Georges Simenon - Maigret's Memoirs

Georges Simenon's first novel, Au Pont des Arches, was published in 1921 when the author was just eighteen. In just a few years he wrote hundreds of short pieces, a number of short stories, and a few novels besides, all published under various pseudonyms as he was unwilling to commit his real name to the pulp and trash he was churning out at an astonishing rate. In 1931, a decade after his debut and a few years since he had begun publishing under his own name, the character of Commissaire Jules Maigret made his first appearance, in the novel Pietr-le-Letton.

Maigret was Simenon's most popular creation, and has since become (though mostly in Europe, and less so elsewhere), one of the most loved and famous detectives of the twentieth century. Simenon wrote over seventy novels concerning the detective, and that leaves out the short stories and novellas. Maigret, much like Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, offers a cornucopia of mystery and murder to the enthusiastic genre reader.

Maigret's Memoirs, written in 1950 in French and published in English in 1963, was published roughly halfway through the forty years Simenon wrote about the detective, though chronologically it takes place during the entirety of Maigret's career, from his time as a recruit until his retirement. Where the other Maigret novels are concerned with (most often) the solving of a serious crime, or (less often) Maigret's failure to catch the culprit, Maigret's Memoirs purports to be written by Maigret – the true Maigret, that is, the man who provided Simenon with the template from which the later novels were drawn – in an attempt by the detective to tell the proper story of his life. In this novella, Simenon himself is a minor character, and the Maigret novels, as well as their television and cinematic counterparts, are real and present in the world. In effect, Maigret knows himself as the inspiration for Maigret, and while he isn't angry at his treatment (Maigret and Simenon are good friends in the novella), he wishes to clear up a few matters, and to provide the sundry background and family history of his life that Simenon had never taken the time to reveal.

This all sounds a lot more complicated and post-modern than it really is. To be sure, Maigret was not a real person, which makes the supposed “real” telling of Maigret's life by Maigret himself somewhat gymnastic in its contortions when we consider that, of course, Simenon wrote the novella and not Maigret, but that's about as far as the author is willing to take the concept. It is better read as Maigret's opportunity to flesh out himself, a diversion Simenon avoided indulging in when composing the sleek, lean novels and novellas that formed the Maigret works. Simenon's Maigret is flinty, weary, fond of pipes and beer, a workaholic, indebted to his wife, whom he dearly loves, and a master at unravelling criminal motives. Maigret's Maigret is much the same, but through his recollection of how he came to be a policeman, and how he met his wife, we learn about the making of the man. Maigret's how is, if we are to believe him, the how of any police – all men and women, after as many years in the force as Maigret, take on a similar hue, their reflexes, observations and judgements honed from years of walking the beat and familiarising themselves with the underbelly of their city. Maigret's two special features are, one, he happens to be very dedicated and very good at his work and two, that Simenon picked his name, face, and general demeanour with which to create the fictional Maigret. That's all, and nothing more.

As if to reinforce this suggestion, Maigret's Memoirs is a novella filled with grey skies and inactivity. It opens with an 'administrative day', a dull, uneventful day which inevitably devotes itself to paperwork and filing.

It was a nondescript day at the beginning of winter, one of those colourless grey and white days that I am tempted to call an administrative day, because one has the impression that nothing interesting can happen in so drab an atmosphere, while in the office, out of sheer boredom, one feels an urge to bring one's files up to date, to deal with reports that have been lying about a long time, to tackle current business ferociously but without zest.

Maigret is summoned to see the Chief, who introduces him to a confident young man.

I merely glanced at the man, who must have been about twenty-four and who was thin, with hair almost as long as the Chief's, and of whom the least I can say is that he seemed to have no lack of confidence about anything, least of all about himself.

This is Georges Sim (not yet Simenon – he isn't ready to use his proper name for his professional activity), and he wishes to learn the inner workings of the police force in Paris. Maigret rightly views the young man as an intrusion and an inconvenience, and though he isn't negatively disposed towards him, there is no doubt in his mind as to whether or not he will help the young writer achieve his goals. Decidedly: not.

