desire to rationalize not reporting a murder and keeping the money. What more convenient rationalization than to question freewill?:

“He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t even intended to do anyone a favor. You could almost say that he had been forced to do as he did, that the case had come into his hands by a concurrence of fortuitous circumstances, and that he had not opened Arlette Staub’s door of his own free will.”

Essentially: God made him do it!

Interestingly, the money raises resentments and causes him to realize things: He’s a prisoner of routine “and that for twenty-four hours a day his acts and gestures were observed either by his wife and children or by his boss, colleagues, and the typists of the office.” He’s reminded that before he met his wife, she was the lover of one of his colleagues; and he abhors the thought of sharing the money with her. Not out of greed, but something more complicated. “That money, which had made him suffer, and which would undoubtedly make him suffer still more, would never be used to satisfy the dreams of Dominique. For one thing, they weren’t his dreams.”

The story ends badly of course. I won’t be specific. Let’s just say it involves an open window. One might argue that the way it ends is “inevitable.” Still, I found it a bit disappointing.

I don’t know if this book is representative of his work, but this one is bare bones minimalism. There are no unnecessary words, true. But I have a thing for memorable turns of phrase. I intend to read more of Simenon’s roman durs, but based on my (limited) experience, there’s another French language writer I prefer, of works along roughly similar lines. This year I read three novellas by Pascal Garnier—Moon In a Deadeye; Boxes; The Islanders--and loved them. Especially Moon, among my top five (?) or so favorites of this year. Garnier's novellas are noir, like Venice Train, with elements of existential angst and crime and so on. Garnier writes in the same small packages, but he finds room for prose that is, quite often, far livelier. He is also darkly humorous, and adds absurdist tones into the mix. To be fair, Simenon wasn’t trying to be humorous, nor was he trying to dazzle us. Garnier, too, perhaps may have benefited from having his works translated more recently than Simenon. Fair or not, I myself prefer the stylings of Garnier. As I said, it’s based on a small sampling, subject to reassessment.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Justin Calmar meets a man on the train running from Venice to Paris. The stranger asks Justin to do him a favor since he has to meet a plane. A key....a briefcase full of cash....a dead body...anxiety takes over his life. Although Justin is an innocent man, he has to live his life like a criminal with something to hide. He makes up stories, he drinks to relieve the stress, he feels like everyone is watching his every move. His family and coworkers wonder if he's ill, or exhausted, or having an affair. I loved this psychological mystery, and will be looking for another book by this prolific author.

[Steve Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

A man returning by train from a trip to Venice converses with someone who asks him if he would deliver a case to a given address. Unwisely, he agrees.

From the moment of the interrogative conversation - which unsettles our quiet main character, to the surprising discovery at the address he is to deliver the case to, and the subsequent revelation of the contents, I felt we were in the middle of an Alfred Hitchcock film; whereby our protagonist sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire, from what was initially an ordinary day.

My favourite Simenon so far. It’s a very straightforward telling in Simenon's unfussy prose of the descent of a rather nondescript man who becomes riddled with guilt and insecurities at the situation he has found himself in, and the decisions he makes as a result. It doesn’t perhaps retain its tension throughout the whole of the second half, but it’s nevertheless a fine and mostly gripping read about an increasingly desperate character.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this a gift or a burden?

It was only when I came to Goodreads to mark this as read that I realised that I had heard this back in 2016. A fact which I seem to have completely forgotten as no hint of having heard this story before came into my mind whilst I was reading it. It might be because my hearing and my reading store things separately amongst my grey matter.

I enjoyed this psychological examination of how Justin Calmar got turned from an open book into a closed book with the resultant malaise that effected his mind and his body.

Yes murder was committed and probably theft as well but not by Calmar. It is rather unclear what crime if any he committed. Still he was riddled by guilt and could not think clearly, nor enjoy the unexpected 'gift' which ended up being a curse instead.

