When I Was Old

Comes across as just rambling of a man reaching a certain age, where he begins to realize time maybe running out and decides now lets scribble down what comes up in my/ his mind for who knows who, perhaps his grand children or for unknown future admirers.

Simenon writes along a series of 3 notebooks, what happens daily to him and his family, and talks and thinks about many topics. It is a very interesting thing to read this book. I enjoyed it very much.

very interesting picture of his life

This is an autobiographical book about the author’s sixties and I found it very honest and believable, but then I am a Simenon fan!
His wife suffered from depression but he never connects that with his need for frequent sex with prostitutes, which seems rather odd for a man so deeply into psychology.
Presumably he believed her when she said she didn’t mind his behaviour?

Georges Simenon is an amazing writer, and not just for the seemingly endless stream of Maigret stories. These notebook jottings from the early 1960s are both illuminating and irritating. It can be seen as the meditations of a very successful author having a mild midlife crisis or as one who;
, having had an enviable range of experiences for forty years is settling down to family life with his children and a wife he obviously loves to distraction, and who obviously loves him judging by what she seems to put up with. But apart from periodic ailments we are told very little about her. The irritation of having swarms of journalists and others trying to discover the secrets of his success comes across well, though it is also clear that he also enjoys the adulation. He respects and enjoys the company of doctors and engineers, people who do something whose work produces benefits that are immediately perceptible. His reflections on the state of the world, the universe and everything are occasionally profound, but more often rather superficial. What I liked most about the jottings is Simenon’s capacity for self criticism. He really does manage often to stand outside
himself and recognise that he may be mistaken and is able to change his mind.

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