Translated by Ros Schwartz
Review by Annabel
Back in 2014, Penguin embarked on republishing all seventy of the Maigret novels in new translations over a period of a few years, all with a distinctive look and design, although now they have started returning to a more classic livery, (which is irritating if you were aiming to complete the set and haven’t quite managed it, as I have).
They are now turning to new translations of some of his ‘romans durs’, which many, regardless of our love of Maigret, consider to be his masterpieces; standalone, twisty, dark novels. They’ve chosen The Cat to be the first of twenty, published as a larger C-format flapped paperback, with a super cover. It’s one of Simenon’s later works, published first in 1967, and now translated by Ros Schwartz, who has done many of the Maigrets.
The Cat is the story of the decay of a marriage of convenience that should probably never have happened in the first place, narrated by the husband. It’s a second marriage in later life for both Émile and Marguerite. Never fully at ease with each other, the couple end up essentially living separate lives in the same space, not talking except through cryptic notes, each playing a power game in this toxic relationship they’ve ended up in, waiting for the other to die. NB: For those who can’t stand to read about animal cruelty, the titular animal doesn’t do well, nor the parrot.
The rot really sets in when Émile adopts a stray cat from a building site; the only affection he gets is from this feline, which he calls ‘Joseph’. Marguerite can’t stand the creature, which like all cats, instinctively knows how to annoy non-cat-lovers. She eventually reacts with ‘it goes or I go, except I’m not going’- type ultimatums that fall on deaf ears, as Émile would rather taunt her with him. When the cat disappears while he is bedridden with the flu, Émile is sure that Marguerite has fed it rat poison; he finds Joseph’s body in the cellar.
Why one day, would she not eliminate her husband in the same way? He’d read in the newspaper that most poisonings are committed by women. The article added that there were probably ten times more than were exposed, because when the victim was a sick or elderly person, family doctors would sign the burial permit without looking too closely.
He wasn’t afraid for now, but he was beginning to be guarded. He had another reason not to eat any food that his wife cooked any more: his decision to owe her nothing, to share the household chores.
He also wants to get his revenge – retaliating by torturing her parrot. And so it goes on. Which one of them will die first?
Obviously, we only hear Émile’s side of the story, so it is skewed, but to give us both sides would spoil the suspense. Simenon teases things out cleverly, inserting bits of backstory about the couple’s lives before their ill-matched marriage. The Cat is a comedy of the darkest and most twisted kind, translated expertly by Ros Schwartz. I look forward to reading the next of Simenon’s romans durs in this series.
Annabel is co-founder of Shiny and one of its editors.
Georges Simenon, The Cat (Penguin, 2026). 978-0241808030, 160pp., flapped paperback original.
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