Georges Simenon and the Maigret Novels

I noted in an earlier blog that Georges Simenon's Maigret novels are being reissued by Penguin on a monthly basis. Six of these new editions of the Maigret novels have been issued to date. 

Julian Barnes has an interesting article in the Times Literary Supplement on Simenon and the Maigret novels. Barnes points out that Simenon's work was admired by such writers as Andre Gide and T.S. Eliot, among others. He suggests that Simenon's books were popular with "literary" writers both because of the positives of his writing--things he was able to do very well--and the "enviable" negatives-- things he got away with doing that other writers could not.

For the positives of Simenon's writing, Barnes cites his "swiftness of creation; swiftness of effect; clearly demarcated personal territory; intense atmosphere and resonant detail; knowledge of, and sympathy with, les petites gens; moral ambiguity; [and] a usually baffling plot with a usually satisfactory denouement." Among his enviable negatives were his simple prose (Simenon had a vocabulary of 2000 words), his brevity, his lack of rhetorical devices, and the lack of subtext in the novels. Simenon designed the Maigret books to be read in one sitting and made the vocabulary accessible to the general reader.

The article also contains some interesting anecdotes about Simenon and his work. For example, when the BBC re-created the Maigret stories on television, a local temperance group and Anglican bishop implored the producers to be less faithful to detail in portraying Maigret's daily alcohol consumption.

For the full text of the article, please see http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1407798.ece.

New Crime Fiction for 2014

  The Crime Fiction Lover has published a list of the first new crime novels of 2014. Included in the list is Sam Eastland's The Beast in the Red Forest, which is the fifth novel in the series featuring Inspector Pekkala, a Russian cop. The British author Ann Cleeves has a new novel entitled Harbour Street, which features Vera Stanhope. This character has also been re-created in a UK television series. For those who like the thrillers of Clive Cussler, his ninth novel in the Oregon File series (Oregon being a spy ship) entitled Mirage has been released. And last but not least, the Maigret novel entitled The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon has been re-published by Penguin. (For my post on the Penguin re-publication project, please click here.)

For the full text of the Crime Fiction Lover article, please click here.

And if you missed my Open Investigations blog on new reading for the holiday, please click here.

Maigret Revisited

Crimetime reports that Penguin will re-issue the seventy-five Maigret novels of Belgian author Georges Simenon with new translations and cover art. This will be the first time that the Maigret novels are published in the UK under a single publisher. The prolific Simenon wrote a novel a month, and Penguin will be releasing a new Maigret novel each month, beginning with Pietr the Latvian. For the full text of the article, please  visit http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/4955.

If you are interested in reading my Open Investigations blog on Georges Simenon and the Maigret novels, please click here.