There are no happy families in Simenon. The Others concerns one such family, the provincial bourgeois Huets, whose tensions and grudges are thrown into relief by the suicide of the wealthy patriarch of the clan, Uncle Antoine. The novel is narrated, loosely in the form of a diary, by Antoine’s nephew, Blaise, a dissatisfied art … Continue reading The Others
Notes on Simenon
The Glass Cage
Émile Virieu, 44, is a proof-reader for a Paris printing firm. He works in a glass cage in the centre of the office, cut off from his colleagues. He is married to an unattractive translator, Jeanne, with whom he shares some companionship, but neither a bed nor conversation. Virieu’s life follows a strict routine – … Continue reading The Glass Cage
The Window Over the Way
Adil Bey is the newly-arrived Turkish consul in the dismal Black Sea port of Batum in the Soviet Union of the 1930’s. He does not speak the language, immediately alienates himself from the expatriate clique and is thus dependent on his twenty-year-old secretary, Sonia, for contact with the outside world. Sonia lives with her policeman … Continue reading The Window Over the Way
Inquest on Bouvet
Inquest on Bouvet is a curiosity – a Maigret novel in form and setting, but one from which the Inspector himself is absent. The plots concern the death of the title character, an old print collector who has lived quietly for twenty years in an apartment by the Seine. Over the course of the novel … Continue reading Inquest on Bouvet
Graeme Macrae Burnet 