Georges Simenon wrote over 200 hundred novels and short works in his life time. Of these, seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories featured the fictional detective Jules Maigret, and it is for this character that he most remembered. We have chosen to read one Maigret novel, The saint-Fiacre affair, together and any others that we may choose from the vast number of his works. The Saint Fiacre Affair is translated by Shaun Whiteside. If you fancy reading one in French, we have a few here.
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“Both Simenon and Kafka force us to press our noses against the world’s window and stare unblinking at things we feel we should not be seeing yet cannot stop looking at. This is especially the case in the non-Maigret books that Simenon called his romans durs, or hard novels.” John Banville Irish Times (this week)
While our group were not fans of the Maigret books, there is something intriguing about his other novels. Perhaps Maigret seems dated beside other themes of war, escape, marital affairs etc in his hard novels. Warrants more discussion for another meeting…..