Better than Camus or Sartre

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Thursday, March 22, 2007
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Speaking of Simenon, Mark Sarvas has posted a detailed report on an LA appearance of John Banville's, including this:

During the questions, we asked him to discuss the Simenon influence: He called Simenon's romans durs - hard novels - "masterpieces .. far better than anything by Camus or Sartre." He found the books "absolutely honest ... I was fascinated by the effects he could achieve with such a seemingly simple narrative and vocabulary ... Of course, it's not simple or straightforward at all. ... Simenon opened my eyes to a different direction in writing."

I've gotten pretty fanatical about these books, so it's nice to know that far better brains than mine are in agreement.