Maigret and Pietr the Latvian

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Maigret and Pietr der Lette (French: Pietr le Letton ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the beginning of a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret . According to Simenon, the novel was written in Delfzijl, the Netherlands, in 1929 . Other sources give a date between September 1929 and May 1930. The novel was published by the French publisher Fayard in May 1931 and has been translated into German under various titles. The first version appeared in 1935 in the Schlesische Verlagsanstalt under the title Nordexpress in the translation by Harold Effberg. In 1959 Kiepenheuer & Witsch published the translation Maigret and the twins by Isolde Kolbenhoff. In 1978 the Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Wolfram Schäfer under the title Maigret and Pietr der Lette . The translation by Susanne Röckel for Kampa Verlag from 2019 also bears the same title .

"Pietr der Lette" is the name of the leader of a pan-European fraud gang. When his arrival in Paris is announced, Commissioner Maigret wants to meet him at the train station. But there are two people on the train who fit the description of the Latvian . One of them stays in a luxury hotel on the Champs-Élysées and makes contact with a wealthy American businessman. The other lies murdered in the train toilet.

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Facade of the Gare du Nord in Paris

It's November. A telegram from Interpol announces the arrival of Pietr des Letten on the Nordexpress to Maigret, the Paris detective . Maigret awaits the leader of an international gang of fraudsters at the Gare du Nord . In fact, a man who seems to fit the description of Pietr des Letten gets out of the train and is picked up by staff at the Hotel Majestic . However, Maigret does not have time to pursue him as he is called for help by railway officials. In the train toilet there is a dead person who was shot from close range and also resembles the description of Pietr des Letten. When the inspector examines him, there is only a photo envelope in his pocket that contains a lock of hair.

Meanwhile, the other Pietr stayed at the Hotel Majestic as Bremen shipowner Oswald Oppenheim. He dined with the American billionaire Mortimer-Levingston, who is said to have had contacts with the underworld , and then went into hiding without a trace. Maigret clings to the dead man, whose photo cover takes him to Normandy . A woman named Berthe Swaan lives there in the small fishing village of Fécamp . Her husband, the mysterious seaman Olaf Swaan, is absent, but the appearance of their daughter reminds Maigret just as much of Pietr as the Russian Fédor Yurovich, whom he sees stepping out of the Swaan's house. However, Yurovich, shabbily dressed and a drunkard, behaves very differently from the elegant, subtle Latvian. Yurovich leads Maigret back to Paris, where he lives with his girlfriend Anna Gorskin in a dump in the Jewish quarter.

Maigret now follows on the trail of Mortimer-Levingston, whom he follows into a nightspot while his assistant Torrence is supposed to monitor the Hotel Majestic. Maigret is shot in front of the nightspot, but only slightly injured. When he rushes back to the hotel, Torrence was murdered. The deeds can soon be cleared up as the work of the professional killer Pepito Moretto, but it remains unclear on whose behalf he was acting. In any case, Maigret cannot get rid of remorse over the death of his young assistant.

Fécamp beach

Surprisingly, the missing Oswald Oppenheim reappears at the Hotel Majestic as if nothing had happened. Maigret no longer leaves his side and shadows him until the persecuted collapses under the pressure of observation. Suddenly, in his behavior, the two identities of the elegant Pietr and the drinker Yurovich begin to mix. Under the psychological tension, he is no longer able to distinguish the two roles played. Maigret interrogates the exposed fraudster in his hotel room until Mortimer-Levingston bursts into the scene and is shot by Anna Gorskin. Pietr managed to escape again in the ensuing chaos, but Maigret suspected where he was fleeing to and went to Fécamp to see Ms. Swaan to find the fugitive one last time.

This is where the truth about the twins Pietr and Hans Johannson finally comes to light. Hans stood in the shadow of his brother all his life. This was not only the real Pietr of Latvia, the successful fraudster and Mortimer-Levingston's partner, but also made use of the numerous cover identities that Maigret had to deal with during the fall. Among other things, he lived a pseudo-existence as Olaf Swaan at the side of Berthe, the wife originally loved by Hans. When Hans couldn't stand his brother's superiority any longer, he killed him on the Nordexpress and took on his role. Mortimer-Levingston immediately exposed the twin brother, but forced him to continue his fraudulent business in the guise of Pietr. Anna Gorskin, Hans's friend, shot the American to free her lover from his clutches. After Hans' confession, Maigret does not arrest him, but gives him the opportunity to judge himself.

