Madame Maigret's friend

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Madame Maigret's girlfriend (French: L'amie de Mme Maigret ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 34th novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret . The novel was written from December 13 to 22, 1949 in Carmel-by-the-Sea and was published in May 1950 by the Paris publisher Presses de la Cité . The first German translation of Frau Maigret als Detektiv by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published in 1954 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch . In 1979, Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Roswitha Plancherel under the title Madame Maigret's Girlfriend .

During a visit to the dentist, Madame Maigret made the acquaintance of a young mother who entrusted her little son to her care while she was gone for hours and then fled in a hurry. To her sorrow, Madame Maigret not only misses her dentist appointment, but also lets her husband's lunch burn. Inspector Maigret, who actually has to take care of an explosive murder case, is looking amused for Madame Maigret's girlfriend.

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Place and Square d'Anvers in the 9th arrondissement
Rue de Turenne in Paris
Hôtel Claridge on the avenue des Champs-Élysées

It's March in Paris . For three weeks now, the entire Quai des Orfèvres has been grappling with an alleged murder. An anonymous letter accuses the Flemish bookbinder Frans Steuvels of burning a human corpse in the boiler room of his house on Rue de Turenne. In fact, Inspector Lucas finds two human teeth in the stove. A conspicuous suitcase that his young colleague Lapointe claims to have seen earlier, however, disappeared during the house search. The arrested bookbinder is silent, his aggressive lawyer Philippe Liotard is campaigning against the police and the judiciary in the press, and while Lucas is coordinating the so far unsuccessful operation of the station, Commissioner Maigret regrets that his usual, deliberate method cannot be used because of the public turmoil.

In this messy situation, it is Madame Maigret, of all people, who gives the investigation new impetus. For a few days she has been going regularly to Place d'Anvers for dental treatment, where, while waiting in the March sun, she made the acquaintance of a young woman who also regularly looks after her small child on the park bench. One day the acquaintance rushed to leave the park after asking her neighbor to take care of her boy. The dutiful Madame Maigret is impatient and not only misses her dentist appointment, but also has lunch charred for her husband. When the mother returns, she has no word of explanation, but frantically dragged her child into a taxi and has disappeared since that day.

Amused, Inspector Maigret takes a break in his investigation and searches for the young woman who brought Madame Maigret into such calamities. But when it turns out that she and her lover, a fat man named Levin, were seen with Alfred Moss, a former clown and petty criminal, the manhunt becomes unexpectedly explosive, because Moss is the bookbinder's brother. On her own initiative, Madame Maigret searches for the hat of her missing bank neighbor and finds a lead that leads to the Hôtel Claridge on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées , where the young woman was employed as the maid of Countess Panetti under the name Gloria Lotti. The countess disappeared a few weeks ago, as did her son-in-law, the Hungarian Krynker.

After Maigret can prove to his opponent Liotard a violation of the professional code of conduct because he had the bookbinder's suitcase and the printing plates it contained, the lawyer no longer stands in the way of his client's confession, which Fernande Steuvels begs her husband for. Frans Steuvels had been secretly earning extra income for two years by printing false passports for his brother. One evening Moss showed up with Levin and Krynker to forge a passport for the Hungarian. The three were on the run after jointly robbing and killing Countess Panetti. When the son-in-law lost his nerve, Levin shot him and burned Krynker's body together with the Flemish brothers in the oven. Although the smoke led to a neighbor being reported, Levin and Moss went into hiding after Steuvels' arrest and it was only after Madame Maigret's acquaintance with Gloria Lotti that they drove them out of their hiding place. A photo in the newspaper revealed Levin the identity of Gloria's new girlfriend, whereupon he believed the inspector was on her trail and let himself be carried away into the hasty escape that first made the Maigret couple aware of the band of robbers.

