Beyond the comforting pipe smoke and methodical investigations of his famous detective Jules Maigret, Belgian author Georges Simenon crafted a far darker and more psychologically penetrating body of work. These he called his romans durs, or 'hard novels'. Now, Penguin Classics is launching a landmark series of 20 of these intense works in new translations, beginning with the chilling 1967 domestic drama, The Cat.
A Domestic Battlefield in a Parisian Cul-de-Sac
The plot of The Cat traps readers in the claustrophobic home of a retired Parisian couple, Émile and Marguerite Bouin. Both widowed and remarried in their sixties, their union is a far cry from a golden-years romance. Instead, they have cultivated a silent, vicious war of attrition. They no longer speak, communicating only via terse, hateful notes flicked across the room. Their battleground is a quiet cul-de-sac, owned by Marguerite's wealthy family, where Émile's working-class origins are a constant source of her contempt.
Pets as Pawns in a War of Vengeance
The titular cat, a stray rescued by Émile, becomes the first casualty. He is convinced his wife poisoned the creature, his sole source of warmth. In retaliation, Émile mutilates Marguerite's beloved parrot, which subsequently dies. The stuffed bird, now mounted in its cage in their living room, stands as a grotesque monument to their mutual loathing. Each evening, the ritual of note-passing continues, with messages simply reading 'The cat' and 'The parrot', fuelling an unending cycle of spite.
Simenon masterfully layers this hideous, darkly comic scenario with profound sadness. Flashbacks reveal Émile's tender, passionate first marriage, brutally ended by tragedy, contrasting sharply with the icy sterility of his current life. Marguerite, whose first husband was a violinist at the Paris Opera, spends her remaining passion solely on revenge against the man she deems beneath her.
The Bleak Genius of Simenon's 'Hard' Vision
Despite the unrelenting bleakness, The Cat is, in Simenon's unique fashion, a perverse kind of love story—one of utter, inescapable dependency. The genius of the novel lies in how the author wrings genuine pathos from this ghastly predicament, making the reader feel for these lost, cruel souls. The new translation by Ros Schwartz brings a fresh clarity to Simenon's deceptively simple prose, which, as always, conceals fathomless psychological depths beneath its straightforward surface.
The launch of this Penguin Classics series promises to reintroduce a new generation to Simenon's formidable talents beyond Maigret. For those who know only the comforting detective, The Cat offers a startling and unforgettable entry point into the author's darker, more disturbing, and ultimately brilliant literary world.
