No Mystery: The Enduring Appeal of Inspector Maigret
Georges Simenon Wrote 75 Maigret Novels. They’re Still Worth Reading
Let me ask you if you’ve ever heard of Inspector Jules Maigret. Maybe so? Maybe not?
Well, you know who’s heard of Inspector Maigret, or at least his creator, Georges Simenon? William Faulkner. Faulkner, the great American writer, said of Simenon, “I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekov.”
Chekov is not an inspector, but he was a Russian writer best known for his short stories. Before I lose you, let me cut to the chase on Georges Simenon. Brevity, coincidentally, reminds me of Simenon.
Maybe you have heard of Simenon and his literary creation, Maigret. Much to my chagrin, I had not. Simenon is one of the biggest mystery writers in Europe. “Between 1930 and his death in 1989, Simenon wrote more than 200 novels (under various names) and sold over 700 million books,” said Elliott Colla in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Most of these sales were in the Inspector Maigret series. Only a handful of writers—including Shakespeare and Agatha Christie—have “sold” more than Simenon. But as these English translations fell in and out of print, the name Simenon became little more than a talisman for American audiences.
‘Vices by Proxy’
George Simenon was definitely not on my radar as a reader. I discovered Simenon from another author, not Faulkner or Chekov but the magnificent British thriller writer Lawrence Osborne. If you are piecing the clues together, you’ll have deduced that I enjoy mystery and thriller authors the most. They constitute the bulk of my reading time.
I found Simenon at just the right time. I was tired of American noir. I still love it, but I needed a break. Once you exhaust the core classics, it can veer into the fatuous. I am out of Henning Mankell; I could re-read but the grisliness isn’t hitting how it used to. I want some class.
In recent years, I’ve leaned more toward European mystery writers. I wanted something cozy but not twee. Something that lives in cafes. Something that walks the streets more than it drives the alleys. And there was Simenon, waiting for me. Maigret instantly charmed me.
Maigret is sad for the people he comes into contact with: the show girls, the jazz players, the killers, the dead, and the lost. He listens to people and the human condition; the condition in these cases is the arena of murder.
Simenon writes the thoughts of Maigret and his staff in Maigret and the Ghosts: “It is demoralizing, in a criminal case, to be confronted only with normal people, because you wonder why and how they have come to be mixed up in a tragedy.”
When you read Simenon, Maigret will drink beers with his sandwich for lunch. He will drink wine with dinner. He will drink a port before bed. He will smoke his pipe all throughout the day.
I myself would very much like to smoke a pipe. The smell, the smoke rings, the sense of doing something that exists for nothing but to enjoy. But I don’t smoke because apparently it can kill you early. Earlier than I’d like to go. Maigret novels have a lot of people dying before they’d like to go. So here is the compromise: I will not smoke a pipe, but I will read short mesmerizing novels where Inspector Maigret enjoys his pipe for me.
I wouldn’t mind having a beer or wine with every meal, but the constitution of a man in the 1930s and one now must just not be the same thing—either that, or I used up my drink tickets. At any rate, remember in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep when General Sternwood says, “A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy”? I guess it’s like that, but it doesn’t feel so forlorn.
‘Short as Possible’
Reading these books sort of feels like grabbing a quick drink. You watch out the window. You make small talk. You let that first sip hit your mouth. These books feel like that.
Simenon hits you with these sublime vignettes. From Maigret and the Ghost:
Maigret waited patiently, gazing absently at the soothing décor of the little café, its pewter counter and its familiar bottles and labels. The newspapers talked with complacency or anxiety about a world that was changing at breakneck speed but here, before his eyes, after all these years and a world war, were the same bottle labels that he used to see in the village inn as a child.
In the books he wishes he were a beat cop and could go door to door and talk to people on the street where a shooting occurred, but he is supposed to be at the station managing the team from a desk. Simenon writes, “Maigret may well have been divisional chief inspector and head of the Police Judiciaire Crime Squad, but he was still of the people.”
In one book, Maigret doesn’t formally appear until half way through the story, though he’s been a character of interest in the shadows.
The stories lilt. They float. Maigret meanders to the solve. There is rarely any urgency, odd given their size. Brilliant, really. Calm, not in a hurry, but short and bitter. Not sweet. As Maigret tells a suspect brought in for questioning, “It’s a long story? Make it as short as possible, without leaving anything out!”
As if to underscore the point, the Maigret novels clock in around 148 pages. There are a lot of things that make Simenon enjoyable, but that might be the secret ingredient. The Simenon books are so economic, so understated. Each one is a short, digestible pleasure.
So far, I’ve read The Late Monsieur Gallet, The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin, Maigret and the Headless Corpse, Maigret and the Ghost, Maigret and the Tramp, and Maigret at the Coroners, which was set in the American West and felt a little awkward. I can’t see Poirot in a cowboy hat. I cannot see Maigret in one either.
Getting Started
If this sounds made for you, I have good news. Simenon wrote seventy-five Maigret novels. I would suggest starting with Maigret and the Tramp. It’s exceptionally solid. The publisher, Penguin Random House, calls it “a fascinating, fast-paced story about the past lives we try to leave behind, and the ways in which they return. . . .” All of this is true.
Pietr the Latvian is the first Maigret mystery if you want to proceed in a chronological fashion, but you can start with any of them as far as I can tell. There’s not a linear overall storyline to follow. It’s like a sports game. You turn it on, you see the clock, you see the score. No homework. No prework. I just finished Maigret and The Ghost. It’s a delicious book with a great hook that reminds me of the film Tenet. No, they do not time travel.
There is some criticism that the Maigret novels were rushed, written in a few days, for a quick buck. “In the words of Luc Sante, Simenon had a working-class view of his profession,” writes Joan Acocella in the New Yorker. “The more product he turned out, the more he expected to earn.”
All those books equal a lot of dollars. In Europe they also equal television and movie deals. If you read about Simenon, you learn that he disdained Maigret—similar to how Arhtur Conan Doyle was embarrassed with Sherlock Holmes. He wanted to be known for high art but at the same time liked making money.
Simenon liked money, food, and women. His creation, Maigret liked food and his wife. Perhaps his creation presented an ideal for himself? Maybe, maybe not.
Enjoying the Crooked Path
Lately I’ve been watching The Pink Panther movies, featuring Inspector Clouseau, with my son. These movies satirize the idea of a master sleuth, turning deduction into a comedy of overconfidence. Jokes aside, you can sense the love of the mystery genre.
In Clouseau’s case, he solves the crime in spite of himself. You can almost say the same of Maigret. He solves his cases by hanging out. Don’t misunderstand me: Maigret is not a bumbling imbecile lighting his office on fire. But he, like Closeau, arrives at the destination in a very crooked line. I think you’ll enjoy the path.
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I love these mystery novels - I've listened to several on Audible.
Have you seen the miniseries on BritBox, starring Rowan Atkinson (yes, Mr Bean!)? Came out in 2016. His portrayal of Maigret is sublime and superb, and the production value is top notch. Sad that only 4 stories were filmed.
I've not hit more than one or two of the Maigrets yet (a bunch of them in the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile, though). But I'll second Tara Cheesman's comment re the romans durs. They are dark wonderful gems. TC recommended Strangers in the House and The President -- also not to be missed are The Innocents, The Blue Room, The Train, The Hand (also translated as The Man on the Bench in the Barn), and Monsieur Monde Vanishes. I've yet to read one of his books I didn't like.