interpretation

According to Jean-Claude Vantroyen, the entire novel revolves around Madame Maigret. She opens the plot in which, without her, there would be a murder, but no trace. With her feminine instinct, she spots the elegant shoes of her park acquaintance, which do not match her simple appearance, and without her husband's knowledge she goes in search of the extravagant white hat, which she leads through numerous hat shops in Paris. For Stanley G. Eskin, Madame Maigret becomes “a charming amateur detective” in the novel. Maigret's usually reserved wife is consistently present in the series, but Murielle Wenger only lists three other novels in which the Alsatian plays a key role in her husband's investigations: Maigret has fun , Maigret and the Clochard and Maigret and the ghost . It is also quite unusual for the series that Commissioner Maigret does not intervene in the plot in the first section of the novel. In Madame Maigret's girlfriend, this is entirely reserved for the adventures of his wife.

In addition to Madame Maigret, a second central figure in the series makes an important appearance: For the first time, the young inspector Lapointe investigates Maigret's team alongside his colleagues Lucas, Janvier and Torrence. At the age of just 24, Lapointe is still so fresh on the Quai des Orfèvres that he doesn't dare to call the inspector "boss" in confidence. But the young inspector is burning with ambition to achieve something in Maigret's brigade. It is thanks to Lapointe that the missing suitcase, in which the utensils for Steuvels' passport forgery are located, comes into the focus of the investigation, and it is himself who is ultimately allowed to secure it in a not entirely legal action. In the following novels, Lapointe becomes Maigret's favorite inspector, with whom the childless inspector develops an almost fatherly relationship. The young man will already play an important role again in Maigret and the Dancer and will fall in love for the first time after he was still reserved about women in Madame Maigret's girlfriend .

For Tilman Spreckelsen it is not people who are the focus of the novel, but teeth in all their variations. First, the teeth found in the oven are the only evidence of the murder, then Madame Maigret's toothache leads her to regular appointments at the dentist, during which she discovers the first trace of the murderer. Finally, the suspect shows his teeth during interrogation. The episode in Concarneau , where Maigret and the yellow dog played, refers to an earlier novel . This time an inspector stays at the Yellow Dog inn . The nickname "The Great Turenne", which the little inspector Lucas receives in the novel because of his coordinating work on the murder case in the Rue de Turenne, refers to the French general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne . Maigret's understanding of his fellow human beings, which also includes criminals, is shown when he countered the examining magistrate's amazement at the involvement of a child: “Contrary to what one might think, evildoers, like other people, are able to have children and to admit them love."

reception

Jean-Claude Vantroyen summarized in the Belgian daily Le Soir that the novel Madame Maigret's girlfriend revolves around finding two teeth and looking for a white hat and that the inspector solves the riddle as usual. But he does more than that: “He reveals the protagonists.” Simenon's case is always “a photo developer, a litmus paper that brings the unexpected truth of the people to light.” For Michel Lemoine, it was at least a fascinating drama, that jumps from chapter to chapter, keeps the reader awake until the morning and leaves him with excitement and anger at the same time over the waking night.

The New York Times found "more policing than usual" in the novel, a Commissioner Maigret who was "less of a lone wolf and more of a police officer" and a plot that was "nested" and "difficult to follow." However, the good supporting roles and lovely Parisian locations made the novel one of the better Simenons. For Publishers Weekly the story was "looser in its plot than the other Maigret crime novels", but like this one offers "a convincing evocation of the world of its hero". Kirkus Review discussed the novel twice, which "despite some loose ends and unresolved clues" was worth reading. However, there are "too many undeveloped characters, too many confusing plot ramifications", and the story "lacks the clarity, the knack and the psychological penetration of his best work."

For the literary magazine Welt und Wort , Madame Maigret's friend as well as Maigret, Lognon and the gangsters were “told cleanly and excitingly”. Particular emphasis was placed on “the enlivening of a typically French milieu achieved with scarce resources” and the art of “bringing the individually human to the fore”. Hans Reimann, on the other hand, found the story “nicely told, but as bland as unsalted potato peppers prepared with water.” Tilman Spreckelsen, in any case, had “[s] elten seen such a melancholy main suspect”, who spent time reading the seven volumes of Marcel while in custody Prousts in search of lost time .

