The Maigret novels aren’t without their moments of humour, but I wouldn’t call any that I’ve read thus far comic. Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters comes the closest, beginning with the sad sack Lognon himself, who I don’t recall appearing before Maigret at Picratt’s. Lognon goes by the nickname Inspector Hard-Done-By and is described as “the most lugubrious individual in the entire Parisian police force, a man whose bad luck was so proverbial some people claimed he was cursed.” Very much a comic figure then, and the book begins with his going missing and Maigret having to make a visit to his wife, a scene which plays out as farce.

There is, however, a dangerous subtext. Another potentially comic character Maigret meets is the café owner Pozzo (this book was published in 1952 and Waiting for Godot premiered in 1953, so Simenon wasn’t writing under the influence). Pozzo initially seems to be acting the clown and even later will look like “one of those old comic actors whose faces have become rubbery from all their contortions.” But beneath that rubbery face, and despite his costume of baggy pants and red slippers, he is a figure of threat, with eyes that remain hard and watchful. The same might be said of some of the gangsters, Americans who come with snappy names like Sweet Bill and Sloppy Joe. And the final gunfight, which is underscored by funny moments like Maigret having a pullet pass through his hat and a tiny French policeman trying to physically constrain a giant American woman.

So maybe this is a comic novel. I don’t even think anyone gets killed, though quite a few are shot and beaten up (including poor Lognon, who is removed from “his” case pretty quickly). The plot involves a bunch of gangsters arriving in Paris and behaving as very poor guests. Maigret takes their presence as a challenge – we know he loves a challenge – and makes their capture a point of national pride. I don’t have to tell you how that works out. He shows them all . . . Absolutely!

Maigret index

Over at Goodreports I’ve posted a review of three of the books that came out on the last days of Trump: Landslide by Michael Wolff, I Alone Can Fix It by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, and Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Could this be the final chapter of the Trump saga? Trump remains the undisputed leader of the Republican Party but my own sense is that his health isn’t going to hold up well enough to run again. That said, I guess anything can happen. There may be Four. More. Years!

Something about wicked women seems to have got Simenon’s creative juices flowing. Looking back on the books I’ve read in the series, it’s the bad girls who stand out the most. Madame Le Cloagulen in Signed, Picpus was probably the worst, but Madame Serre gives her a run for the money here. Related to this fascination with such women is an instinctive loathing of men who are excessively mothered.  The Flemish House and My Friend Maigret are the best examples. I wonder if there was some psychological projection going on here, as Maigret himself is waited on hand and foot by his wife.

In any event, Maigret and the Tall Woman combines both of these elements into one of the chief inspector’s most enjoyable cases. Enjoyable in part because Maigret himself is having so much fun. Guillaume Serre is actually bigger than Maigret is, which makes taking him down into a special challenge. This will be a heavyweight match-up for the ages!

Had it become a personal matter between him and Guillaume Serre? More precisely, would events have played out in the same manner, would Maigret have come to the same decision, at the same moment, if the man from Rue de la Ferme hadn’t been a heavyweight like him, both physically and psychologically?

From the start he seemed intent to test himself against him.

Alas, that’s not quite how things work out. But the sting in the tail of this one, a doctor’s stoppage almost, is even more satisfying than a knockout.

Maigret index

After a brief hiatus I’m back posting book reviews on Goodreports.net, kicking things off with a review of Michael Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit.

I started Goodreports in 1998, so I’ve been at it for a while now. In recent years, however, I haven’t been updating it as much. This is not, however, because I’ve been spending all my time watching movies. I still read as much as ever, about 100-120 books a year. But my reading has changed.

Most of my reading these days is non-fiction. This is either history or current political events (for the last few years that latter category could be relabeled “books about Trump”). I’ve also spent a lot of time re-reading the classics — fiction, drama, and poetry. Currently I’m working my way through a lot of Milton and Joyce. I haven’t read either author in years and I’m having a great time. But I’m not going to review them!

What I’m not reading, at least in any great quantity, is new fiction. I still cover a bit of SF, but, aside from that, in the past year I haven’t read many new novels or story collections.

I don’t think this is because of anything I’ve got against new fiction. It’s probably more a result of aging. If you only have time for a certain number of books left, why not spend it with the masters? But also, as I get older I find that works by new (that is young) writers have less to say to me. Again, this isn’t a unique feeling. I’ve heard other (old) people express the same feelings.

I’m not giving up, however, and plan on making a commitment to reading more new fiction moving forward. I just need to find some more hours in the day to make it happen.

