Maigret and Monsieur Charles

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Maigret and Monsieur Charles (French: Maigret et Monsieur Charles ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the last of a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret and also remained the last novel by the author. Simenon wrote the manuscript from February 5 to 11, 1972 in Epalinges . The book edition was published by Presses de la Cité in July of the same year , after the novel was published from 10 to 28/29. July was pre-published in 18 parts in the daily Le Figaro . The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published in 1975 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in an anthology with Maigret and the Spy and Maigret and the Lonely . In 1990 the Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Renate Heimbucher.

Gérard Sabin-Levesque, a well-known Parisian notary, has been missing for a month when his wife asks Commissioner Maigret for help. It is not uncommon for the notary to go away for a few days from time to time. The reason is always extramarital affairs, but they never last as long as this time. Maigret investigates in the Paris red light district and learns that the notary is leading a double life. There he calls himself "Monsieur Charles".

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Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris

It is March 21st in Paris . Inspector Maigret can look back on 40 years in the police force and is three years before his retirement when the police chief offers him the position of head of the criminal investigation department. Without thinking twice, Maigret refuses the promotion. Instead of spending his last three years working on paper, the commissioner wants to continue to lead the criminal brigade and intervene in the investigation himself. The next case is already waiting in his office.

Gérard Sabin-Levesque, one of the most renowned and wealthy Parisian notaries , has been missing for over a month. It's not uncommon for the fun-loving 48-year-old to go untraceable for a few days every now and then. The reason for his escapades are always affairs with other women. But after the unusually long time, his wife Nathalie fears that he may have fallen victim to a crime. She makes a mentally slightly disturbed impression on the inspector, later he learns that she is a strong alcoholic . The couple has long grown apart and go their separate ways, although in the large apartment on Boulevard Saint-Germain they don't even meet at mealtimes. Since Sabin-Levesque's disappearance, the notary's office has been led by the head of the office, Jean Lecureur. His relationship with Nathalie is just as tense as the domestic servants, with the exception of her maid .

Maigret investigates in the Paris red light district and uncovered Sabin-Levesque's double life, who was well known in the night clubs as "Monsieur Charles" and was looking for his amorous adventures among the animators. On February 18th, the day he disappeared, “Monsieur Charles” was seen in the bar Le Cric-Crac , where the animation girl Zoé referred him to her friend Dorine, who, however, never showed up. Maigret finds out that Nathalie did not meet her husband as a secretary, as claimed, but worked in a night bar herself under the pseudonym "Trika". However, the notary's love for her cooled down soon after the marriage and he went on tour again as "Monsieur Charles". "Trika" alias Nathalie had achieved the desired social advancement, but in an environment hostile to her she became more and more addicted to alcohol.

One after the other, Sabin-Levesque's body, which had been floating in the Seine for a month , and the automobile in which the body was transported are found. Telephone surveillance reveals that Nathalie is receiving calls from a stranger and one afternoon she sneaks out of the house unobserved. On her return, she has a severe seizure and tries to commit suicide, which, thanks to the intervention of her maid, has no consequences. When the body of the gigolo Joe Fazio is found the next day , who was shot at close range with a small-caliber pistol, Maigret immediately suspects the connection with the notary's case. Nathalie admits that it is her lover whom she has endured for years, knowing full well that the young man was only interested in her money. The plan to kill her husband, both would have come together. Fazio took care of the execution and ambushed the notary in front of Le Cric-Crac . But when the gigolo then showed his true colors by blackmailing Nathalie, she met her lover one last time to kill him.

background

The abandoned Maison de Simenon in Epalinges (2013; demolished 2016/2017)

When Simenon wrote Maigret and Monsieur Charles in February 1972 , he did not yet know that it would be his last novel. Until the next planned work - as is usual with Simenon, a Maigret novel was to be followed by another demanding novel outside the series - he let more than six months pass. He had ambitious plans to incorporate all of his life experience into the book. After a long period of preparation, he began implementing it on September 18, but the usual writing process did not materialize. Two days later he decided to give up the letter and had "sans profession" (no profession) entered in his passport.

Simenon later wrote a few autobiographical works, but on the abandonment of fictional literature he wrote in his memoir: "I no longer had to put myself in the shoes of everyone I met [...] I cheered, I was finally free." Thoughts of his successful figure Maigret crept into him, however, as he confessed in September 1973: “I am constantly plagued by remorse for having completely abandoned him after Maigret and Monsieur Charles ! It's almost like leaving a friend without shaking his hand ... "

interpretation

Although Simenon said that while writing Maigret and Monsieur Charles , he did not think of an end to the Maigret series, some passages suggest that Simenon unconsciously wanted to say goodbye to his fictional character. The beginning with Maigret's rejection of his promotion reads almost like an epilogue to her , to which, for example, passages like: “He had just decided about the rest of his career. He didn't regret anything, but he was a little sad. ”Or:“ Within a few minutes he had decided on his professional future, which was not that long, because in three years he would be retired. ”Another The position in which Maigret explains why he is always so involved in his cases is what Josef Quack sees as a kind of spiritual testament from the commissioner: "Because every time I have a human experience."

For Lucille F. Becker, alcoholism, a central theme from Simenon's oeuvre, rounds off the Maigret series, which already played an important role in the first novel Maigret and Pietr the Lette . According to Oliver Hahn, Simenon draws “a drastic picture of alcoholism in which not only the protagonists […] walk between pity and disgust, but also the reader.” Tilman Spreckelsen sees the alcoholic Nathalie “[how] she through the novel fluctuates as she oscillates between uninhibited aggression and self-hating resignation "an" unforgettable figure ". Murielle Wenger reminds her of Aline Calas from Maigret and the headless corpse . In addition, she emphasizes the stylistic peculiarity of the last Maigret novel, which contains hardly any descriptions and is told almost exclusively through dialogue.

reception

Maigret et Monsieur Charles did not get a good response in the contemporary French press. Jacques de Ricaumpnt judged in Nouvelles Littéraires : "This is really a third class Maigret!" He stated : "One cannot help the impression that the author is out of breath and that his hero is slowly fading". And Noëlle Loriot asked in L'Express how one would have judged a “crime thriller that is so disturbingly bad” by a newbie: “Would it have been rejected for mediocrity, lack of animating plot and weakness of style? Probably. "

For Oliver Hahn on maigret.de, the novel is one of the weaker ones in the series. During the last reading he got the feeling that Maigret didn't really feel like it, and this reluctance must somehow also be due to Simenon. "Peter Luedi also felt that" Simenon had finished with his character Maigret. "The novel came "Too perfect, therefore too smooth for him", but remained "a good novel": "Simenon trumps here again with all the familiar, cherished details."

In any case, Tilman Spreckelsen was full of praise at the last stage of his Maigret marathon: “[How] then the corpse, then the murderer, then the motif is found, is already great.” Also the figure “the forever drunk young widow ”, no other author can easily imitate Simenon:“ Who resigns like that - chapeau! ”Detlef Richter also describes:“ A worthy end for the greatest commissioner in literary history. As usual, atmospheric and exciting, a real pleasure. "

The novel was filmed twice as part of television series about Commissioner Maigret. The title role played Jean Richard (1977) and Kinya Aikawa (1978).

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Maigret et Monsieur Charles . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1972 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the spy . Maigret and the lonely . Maigret and Monsieur Charles . Translation by Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-462-01039-5 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles . Translation by Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-453-12042-6 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles. Translation by Renate Heimbucher-Bengs. Diogenes, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-257-21802-8 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles . (= All Maigret novels in 75 volumes. Volume 75). Translation by Renate Heimbucher. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23875-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1968 à 1989 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of the Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Maigret et M. Charles in the bibliography of 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. 69.
  4. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , pp. 372-373.
  5. ↑ Quotation from: Patrick Marnham: The man who was not Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon . Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , p. 401.
  6. ↑ Quotation from: Fenton Bresler: Georges Simenon. In search of the "naked" person . Ernst Kabel, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-921909-93-7 , p. 352.
  7. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 5.
  8. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 7.
  9. ↑ a b Maigret of the Month: Maigret et Monsieur Charles (Maigret and Monsieur Charles) on the Maigret page by Steve Trussel.
  10. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret and Monsieur Charles . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 116.
  11. ↑ 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. 58.
  12. ↑ Lucille F. Becker: Georges Simenon . House, London 2006, ISBN 1-904950-34-5 , p. 19.
  13. ↑ Maigret and Monsieur Charles on maigret.de.
  14. ↑ a b Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 75: Monsieur Charles . On FAZ.net from October 16, 2009.
  15. ↑ Quotations from: Fenton Bresler: Georges Simenon. In search of the "naked" person. Pp. 346-347.
  16. ↑ Not so great on maigret.de.
  17. ↑ Peter Luedi: Pietr and Charles - a 43 year-old success story. In: Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2004 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2005, ISBN 3-86525-102-1 , pp. 60, 63.
  18. ↑ Detlef Richter: Maigret and Monsieur Charles (Georges Simenon); Volume 75 on leser-welt.de.
  19. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.