The novel was filmed four times as part of television series about Commissioner Maigret. The title roles were played by Rupert Davies (Great Britain, 1962), Kees Brusse (Netherlands, 1965), Jean Richard (France, 1977) and Kinya Aikawa (Japan, 1978).

In 1957 the WDR produced a radio play adaptation by Otto Bielen under the title Frau Maigret als Detektiv . Among others, Leonard Steckel (Maigret), Trude Meinz (Mrs. Maigret), Wilhelm Pilgram , Horst Breitkreuz and Karl Heinz Bender spoke under the direction of Otto Kurth .

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: L'amie de Mme Maigret . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1951 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Mrs. Maigret as a detective . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1954.
  • Georges Simenon: Mrs. Maigret as a detective . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Madame Maigret's friend . Translation: Roswitha Plancherel. Diogenes, Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-257-20713-1 .
  • Georges Simenon: Madame Maigret's friend . Complete Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 34. Translation: Roswitha Plancherel. Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23834-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1946 à 1967 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ L'amie de Mme Maigret in the Maigret bibliography by Yves Martina.
  3. ↑ Oliver Hahn: Bibliography of German-language editions . In: Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2003 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2004, ISBN 3-86525-101-3 , p. 66.
  4. ↑ Jean-Claude Vantroyen: Madame Maigret se revele, hélas . In: Le Soir of May 5, 2003.
  5. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 409.
  6. ^ A b c Maigret of the Month: L'amie de Madame Maigret (Madame Maigret's Friend) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  7. ↑ a b Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret Marathon 34: Madame Maigret's girlfriend . On FAZ.net from December 7, 2008.
  8. ^ Georges Simenon: Madame Maigret's girlfriend . Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23834-1 , p. 193.
  9. ↑ Josef Quack: The limits of the human. About Georges Simenon, Rex Stout, Friedrich Glauser, Graham Greene . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-2014-6 , p. 49.
  10. ↑ "il les revele Protagonistes. Chez Simenon, l'intrigue, policière ou non, n'est jamais que le révélateur photographique, le paper tournesol qui fait apparaître la vérité insoupçonnée des personnages. ”Quoted from: Jean-Claude Vantroyen: Madame Maigret se révèle, hélas . In: Le Soir of May 5, 2003.
  11. ↑ Michel Lemoine: Une œuvre, une critique . Cahiers Simenon, Volume 18. Amis de Georges Simenon, Brussels 2004, p. 133.
  12. ↑ "more police procedure than usual [...] Maigret is less the lone wolf and more the police executive. The plot […] is intricate and (to me, at least) actively hard to follow; but many good small roles and lots of loving Parisian geography make this one of the better Simenons in tone and color. "Quoted from: Criminals at Large . In: The New York Times, December 20, 1959.
  13. ↑ “This tale is looser in plot than other Maigret mysteries, but, like them, displays Simenon's convincing evocation of his hero's world.” Quoted from: Madame Maigret's Own Case . In: Publishers Weekly of September 30, 1991.
  14. ^ "Despite some loose threads and unresolved clues, it makes good reading." Quoted from: Madame Maigret's Own Case By Georges Simenon . In: Kirkus Reviews .
  15. ↑ "Narrated in the late author's customary swift-moving, economical style, 'this story lacks the clarity, snap, and psychological penetration of his best work. Too many undeveloped characters; too many confusing plot ramifications make for lesser Simenon --readable but not in a class with the recently reprinted Striptease or The Door. ". Quoted from: Madame Maigret's Own Case By Georges Simenon . In: Kirkus Reviews of September 1, 1990.
  16. ↑ Welt und Wort Volume 12. Heliopolis, Tübingen 1957, p. 118.
  17. ↑ Hans Reimann : The Literazzia. Volume 4. Pohl, Munich 1955, p. 135.
  18. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  19. ↑ Ms. Maigret as a detective in the ARD radio play database Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv .