There’s nothing romantic about it, or charming or uplifting it’s the dark side of human nature. Querelle is a walk on the wild side, a dark excursion down a fog-enshrouded alleyway.

Querelle helps Gilbert Turko to get away by train but notifies police where he can be found before the train pulls out of the station. Querelle is able to make it appear that Gilbert Turko murdered the sailor that Querelle himself murdered, since Gilbert Turko is already known to have murdered a coworker. In the meantime, Querelle has murdered a fellow sailor and left his body in the weeds to be found later. Querelle helps him by bringing him food and encouraging him. He murders a coworker who taunts him and flees to an abandoned prison. Gilbert Turko is a young mason in Brest and an acquaintance of Querelle’s. Lieutenant Seblon imagines scenes in which he and Querelle are in love and live together always. Querelle figures out that Lieutenant Seblon loves him and, with this knowledge, exercises a sort of control over him. He keeps to himself as much as he can and confides to his diary how much he loves, and lusts after, Querelle. Lieutenant Seblon is an officer on the ship that Querelle serves on. In this way, Querelle becomes Nono’s lover. If Nono wins the throw of the dice, he takes the sailor into the back room and has sex with him. Nono likes to roll dice with the young sailors who frequent his establishment. Madame Lysiane is married to the owner of the brothel, whose name is Nono. She is the madame of the Brest brothel, La Feria Robert, Querelle’s brother, is her lover. The only female character in the book is Madame Lysiane. There is this persistent theme running throughout the novel of the two brothers, Querelle and Robert, being so much alike that the love they have for each other is self-love, and the two brothers are, in fact, one and the same person. He has a look-alike brother, Robert, who is a gigolo in the local brothel in Brest called La Feria. His being a sailor and moving around from place to place makes him able to escape detection for the murders and thefts he commits. His good looks make him a sort of magnet for almost anyone who sees him. Georges Querelle is a young, muscular, good-looking French sailor, in the French seaport town of Brest where the action of the novel takes place. It was controversial for the 1940s (thus the anonymous publication), involving, as it does, homosexuality, murder, romantic obsession and prostitution. Querelle (also known as Querelle de Brest) was written in 1945 and published anonymously in 1947.

“ The notion of murder often brings to mind the notion of sailors and the sea.” This is the opening sentence of the novel Querelle by French author Jean Genet (1910-1986). Querelle ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Querelle of brest