THE SNOW WAS DIRTY. Simenon, Georges

The action of this novel is set in a brothel in a European city under Nazi occupation. With moral degradation, we are presented in all its crudeness with the contagious and invasive power of abjection, as well as the split between the call of the abyss and the aspiration for an ideal purity. The novel will end up revealing to us a hero or an insensitive madman, who accepts punishment as a ransom. Never before has Simenon managed to concentrate so effectively such a complex and profound moral problem, halfway between ignominy and innocence. Indeed, the snow was dirty…