An ARC of this new edition gently provided by author/publisher via Netgalley

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts with a No Country for Old Men premise (man comes into illicit, unearned money and finds himself looking over his shoulder) but quickly moves onto more of an early Breaking Bad footing (protagonist alienates himself from his family with the secret of their newfound wealth).

It is really amazing how much Simenon is able to wring out of his basic formula: start things off with a simple crime or an affair or some other event that brings a man away from his normal life, use the crime not to give us plot but to give us context for the character's life (the setting, his backstory), and spend about a hundred pages just going into the man's psychology. I've read maybe a dozen of his romans durs now but I still don't see myself ever tiring of them. I suppose it helps that they're all fairly short.

There's not much action in the book (the criminal aspect quickly fades away) but a lot of great reflections on what it does to you to keep secrets from your most-trusted, to want to provide but to be unable, on the nervous toll of hiding money, and how acting alone without declaring our intentions often leads to a self-betrayal.

I liked how the ending suddenly brought the protagonist's private life embarrassingly into public view just as he betrayed himself in the worst way, but his sudden suicide was rash to the point of being unbelievable, a cheap gimmick to close the novel with a bit of unnecessary action. Really the proper punishment would have been to have him live with his embarrassment.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Venice Train is a stand-alone novella by award-winning Belgian author, Georges Simenon, first published in 1965. This reissue, with a gorgeous art deco-style cover, is issued by Penguin Press UK some fifty-two years later. It is translated by Ros Schwartz.

When, due to work commitments, Parisian sales manager, Justin Calmer leaves his vacationing family in Venice to travel home, he finds himself sharing his train carriage for the first leg of his journey, as far as Lausanne, with a man he thinks might have come from Yugoslavia.

Normally quite reserved, he’s surprised to be sharing details of his life with this stranger, and agreeing to do the man a favour. Mysteriously, he doesn’t see the man again after the train emerges from the Simplon Tunnel.

With two hours to kill between trains, Justin leaves his luggage, collects a locked attaché case from a pay locker, catches a cab and tries to deliver the briefcase to a certain Arlette Staub in Lausanne. But at Rue du Bugnon, he’s in for a shock: a woman lies, apparently dead, on the floor of the apartment. Calmar backs out, attaché case still in hand.

He doesn’t summon the police, telling himself that what led up to this point is too bizarre to be believed. He heads back to the station where, likely too affected by the trauma of seeing the body, he doesn’t do the obvious thing: put the case back into a locker. Instead, he carries home an attaché case filled with worry and anxiety and, as it later turns out, a lot of cash.

In between furtively and obsessively checking Swiss papers for news of the stranger and the dead woman, that case of cash has him re-evaluating his life so far. Having second-guessed and rationalised about his right to the cash, he ends up in a complicated routine for storing the case and finding creative ways to spend the money without alarming his wife or friends.

He’s a lot less successful at staying under the radar of family, friends and colleagues than he thinks. The secret eating him up from inside, he wonders if he is happy.

Readers expecting a crime novel may be disappointed: the details of the mystery are never revealed, and the abrupt ending, quite fitting with what Simenon intends, may leave some dissatisfied. Simenon uses the encounter on the train, and its aftermath, to explore their psychological effect on his protagonist, who believes himself a man of integrity. A short read that ultimately packs quite a punch.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Press UK.

[Meltem Sağlam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nisan Yayınlarının Simenon Serisinin 7 numaralı kitabı Venedik Treni.

Şimdiye kadar okuduğum, üslup, anlatım açısından en farklı Simenon romanı.

Bir psikolojik gerilim. Her zamanki gibi sürükleyici ve akıcı anlatım.

Çok beğendim.

[Antje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein bisschen seltsam dieser Roman - ein bisschen anders, vor allem als erwartet.

Bein Lesen der ersten Seiten meinte ich einen spannenden Krimi zu beginnen, zumal ich Waggon-Szenen unglaublich gerne lese. Doch als der neue Alltag des Protagonisten beginnt, der mit seiner unfreiwilligen Beute alles andere als gesegnet ist, plätschert die Handlung zunehmend vor sich hin. Der vermeintliche Krimi stellte sich mehr und mehr als eine persönliche Tragödie dar. Ein Durchschnittsmann, der brav regelmäßig zur Arbeit geht, um Frau und Kinder zu nähren und einmal im Jahr einen Urlaub zu erwirtschaften, gerät auf irrsinnige Weise ab von seinem bisher so konventionellen Weg. Das Seltsame dabei ist, während er versucht eine Schuld zu vertuschen, die gar keine ist, lädt er allmählich Schuld und Last auf sich. Und in diesem unaufhaltsamen Strudel erkennt er zum ersten Mal die Erbärmlichkeit seines Daseins. - Die Darstellung dieser Hoffnungslosigkeit ist Simenon hervorragend gelungen; offenkundig in der Unmöglichkeit für Calmar im privaten Raum ein Versteck zu finden oder ein Geheimnis zu wahren, ohne dass Ehefrau und Arbeitskollegen davon erfahren. Sein Alltag ist derart strukturiert, transparent und gewohnheitsmäßig, dass sogar ein Drink in einer Bar kaschiert werden muss. - Calmars verzweifelte Suche nach einer Lösung ist somit von Anfang an zum Scheitern verurteilt. Und was mir hierbei wieder besonders gefällt, ist das unverschnörkelte abrupte Ende, obgleich mich der letzte Satz prompt an die Liedzeile denken ließ "Wieviel Erdbeereise muss der Mensch noch essen...".

Überraschend überzeugt hat mich dieser Roman.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ntjb1

Description: When he wasn't writing Maigret, Georges Simenon produced a huge body of novels and short stories, often tough, gripping and psychologically-penetrating dissections of lives confounded by fate. In The Other Simenon we explore more of his dark tales of human misfortune!
The Venice Train is a classic Simenon study of anxiety. Justin Calmar returns early from holiday. On board the express train to Paris he is asked by a stranger to deliver a briefcase to an address in Lausanne. He subsequently makes two discoveries: the first, that there is a dead body in the apartment, the second that the suitcase contains a fortune in paper currency. He flees, on the next rapide to Paris condemning himself to an existence of lies and fear, with seemingly no way out.

Dramatised by Ronald Frame and starring Paul Bown and Clare Corbett.

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come sempre l'aspetto psicologico predomina nello scorrere della trama, un'atmosfera asfissiante che costringe a proseguire senza tregua verso un finale all'altezza del maestro Simenon.

[Hendrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manchmal ist es besser nicht zu viel über sich selbst nachzudenken, denn die gewonnenen Einsichten könnten schmerzhaft sein. So wie im Fall des kleinen Angestellten Justin Calmar, verheiratet, zwei Kinder, beschäftigt in einem Unternehmen, welches Gebrauchsgüter aus Kunststoff herstellt. Ein absolut durchschnittlicher Mann aus der gesichtslosen Masse. Zugleich ein anständiger Mann, was ihm zum Verhängnis wird. Allein auf dem Rückweg aus dem Urlaub in Venedig (Frau und Kinder bleiben noch etwas länger), begegnet er im Zugabteil einem Fremden. Ohne Recht zu wissen warum, vielleicht aus purer Höflichkeit, nimmt er einen Auftrag des Unbekannten an. Er soll in Lausanne eine Aktentasche aus einem Bahnhofsschließfach zu einer bestimmten Adresse bringen. Als er dort ankommt findet er eine tote Frau und flüchtet in Panik mitsamt der Tasche. Darin befindet sich Geld, sehr viel Geld. Geld das jetzt niemandem mehr gehört, denn von dem Fremden fehlt ebenfalls jede Spur. Das Geld bietet die Aussicht auf eine sorgenfreie Zukunft. Doch wie der Familie und den Kollegen den plötzlichen Reichtum erklären. Justin Calmar beginnt über alle Eventualitäten und Fallstricke, die mit dem Geld zusammenhängen nachzudenken. Eine Rechnung mit vielen Unbekannten. Etwas zu viele vielleicht für einen anständigen Mann, der bisher auf den eingefahrenen Gleisen des Alltags unterwegs war.

Es ist schon brutal, wie Georges Simenon diesen Charakter seziert und gnadenlos dem Untergang preisgibt. Alles folgt einer zwangsläufigen Logik, der kaum etwas entgegenzusetzen ist. Mit der Abfahrt des Zuges in Venedig scheint das Schicksal der Hauptfigur bereits besiegelt. Die Ahnung drohenden Unheils durchzieht den ganzen Roman. Dabei resultiert das Verhängnis letztlich nicht unbedingt aus den äußeren Umständen, sondern aus der Persönlichkeit Calmars. Je mehr dieser nachdenkt, desto deutlicher wird ihm die Lächerlichkeit seines bisherigen Lebens. Eine für jeden wohl schwer erträgliche Erkenntnis. Das Ende kommt etwas abrupt, ist in seiner Absurdität aber absolut folgerichtig. Simenon erzählt die Geschichte vollkommen schnörkellos, reduziert auf das Wesentliche. Zudem gibt es interessante Einblicke in die Bürokultur der Sechzigerjahre, wo das Antatschen und Begrabschen von Frauen noch gang und gäbe war.

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a Maigret novel but the story of Justin Calmar who is travelling back from Venice to Paris when a complete stranger asks him to a deliver a briefcase to an address in Lausanne.

Justin does as he asks only to find the occupant of the address dead.

Justin keeps the money but is worried that the people whose money this is will come after him

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mysterious stranger asks Justin Calmar to pick up and deliver a briefcase for him on the train from Venice. It starts as a conventional espionage thriller, but this is Simenon and so instead veers into a psychological study of guilt and paranoia in an everyday man who suddenly finds himself having done something wrong for the first time in his life. The briefcase and the motives of the mysterious stranger are never explored or explained. A curious delight, if not quite top tier Simenon.

[Buccan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Novela psicológica y trágica; las vicisitudes de un encuentro virtuoso en una persona inestable, que tiene una vida demasiado estable, y que este cambio provoca la alteración sin poder ponerle freno ni depositar la confianza en nadie.
Soy fan del Simenon de Maigret (leídos en la adolescencia), así que igual la considero una novel(it)a tirando a floja.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without realizing it, he started to think of that fortune as his own. He hadn't got as far as to wonder what he would do with it. He didn't have any plans. He was still quite vague about it all. It wasn't entirely his, but it was possible, if events were to take a particular turn, that it might become his.
Not by theft. Or by any dishonest act. He would be obliged to keep the money, that was all, just as he was obliged to hide it somewhere today. The prospect was both seductive, and agonizing ...

Exquisitely pared-down suspense from Simenon about a mild-mannered businessman driven to distraction by a simple interaction on a train-- that verges into an existential crisis and elemental breakdown.

Ah, bon soir, Patricia Highsmith; and there are also echoes of Poe, Graham Greene, other 'unwelcome-realization' practitioners... Although there is nothing gothic or noir about it. One of the blasé niceties of this little monograph is the upbeat, sunny europe-on-holiday vibe that underlies the tricky business at hand.

Simenon has no problem allowing the natural tendencies and inclinations of his everyman full control of the narrative. He can paint the scene or sketch a character in a few deceptive strokes. There is an effortless, magnetic pull toward the conclusion, and a five star ride all the way along the tracks...

But that destination, without giving it away, is what pulls that final star rating back to four; the end of this novel is a bit like the Monsieur broke a key on his typewriter, and decided, ah, well enough now as ever, it's done anyway. Or as if he was only contracted for novella length, and declined to go a step further. Like an unfinished sonata that, just, stops.

