I saw one of those Social Media question things posed recently. Something about who one’s most read author might be. Now whilst I suspect these things are simply a means for scammers to harvest personal information that they can use to steal identities, it’s probably not difficult to work out that mine would be Georges Simenon. Even if one were to be sniffy about ‘genre’ novels or ‘series’ and discount the seventy odd Maigret’s lined up on my shelves, I think Simenon would still emerge victorious thanks to the pile of his ‘Roman durs’ that snuggle up to Jules (bookended to the left by the handsome ‘Omnibus 2’ and on the right by the DVD boxset of the Rupert Davies TV series). The Wikipedia suggests that Simenon wrote some 400 novels so I have a little way to go until I have read even a quarter of that number, yet if Penguin continue their programme of reissues then I expect I shall keep skipping through them for some years to come. In the past few months I moved another five from the ‘to be read’ side of the shelf to the ‘read’ and whilst I enjoyed them all enormously, if I am completely honest I think I may need a couple of months dedicated to Middlebrow Romances to recover.

For Simenon, as you perhaps are aware, is hardly A Cheery Read. One comes away from his ‘Roman dur’ novels in particular with something of a heaving sensation, for the world according to Simenon is a vice-ridden place filled with deeply damaged individuals barely struggling to survive in the existential turmoil of existence. Modern Life is not just Rubbish, Simenon seems to suggest, it is profoundly and cataclysmically broken beyond repair. And yet. And yet… it is somehow also addictively seductive in its darkness. The sensuous pleasure of bleakness and hollowed out lust seems to pervade everywhere and is difficult to turn away from. The characters may abuse one’s middle-class twenty-first-century sensibilities with their pungent misery and destitute solitude but they do so with such a remarkably adroit literary poise that one cannot help but feel simultaneously soiled and cleansed. The Maigret novels also have a degree of this bleakness to them (they are, after all, stories of murder, violence and deceit) yet crucially have the balancing element of the Maigret’s warmth to counter the darkness. In my recent readings of ‘The Widow Couderc’, ‘The Little Man from Archangel’, ‘The Man from London’, ‘Three Bedrooms in Manhattan’ and ‘The Pitards’ there is precious little warmth.

I admit that the covers of the most recent Penguin reissues are a part of the appeal. The wonderful use of Harry Gruyaert’s photography for the covers of the Maigret’s has previously been touched on here, but these five novels have equally pleasing covers. ’Three Bedrooms in Manhattan’ is the least interesting, perhaps, because it rather lazily uses a detail from Edward Hopper’s tiresomely ubiquitous ‘Nighthawks’. This is one of those paintings that sadly loses its impact from multiple reproductions and re-contextualisations. Yes, it’s a remarkable painting, but I can think of several other Hopper paintings that would have fitted this novel as well, if not better. ‘The Little Man from Archangel’ makes more pleasing use of a detail from a typically blurred, excitable colour photograph by Ernst Haas whilst ‘The Man from London’ shows part of Albert Marquet’s 1930 painting of ‘The Port of Boulogne (the novel is set in Dieppe, but hey, artistic license…) and ’The Widow Couderc’ is a handsome little hardback edition with a detail from an Emile Colinus painting of ‘Le Canal des Alpilles’. Best of all is Eric Ravillious’ 1940 ‘Norway’ painting on the cover of this new edition of ‘The Pitards’, a picture that rather suggests the calm before or after the storms (physical and metaphorical) that rage throughout the pages of the book.

Would it be helpful if I were to also tell you what happens in each of these five novels? Perhaps, but probably not. You don’t really need to know. Because nothing happens and everything happens. Small actions lead inexorably to despair and tragedy. Relationships are sour. Passion is overpowering. Nature is wild. Man has no control. Everything ends, everyone dies. Cue the gallic shrug of the working class Belgian. They are tough fuckers and no mistake. Simenon was originally from Liege and although he lived in Canada, the USA, France and Switzerland at various points in his, ah, colourful personal life, it’s tempting to suggest that the hard industrialised ghosts of Liege never left him. They certainly seem to permeate all of these novels.

With Simenon being Belgian, it is vital of course to stress the importance of a sympathetic translator in delivering his prose effectively. In none of these editions, nor in any of the Maigret’s, is there much, if any sense of these being tales told in a language that is not their own. I suspect much of this is due to there being a fair amount of commonality in language structure and cultural context between French and English, something which is significantly more marked when translating, say, Japanese to English (or English to Japanese, as Red House Painters once sang). It is perhaps this linguistic and cultural gap, then, that makes Seishi Yokomizo’s The Devil’s Flute Murders’ just a tiny bit cranky and awkward. I’m quite sure that Jim Rion has done a tremendous job in difficult circumstances, not least of which is in putting across the subtleties of dialect (which, as one suspects it must be, turns out to be essential in solving the puzzle), but it nevertheless all feels just a little clunky. Perhaps this is all part of the Yokomizo style of course. Sadly, being unable to read Japanese and having only recently stumbled on the author, I’m unable to be clear on this.

Whilst Yokomizo is new to me, it appear that these stories involving the detective Kindaichi have long been established in Japanese culture, with Yokomizo’s stories spawning interpretations in film and Manga. Now it is possible that aficionados of Japanese culture turn their noses up at Kindaichi in much the same way some of my Swedish friends did at the idea of Martin Beck when I discovered the Sjöwall and Wahlöö novels for the first time, but I admit that I have been rather taken with both the detective and the author. After all, what feels unknown and ‘new’ to one generation in one culture can be tired and jaded in another. And vice-vera, naturally. Such is the way of things.

Regardless, ‘The Devil’s Flute Murders’ is an intriguing read, not least because it appears to be largely about the struggles Japan faced in the post-WW2 years as the country strove to move forward in economic, industrial, social and cultural terms. The book appears to position these struggles specifically within the country’s dissolving Imperial/Ruling Class, presenting a tension between those who would seek a return to Traditional Values and structures and those keen to embrace a more socially liberal and equitable approach. As such, whilst it is in many respects (literally) a world away from the likes of Margaret Kennedy’s ‘The Feast’ or Mollie Panter-Downes’ ‘One Fine Day’ (which I am currently very much enjoying) it nevertheless shares something of this same keen interest in how the cataclysmic events of the war have fundamentally altered lives on a scale both epic and tiny. Yokomizo, like Kennedy, seems to make few bones about where his sympathies lie, as the book is essentially an exploration of the multiple depravities and exploitations executed by the privileged wealthy classes and the inevitable prices paid as a result. Notions of Justice and Revenge reverberate throughout. There is an element of Simenon’s Maigret in the book in that the underlying darkness is tempered by Kindaichi’s deceptively bumbling and humble character, although it seems that Yokomizo has been more regularly described as Japan’s John Dickson Carr. Given my often difficult relationship with the too-often insufferably smug John Carter Dickson Carr, such a notion would normally put me off reading more of the Kindaichi books issued by Pushkin Vertigo, but I admit I did not find much in ‘The Devil’s Flute Murders’ to discourage me. I’m particularly keen to see if there is more evidence of Kindaichi surely being a blueprint for Inspector Columbo, for it’s all laid out here, from the crumpled overcoat and battered hat to the rumpling of the unruly hair and even, at one point, the detective turning and saying “just one more thing.” My admittedly rudimentary research has not unearthed any definitive evidence of any cross-fertilisation, but I like to think that with Peter Falk notoriously ad-libbing many of his performances, he at least was perhaps aware of Yokomizo and Kindaichi when modelling his character.

Now, where are those Middlebrow Romances to cheer me up?