Creation and publication

Maigret statue by Pieter d'Hont in Delfzijl

Georges Simenon later stated that he invented the character Maigret in the winter of 1929/1930 in a café in the Dutch port city of Delfzijl , where his boat, the Ostrogoth , was anchored. The very next day he wrote the first chapter of Pietr-le-Letton . Later investigations showed, however, that another novel was written in Delfzijl, while Pietr-le-Letton was still being edited in April or May 1930. Maigret's publisher Fayard was initially reluctant to publish, but eventually agreed to the publication of a whole series of novels around Maigret, the first works by Georges Simenon , which the latter published under his own name rather than under a pseudonym. Simenon wrote several Maigret novels in advance, of which Monsieur Gallet, décédé and La Pendu de Saint-Pholien were finally published in February 1931 as the start of the series. Pietr-le-Letton was published in book form as the fifth volume of the Maigret series in May 1931. Before that, he had been pre-published as a serial novel in thirteen episodes from July 19 to October 11, 1930 in Fayard's magazine Ric Rac .

Within a few months, the Maigret novels were translated into eight languages. The first German translation by Harold Effberg appeared in 1935 under the title Nordexpress in the Schlesische Verlagsanstalt, at that time still with the Germanized author name: "Georg Simenon". After the war, Kiepenheuer & Witsch and Heyne Verlag published the Maigret novels in German. In both series, Pietr-le-Letton was published as Maigret und die Zwillinge - a title that anticipates the resolution of the plot - in the translation by Isolde Kolbenhoff, 1959 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1966 by Heyne. In 1977 Diogenes Verlag took over the rights to Simenon's work and from 1978 onwards published the novel in various editions as Maigret and Pietr der Lette , translated by Wolfram Schäfer.

Position in the Maigret series

Many details were already laid out in Maigret and Pietr der Lette that would determine the Maigret series in the following decades: Maigret's pipe, the stove on which the inspector warms up in his office, and the weather, which has a special influence on Maigrets Well-being: In Maigret and Pietr der Lette he is soaked through to the bone several times. Maigret is 45 years old in the novel, an age that he maintains in the series with a few exceptions that illuminate the beginning and end of his career. Madame Maigret also appears for the first time at the end of Maigret and Pietr the Latvian and is already playing the role that she will retain in the series: a housewife who prepares the meal and who does not receive any answers from the grumpy man to her questions. The examining magistrate Coméliau, who will later develop into an antagonist of Maigret's ideology, also makes his first appearance, as does Maigret's collaborators Lucas, Dufour and Torrence. The latter dies in the course of the plot, but is still alive at Maigret's side in the following novels. Simenon later admitted simply forgetting that Torrence had already been killed.

Hôtel Claridge on the avenue des Champs-Élysées , the model for the Majestic

However, Maigret's appearance remains unusual, which in the first novel is described as "huge and bony", and even partly as muscular. Later on, his size will be more likely to be joined by a tendency to be overweight, the inspector is still an imposing, but above all massive figure. Maigret's character is, however, endowed with that sensitivity that stands in contrast to his gross appearance. Physical discomfort, whether caused by the weather or bad clothing, regularly causes the inspector to suffer psychologically. He is often grumpy and taciturn. He resists political influence in his cases, disapproves of social snobbery and feels strange and unwelcome in the vicinity of the luxury hotel, for example. The Hotel Majestic will later play a central role in Maigret and the cellars of the “Majestic” . However, it does not correspond to the real luxury hotel of the same name from Avenue Kléber , but rather, with its location on the Champs-Élysées, is more reminiscent of the Hôtel Claridge .

A characteristic description of Maigret's worldview and approach can also be found in Maigret and Pietr the Latvian : “In every wrongdoer, in every bandit there is a person, but also and above all a player, an opponent, and the police are after him . ”There was a crack inside the criminal, and Maigret“ sought, expected, and above all regretted the crack. In other words: the moment when the person appears behind the player. “Maigret pursues the criminals with imperturbability and tenacity, but above all with an infinite patience. Once he has provided it, the bond between the hunter and the hunted in Maigret and Pietr der Lette goes so far that both of them, soaked from a trip into the water, are wrapped up in bathrobes and shivering in a hotel room, while Maigret listens to the life story of the perpetrator . In his first novel, the humanity of the inspector comes to light, his compassion for the criminal, his method of sympathy and empathy.

reception

The Maigret novels aroused keen interest in the French press from the start. Pietr le Letton called the Nouvelle Revue critique 1931 “a cleverly constructed story by a writer with an overflowing imagination”. The international reviews were mixed. The New York Herald Tribune described the English translation of the novel in 1933 as a “somewhat thin story”. In 1999, Pietr le Letton was voted one of the 100 books of the century by Le Monde in a poll in France .

In retrospect, Pietr le Letton is seen by many as a not outstanding novel within the Maigret series or Simenon's oeuvre. Peter Luedi recognized, for example, “a lot of inconsistencies, and Maigret's portrayal as a daredevil, as a hero, seems a bit out of place and exaggerated.” The website maigret.de rated similarly: “In this first novel, it looks like Maigret isn't the only one Methods are missing, but Simenon also misses them. [...] The policeman's irritating demeanor is less to be found in the character of the inspector than in the writing style of its creator. ” Frank Böhmert recommended the novel“ only for Maigret historians. Simenon has written much better novels. ”Tilmann Spreckelsen, on the other hand, was happy about“ the beautiful rain pictures from the provinces ”and the“ Commissioner who seems to be having an affair with his stove ”, however, asked himself in the face of a Ms. Swaan whether he had the time of his Maigret marathon reading Proust's monumental work In Search of Lost Time could not be more profitable.

Pietr le Letton was filmed twice, in the television series with Rupert Davies (1963) and Jean Richard (1972). In 2002 SFB and ORB produced a radio play directed by Susanne Feldmann . Friedhelm Ptok spoke to Maigret, and Jens Wachholz from Pietr to Latvians . Nina Herting and Daniel Minetti took on other roles . Gert Heidenreich read in an audio book production from Diogenes Verlag in 2006, Walter Kreye from Audio Verlag in 2019 .

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Pietr le Letton . Fayard, Paris 1931 (first edition).
  • Georg Simenon: Nordexpress . Translation: Harold Effberg. Schlesische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1935.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the twins . Translation: Isolde Kolbenhoff. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1959.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the twins . Translation: Isolde Kolbenhoff. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Pietr the Latvian . Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-257-20502-3 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Pietr the Latvian . All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 1. Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23801-3 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and Pietr the Latvian . Translation: Susanne Röckel . Kampa, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-311-13001-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pietr-le-Letton in the Simenon bibliography by Yves Martina.
  2. ↑ Oliver Hahn: Bibliography of German-language editions . In: Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2003 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2004, ISBN 3-86525-101-3 , p. 71.
  3. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon. Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , pp. 180-181.
  4. ↑ a b Claude Menguy: De Georges Sim à Simenon. Bibliography . Omnibus, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-258-06426-0 , p. 27.
  5. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon. Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , pp. 182-185.
  6. ^ Fenton Bresler: Georges Simenon. In search of the "naked" person . Ernst Kabel, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-921909-93-7 , p. 123.
  7. ↑ Oliver Hahn: Bibliography of German-language editions . In: Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2003 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2004. ISBN 3-86525-101-3 , p. 71.
  8. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , pp. 142-144.
  9. ^ Fenton Bresler: Georges Simenon. In search of the "naked" person . Ernst Kabel, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-921909-93-7 , p. 127.
  10. ↑ 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 , p. 56.
  11. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon. Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , pp. 187-188.
  12. ↑ Maigret of the Month: Pietr-le-Letton (Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  13. ↑ Quoted from: Hanjo Kesting : Simenon. Essay . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2003, ISBN 3-932324-83-8 , p. 40.
  14. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon. Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , p. 188.
  15. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 145.
  16. ^ Nouvelle Revue critique of June 10, 1931. Quoted from: Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 168.
  17. ↑ New York Herald Tribune, February 5, 1933. Quoted from: Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 168.
  18. ↑ 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 , p. 60.
  19. ↑ A bear pats through the area on maigret.de.
  20. ↑ Read: Georges Simenon, Maigret and Pietr der Lette (1929) ( Memento of July 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) . In Frank Böhmert's blog .
  21. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 1: Pietr der Lette . On FAZ.net from April 11, 2008.
  22. ^ Pietr-le-Letton on Steve Trussel's Maigret page. (English)
  23. ↑ Maigret and Pietr der Lette in the HörDat audio play database .