3.5*
While I am not sure that I liked Coward's translation, I don't have anything to compare it to (other than memories of other, older translations of different Maigret books). I did like the canal setting, which provided a new environment to both Maigret & me. A quick and enjoyable read. ( )

O final do livro me surpreendeu. Depois da revelação do assassino, o autor ainda consegue segurar um dos melhores momentos da obra. Bom demais!
https://www.planocritico.com/


Crítica | O Cavalariço da Providence, de Georges Simenon: https://www.planocritico.com/critica-o-cavalarico-da-providence-de-georges-simen... ( )

In the very early morning of Monday, April 5, the body of a young woman is found in the stables next to Lock 14, the lock marking the junction of the canal and the river Marne. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret from the Flying Squad is dispatched to investigate the death and ends up spending the next few days wet and miserable, cycling between locks and chasing different vessels which slowly make their path through the locks of the canal and trying to find out what really happened. Figuring out who the woman was seems to be the easy part initially. Then it turns out that while it is clear who she had been for the last few years, her past is a different story so the team needs to untangle that mystery before they can figure out the death. A second dead body does not help matters much.

This is a very early novel in the series and it shows - it is rougher than some of the later ones and it can feel repetitive in places (but then isn't detective work repetitive?). But it shows a way of life in France that may have been familiar to a reader in 1931 but appears as ancient history in 2021. And that is the main strength of this novel - not just the story of the canal and its locks but all the back histories of the various characters which emerge through the short novel. Of course, it is from 1931 and the novel's depiction of some people (and especially the way some characters refer to others) sounds offensive to a modern ear but expecting something else from a 90-years old novel and applying our understanding of the world to it is unrealistic. ( )

The second in the Maigret series (although there's some suggestion it could be the fourth although I've done zero fact checking one way or the other), this one really re-affirmed my decision to go right back to the start, and work my way through the audio versions of this series (the anti-semitism and casual racism in the first one nearly derailed the quest). Of course the timing of this series has to be taken into account so this time, so the vaguely censorial nature of the commentary of the victim, and the "set" she socialised in was sort of to be expected, although the slight sense of "longing" that came through in Maigret's observations wasn't what I'd expected at all.

Considerably more observational and reflective than the earlier entry as well, this is Maigret as I remember him. Standing in the pouring rain, or leaping onto a bicycle and heading up and down the canals, he's dogged and determined, but he's also almost funny in some places. And there are digs all the way through - brazen fleshed womenfolk protecting their men; a louche British colonel and his mistress; a retinue of people attached to the pleasure yacht that stands out amongst the working canal boats; and the hedonistic lifestyle of the pleasure seekers as opposed to the workers of the canal. At the centre of it all the pipe in mouth, pensive Maigret, sorting his way through a myriad of small, inconsequential bits of information to find the solution to how and why a well-dressed, glamorous woman like Mary Lampson (third wife of the aforementioned British colonel) ended up strangled in a stable wearing, of all things, her pearl earrings, a stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes.

All in all this outing was considerably more enjoyable than the earlier novel - it flowed really well, it was well constructed for audio, with a plot that you could really keep up with, and a storyline full of observations and descriptions that really drew out the sense of place and time (it seems Simenon was a boat enthusiast himself so he must have written what he knew about the people and canal life).

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/carter-la-providence-georges-simenon ( )

Murder on the Canal
Review of the Penguin Classics paperback (2014) of a new translation* by David Coward from the French language original "Le Charretier de la Providence" (1931)

Maigret investigates a murder on the French canal system and spends a lot of time travelling up and down the towpaths interviewing various boat crews and suspects. The victim is the wife of an English lord who cruises the waterways with various hangers on, but the book title is in reference to the job of the handler who manages the horses which tow otherwise powerless barges along the canal system.


Maigret walking in the rain. This has nothing to do with 'The Carter of La Providence', but the imagery reminded me of the wet and muddy conditions in the book. Gif sourced from Spock Variety Hour on Tumblr.

Whether it was due to the number of unlikeable characters or just the limited locale settings, I wasn't quite as intrigued by The Carter... as I have been by other early Maigrets, but the Chief Inspector still manages to pull off some surprising deductions with rather limited clues.

I've now read several of the early Maigret novellas in the past few weeks and they continue to impress with how different they are not only from each other but also from other "Golden Age of Crime" novels of that interwar era. What is even more impressive is that the first dozen were all published in 1931 as if he wrote one every month. Perhaps it is not that surprising from an author who wrote over 500 books in his lifetime, but it still an eyeopener.

Continuing the confusion for completists, this is Maigret #4 in the Penguin Classics series of new translations (2013-2019) of the Inspector Maigret novels and short stories, but is listed as Maigret #2 in the previous standard Maigret Series listing on Library Thing.

Trivia and Links
* Previous English translations have given the title as Lock 14 or Maigret meets a Milord.

The Carter of 'La Providence', under its original French title Le charretier de la providence, was adapted for French television in 1980, as Episode 48 of the long running TV series Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (The Investigations of Commissioner Maigret) (1967-1990) with Jean Richard as Inspector Maigret.

There is an article about the Penguin Classics re-translations of the Inspector Maigret novels at Maigret, the Enduring Appeal of the Parisian Sleuth by Paddy Kehoe, RTE, August 17, 2019. ( )