This early in the piece (we are a mere handful of pages into the novella), and already we are learning to see Maigret in a different light to Simenon's character. It goes without saying that this book works best for those who have already read a number of Maigret novels – while not essential for understanding what is happening, the effect of the juxtaposition of the two Maigrets, and the insertion of the author during the period of his character's gestation, is greatly enhanced the more of Maigret one has read. Simenon's Maigret is not a romanticised figure, but the adventures, murders and mysteries to which he bears witness could be seen in such a light; Maigret's Maigret has long had his naivety concerning crime boiled away and now, like most police, he looks at the job for what it is, and what it can only ever be – a job.

But Simenon isn't interested in the day-to-day push and pull of crime and punishment. He explains to Maigret:

”You see, Chief-Inspector, I'm not interested in professionals. Their psychology offers no problems. They are just men doing their own job, and that's all.”

“What are you interested in?”

“The others. Those who are made like you and me, and who end up one fine day by killing somebody without being prepared to do so.”

“There are very few of those.”

“I know.”

“Apart from crimes of passion...”

“There's nothing interesting about them either.”

Maigret shows Simenon around the Police Headquarters, answers a few of his questions, and then they part ways. Maigret doesn't think any more of it, even when, months later, a package addressed to him arrives at the building. Inside is The Girl with the Pearl Necklace, a small work with, at its centre, a protagonist by the name of Jules Maigret.

The detective avoids reading or discussing the novel, and later he ignores several invitations from Simenon to attend parties and openings. But the avalanche of novels continues and, some years later, the two find themselves interacting on an increasingly frequent (and friendly) basis. On top of that, people in the street start to recognise him as Maigret – their Maigret, from the novels – and become confused or annoyed if he is wearing the 'wrong' type of hat, or speaks with an 'incorrect' dialect or slang. Maigret brings these incidents to Simenon, along with his own observations that the author has made crime not as it is, but has instead diluted or concentrated its essence to achieve the tawdry goals of plot, characterisation and narrative. Simenon retorts:

”The whole problem is to make something more real than life. Well, I've done that! I've made you more real than life.”

This encourages Maigret to write his own memoirs, and we soon learn that the text we have been reading is in fact these very words.

None the less I promised myself that one day I would say what I've got to say, quite quietly, without rancour or ill-feeling, and once for all put things in their true perspective.

Maigret isn't a writer, and he notes that the publisher (who eagerly snaps up his proposal to publish the 'real' Maigret's memoirs) encourages chapters, chapter-headings and quotes, and other sundry literary matters to which Maigret remains unfamiliar. He concerns himself with the how of the real Maigret, that is how he came to be a policeman and what it means to serve.

...we see men and women, all sorts of men and women in the most unbelievable situations, at every social level. We see them, we take note and we try to understand.

I don't mean understand some deep human mystery or other. That romantic idea is possibly the thing against which I protest the most earnestly, almost angrily. This is one of the reasons for this book, for these attempted corrections. Simenon has endeavoured to explain this, I admit. Nevertheless I have felt a certain embarrassment on seeing attributed to myself in his books certain smiles, certain attitudes which I have never assumed and which would have made my colleagues shrug their shoulders.

Maigret's memoir ranges from the early stages of his career, when he ran messages from officer to officer, and further ahead, when he walked the beat where prostitutes plied their trade, and right up to his first aggressive arrest, of a Czech murderer who lay in wait for the police with a gun. At all stages, Maigret is concerned to show that hard-work, practice, methodical reasoning and a touch of ingenuity, are what is required to make a good police officer. He compares the profession to that of a pastry-chef or butcher, both equally beholden to years of disciplined apprenticeship before one can truly be said to rightly bear the name.

Maigret's Memoirs cleverly provides the biographical and historical data Simenon's fans had been asking for over the years without requiring the author to wrap a murder around the memoir. Instead, Maigret is allowed to reveal himself, slowly and without the easy confidence of the professional author (for Simenon keeps the prose of this novella plain and simple, indicative of Maigret's unliterary existence), but reveal himself he does. Again, this novella is not a good introduction to Maigret (though it effectively introduces him), but it certainly provides an interesting perspective on the detective for those who have read one, two, five or twenty of the Maigret novels.

Author	Georges Simenon
Title	Maigret's Memoirs (Original Title: Les Mémoires de Maigret)
Translator	Jean Stewart
Nationality	Belgian
Publisher	Hamish Hamilton Ltd
Published	1963 (English) 1950 (French)
Pages	137
Availability: ---Amazon (US)

See Also

Other titles by Simenon under review include:
---The Little Man From Archangel