The Glass Cage Author:Georges Simenon, Antonia White (Translator) Emile quite literally lives in a glass cage, where he works, content because of his isolation, as a printer's proofreader. With his protruding eyes, his expressionless face, he knows he is unattractive to women. He chooses a wife as unattractive as himself, who is submissive because of her ugliness. They live humdrum lives, side by side, but... more » there is little intimacy between them, and no true understanding.
Little by little, the reader is gripped with apprehension. Emile's passivity masks an ominous undercurrent, a subcutaneous rage that has built up since childhood. He is one of those people we read about when it is too late -- when they have trapped their unsuspecting victims in a locked room, out of sight and earshot.« less