Why is Maigret taking a room? Because Madame Maigret is visiting her sister, leaving Jules feeling lonely. Or perhaps just in need of someone to take care of him. So when his favourite inspector, Janvier, is shot in the chest while staking out an apartment building it’s only natural that Maigret himself should take a room in that same building. To find out who shot Janvier? That seems a stretch. More likely he just wants the maternal concierge (“her large breasts wobbling in her blouse like jelly”) to make a fuss over him.

There’s even less detective work than usual here. Maigret solves the crime by just looking out the window of his room and having the truth dawn on him in the usual, wholly inexplicable, way. It’s still an enjoyable outing though, especially in the way the two women who are hiding men rhyme with each other, and in the wonderful description of Maigret’s first visit to Madame Boursicault, where she attempts to lull him to sleep with her voice droning on “monotonously, like a running tap.”

I guess the Maigrets didn’t have any kids. This may help explain his need to find a surrogate family, whether it be among his stable of inspectors (he calls Lucas “son” even though he’s only about ten years older) or with the roly-poly concierge. Given it’s Janvier who takes a bullet here I was a little surprised that we got the gentle, forgiving Maigret at the end, but maybe he was just feeling a bit more fatherly toward everyone.

Maigret index

There’s a biographical blurb at the front of this series of Penguin Maigret novels that quotes Simenon:

My motto, to the extent that I have one, has been noted often enough, and I’ve always conformed to it. It’s the one I’ve given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points . . . “understand and judge not.”

I don’t like this kind of self-praise (an author creating a fictional hero who he then compares himself to), and what’s more I’m not sure it’s an accurate a description of old Maigret. The chief inspector can make up his mind about people pretty quickly, and isn’t afraid to get rough right away with people he makes snap judgments about. He is also very much a man of his time, and this book was published in 1951.

I don’t believe in applying current rules for political correctness in a rear-view mirror, to punish authors, in Auden’s phrase, under a foreign code of conscience. But you do have to shake your head a bit at the treatment of the gay junky Philippe here. Maigret immediately pegs him as a “fairy.”

“Do you like men?”

Deep down, like all fairies, he was proud of it, and an involuntary smile formed on his unnaturally red lips. Maybe getting told off by real men turned him on?

That’s pretty bad. Even worse, Maigret immediately hands Philippe over for a brutal interrogation, the results of which are later reported back to him by the fellow tasked with the dirty job:

“He’s exhausting, that guy. He’s as limp as a rag doll, there’s nothing to get hold of. Twice I thought he’s going to talk. I’m sure he’s got something to say. His resistance seemed shot. His eyes begged for mercy. Then at the last second, he changes his mind and swears he doesn’t know anything. It makes me sick. Just now, he drove me so crazy I smacked him full in the face. Do you know what he did?”

Maigret didn’t say anything.

“He held his cheek and started whining as if he was talking to another fairy like him. ‘You’re mean!’ I mustn’t do it again. I bet it excites him.”

Maigret could not help smiling.

No, this isn’t one of old Maigret’s finer moments, and it really puts the lie to the idea that he seeks only to understand and judges not. At one point he can’t help exclaiming of the people he’s investigating “What a filthy bunch!” Prostitutes, junkies, killers, drug-dealers, and fairies. Later in the book he’ll even send the “nasty little worm” Philippe – who, I should point out, is really just a junky – out as bait to draw the killer. A dangerous plan, at least for Philippe, though Maigret had done something similar in A Man’s Head. In any event, he really isn’t that concerned about Philippe anyway. “If there is an accident, well, I don’t think it will be such a great loss.”

(As an aside here, in the series of BBC Maigrets starring Rowan Atkinson this is one of the novels they adapted. They kept the antipathy shown toward Philippe by the other characters, and even included a bit of the rough stuff at the police station, but they kept Maigret himself above it all. He puts an end to Philippe’s being given the third-degree, coming into the interrogation room to remind everyone that “He [Philippe] is a human being.”)

A double standard for bad behaviour is in play. While Philippe is roundly despised, a sleazy strip-club owner who has sex with his dancers virtually right in front of his wife turns out to be a pretty decent guy. There’s even a curious point at the end where he and Maigret sit together comparing notes on the case and Maigret thinks to himself that they are “almost in the same line of business. They both had a roughly similar approach, just different styles of working and different reasons for doing so.” A reflection made about a guy who admires the killer for being such an effective groomer of young women!

All of this is disconcerting, but Maigret at Picratt’s is otherwise a solid entry in the series. A beautiful young dancer (as in “dancer”) is murdered, landing Maigret knee-deep in a cross-section of seedy Montmartre characters with shady pasts. Thrilling stuff for the most part, as long as you keep in mind that it was 1951 and they felt differently about a lot of things back then.

Maigret index