Still, recommended, a don't-miss bravura outing from the maestro.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Afternoon Drama:
When he wasn't writing Maigret, Georges Simenon produced a huge body of novels and short stories, often tough, gripping and psychologically-penetrating dissections of lives confounded by fate. In The Other Simenon we explore more of his dark tales of human misfortune!

The Venice Train is a classic Simenon study of anxiety. Justin Calmar returns early from holiday. On board the express train to Paris he is asked by a stranger to deliver a briefcase to an address in Lausanne. He subsequently makes two discoveries: the first, that there is a dead body in the apartment, the second that the suitcase contains a fortune in paper currency. He flees, on the next rapide to Paris condemning himself to an existence of lies and fear, with seemingly no way out.

Dramatised by Ronald Frame and starring Paul Bown and Clare Corbett.

Other parts played by members of the cast.
Producer/Director: David Ian Neville.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ntjb1

[Andrew Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

one extremely long panic attack

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gripping, concisely written novella with an abrupt, just okay ending. During a chance meeting on the train from Venice to Paris, a stranger asks Justin Calmar to deliver a briefcase for him to an address in Switzerland. In Paris Justin finds himself in an unexpected, unusual situation. Justin has lived a sedate, regular life with a devoted wife and two children. His life changes leading to consequences he would never have thought possible before his train trip from Venice to Paris.

This book was first published in 1965.

[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was about to give this 4,5 stars, but the ending botched that down to 3,5.

Nevertheless, I can see why Hemingway read these works recurringly (or at least the Hemingway of ‘True at First Light’). So far, these booklets by Simenon prove themselves to be supple reads, and quite relaxing. That does not mean that they are completely stupid content-wise, as so often happens in books people read to relax. Some themes of depth are addressed, in this one it is that of the realisation of the suffocationary structure of modern daily life.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1965 this is an example of his writing away from the Maigret novels. This book is one of his many psychological thrillers, which he termed ‘romans durs' roughly translated as his ‘hard novels’.

They are different in many ways to his detective series all of which I’ve read in order thanks to the modern translations Penguin Classics have commissioned.

Happily this treatment has been given to these darker thrillers and The Venice Train has been reissued in a new English translation by Ros Schwartz.

The story centres on a middle class man who has over thought his way through life. Brighter than his achievements and successes he has a routine “sales” position in a plastic company he is ill-suited for, but for his command of languages. He is married with two children but he allows circumstances dictate his life rather than owning his own place in family, firm or wider social settings.

All this changes when he meets a stranger on a train. Returning early to Paris leaving his wife, daughter and son to continue their holiday in Venice. He falls into conversation with a man who discerns he is a ‘man of integrity’ yet Justin reflects afterwards he asked and learned nothing about this man in return.

For some reason the man entrusts him with an errand which is the potential doorway into a life of high adventure and international mystery.

Whatever, upon his return home he is a changed man. His personality unravels into a more secretive lifestyle. His one friend thinks he must be having an affair. His wife thinks he is keeping some serious medical diagnosis from her.

Meanwhile he becomes trapped within the fantasy of the chance meeting with this man on the train; the exposure to danger for him in performing the simple favour during a change of trains in Switzerland and the burden of knowledge other people may have been killed for their own involvement along the way.

Simenon basically unpacks the psyche of this man who was short of ambition, happy within his routine but now questioning the deeper purpose of life and fulfilment.

Unable to change or take control, it is the actions of others that stifle his ability to manage or profit from the events following his strange encounter on the train.

A complex thriller where an underdog has more than a walk on part when he stumbles into a high stakes conspiracy. The author doesn’t have a Maigret to prise apart the basic humanity that led to a calamitous turn of events. Here we have the own ramblings of a troubled soul slowly diminishing before our eyes.

A terrific read that shows the range and depth of writing by this much loved author. Georges Simenon.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Georges Simenon's romans dur -- one of his mystery novels NOT featuring Inspector/Superintendent Jules Maigret of the Police Judiciaire of Paris. Venice Train is about one Justin Calmar who, upon leaving his vacationing family to return to Paris a week early, finds himself being asked to deliver a briefcase to an address in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he will change trains.

He agrees to do so. He goes to the address to find an unlocked door and the corpse of a young woman. Panicking, he runs -- with the briefcase. When he checks the contents of the case, he finds it is full of American, British, and French high-denomination currency. By following the Lausanne newspapers, he finds the identity of the murdered woman, and that the man who gave him the briefcase committed suicide in the Simplon railway tunnel. A Dutch man is arrested for the murder, but he likewise commits suicide.

Justin finds himself with a ton of money, but he has difficulty spending the money without arousing the suspicions of his wife, children, and co-workers. One of his co-workers thinks he is having an affair. In the end, Justin wishes he never came by the money, which he laboriously moves around from one railroad station locker to another (they are cleaned out at the end of every week).

Such a situation I should be in!

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave it three stars, but, it was well written. The trouble with a great premise, is that you then have to choose which direction you take it in. And then if the writer doesn’t take it in the direction you think it should go, you feel disappointed. There were so many options with this story, and in the end it became a bit forgettable. It’s Simonon though so it is well written, with psychological insight. I missed Maigret’s huge presence in this book though.

[Mim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this on the train

[Keith Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illicit secrets

A staid family man takes the train home to Paris early from holiday in Venice, leaving his family to complete the stay. On the train a sinister stranger questions him and then asks him for a favour: at Lausanne he should remove a brief case from a safe deposit box and deliver it to a specified address. Our hero agrees. In a tunnel between Italy and Switzerland the stranger disappears from the train. Still, a promise is a promise; the brief case is recovered, taken to the address, but the only person there is dead! She has been strangled! The brief case is full of cash! What is our hero to do?

As much a psychological quandary as a criminal mystery, the second half of the novel explores how Justin, the central character, reacts to his situation. He has unlimited money, but can he spend it? Is the money being sought by others? Will the police blame him if he tries to explain how he came by it. How might he cover up this unearned wealth from his honest and intelligent wife? His growing paranoia and his increasing desire to consider the money legitimately his own ensnare both Justin, his family and the reader too - a very ordinary man confronting an extraordinary situation, not to say temptation. As usual, very well done.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Georges Simenon’s many psychological thrillers, which he described as romans durs or ‘hard novels’. I’ve read two of his others – The Man from London and The Strangers in the House – and have enjoyed both, so was looking forward to reading this one. First published in 1965 as Le Train de Venise, it has just been reissued by Penguin Classics in a new English translation by Ros Schwartz.

The novel begins with Justin Calmar boarding a train in Venice to return to his home in Paris after a family holiday. His wife and two young children will follow in a few days’ time. During the journey, another passenger engages Justin in conversation and he finds himself agreeing to deliver a briefcase to an address in Lausanne when the train stops at the station there. However, things don’t go according to plan and Justin ends up returning to Paris with the case still in his possession. Unable to resist the temptation, he breaks the locks and looks inside…and what he finds there will change his life forever.

I won’t say too much more about the plot because I wouldn’t want to spoil the suspense of wondering what is inside the case and what Justin will decide to do with it. This is a very short book (176 pages in the paperback version) and for the first half, the tension builds and builds. It would have made a perfect Alfred Hitchcock film! It’s not a crime novel, however, so don’t go into it expecting one; the mystery is never fully explained or resolved, it ends abruptly and we are left with lots of unanswered questions. The events on the train are simply a starting point for Simenon to explore the psychological effects on Justin Calmar as he battles with nerves, guilt and paranoia, lying to his wife and his friends and finding that each lie leads to another.

The second half of the book isn’t quite as strong as the first and I do wish we’d had answers to at least some of those questions, but this is a fascinating and compelling story – my favourite by Georges Simenon so far.

[Abbygal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really didn't like the ending, I was enjoying the main character and then he kills himself, what a let down, made me feel depressed for awhile.