Maigret and the unruly witnesses

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Maigret and the Unruly Witnesses (French: Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 53rd novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about Detective Inspector Maigret and was written from October 16 to 23, 1958 in Echandens . The French daily Le Figaro printed the novel in 22 episodes from February 17 to March 13 of the following year, and the book was also published in March 1959 by the Paris publisher Presses de la Cité . The Cologne publishing house Kiepenheuer & Witsch published the first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau in the same year. In 1980 the Zurich-based Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Wolfram Schäfer.

When the managing director of a dilapidated traditional company was murdered, the family met Commissioner Maigret with hostility and an icy silence. To make matters worse, the examining magistrate constantly interferes in the police investigation, making Maigret's usual approach more difficult. It is not easy for the Commissioner to find a less stubborn witness.

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Pont National in the 13th arrondissement of Paris

It is Monday November 3rd and Commissioner Maigret is two years away from retirement. Not only does this make him in a bad mood, the rainy autumn also depresses his mood, and the murder case he is dealing with is not likely to cheer him up. Léonard Lachaume, the manager of the Lachaume waffle factory in Ivry-sur-Seine , whose products Maigret are known from his childhood, was shot last night. He has been widowed for eight years and his son Jean-Paul has been sent to boarding school. His ailing younger brother Armand, his wife Paulette, his aged parents and the equally aged housekeeper Catherine still live in the old house on the Quai de la Gare near the Pont National, which, like the attached factory, heralds decay and run-down size.

All witnesses of the crime are obstinate and can only be heard by Maigret in the presence of her lawyer Radel. Even worse, however, is the presence of examining magistrate Angelot. The young man, fresh from university and outwardly reminiscent of a tennis player, wants to conduct the investigation on his own initiative and only allows the famous inspector to act as a henchman. He tends towards the hypothesis of a break-in, which is supported by evidence, although there is obviously no money to be had from the impoverished Lachaumes. In fact, the family and the ruinous factory have been living for many years on Paulette's fortune, which her father, the fur trader Frédéric Zuberski, had doubtfully acquired during the war. In order to clear his name and to rise socially, the multimillionaire married his daughter into the respected entrepreneurial family, which relied on his financial support.

Only the black sheep of the family, Léonard's sister Véronique Lachaume, appears to be talkative to the inspector. She, who works as an animator in the Amazone nightspot , which is exclusively used by women, would like to finally retire and get married. Her great love is the advertising man Jacques Sainval, whose real name is Arthur Baquet and who hoped to use his girlfriend's savings to pay off his debts, which stemmed from a poor lifestyle. It was precisely this admirer who was so keen on money that Véronique drew the attention of her sister-in-law, who had inherited almost 300 million euros, and thus set the fatal chain of events in motion. Sainval sought the acquaintance of the millionaire heiress and met her regularly until she wanted to divorce in favor of her new lover. Without their donations, however, the traditional company, which had existed since 1817 and to which the entire Lachaume family had always felt obliged, was threatened with bankruptcy.

Palais de Justice with transition to the Quai des Orfèvres

Maigret has to accept the humiliation that the final interrogation of Paulette does not take place on the familiar Quai des Orfèvres , but in the office of the examining magistrate in the Palais de Justice . Angelot only reads pre-formulated questions from the inspector, but he attributes all successes to his investigations to his new methods. Paulette admits that she had lived in fear of Léonard for weeks. In her defense, Sainval slipped her a pistol with which she shot her brother-in-law when he stalked her bed that night in order to kill her with an Englishman . The deed, with which Léonard wanted to keep her inheritance in the family, had been prepared in detail with the traces of the burglary. His death did not elicit any emotion from the other family members either, and they coldly and precisely blurred all traces of the nightly attack. The missing murder weapon only reappears when Armand Lachaume shoots himself with it in front of the judge's office. Inspector Maigret wonders whether events would have turned out differently if he had been able to conduct the interrogation himself.

interpretation

According to Murielle Wenger, Maigret and the stubborn witnesses are under a sign of decline. This ranges from the run-down residence of the Lachaumes to the age of the commissioner, which is contrasted with the downright "insulting" youth of the examining magistrate Angelot. Maigret feels nostalgia as he indulges in his childhood memories and mourns the past. The setting of the novel - the day after All Souls' Day , the November rain, the modernization of familiar Paris and the mourning for the missing cast-iron stove in Maigret's office - supports the inspector's melancholy. After all, it is two women, Paulette and above all Véronique Lachaume, who tear Maigret out of his gloomy thoughts, bring him back to reality and lead him on the right track. The age of the commissioner is now much more noticeable than in the early novels Maigret in Nöten or Maigret and his nephew , which are set chronologically two or four years later. Bill Alder suspects that the fictional character could share this experience with her aging creator.

According to Oliver Hahn, the subject of "changing times", in which the old squad in the police station has to deal with the changed framework conditions, is a frequent subject in the Maigret series. Alexandra Krieg recalls the conflict between Maigret's traditional methods and the rebellion of a next generation of contemporary descendants of the Paris commissioner such as Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander . But there is also a conflict between professional and private Maigret, who finds it uncomfortable to penetrate the life of a family through interrogations. The actual investigations consist of immersing yourself in the atmosphere of the milieu as well as waiting patiently. In the end, the inspector triumphs over the self-righteous examining magistrate, whose supposedly discreet questioning leads to a scandal. Tilman Spreckelsen speaks of a “war of the generations”, in which it is precisely the aura of the inspector that makes a concierge talk, and Maigret ultimately proves that “it is not so easy to count on being scrapped”. The character of examining magistrate Angelot, on the other hand, like his upper-class origins, reflects precisely that pursuit of respectability and tradition that led to crime in the first place.

In Maigret's first investigation , the young Maigret already has to deal with high-ranking personalities from an “other world” that he is not familiar with and in which he does not feel comfortable. This is repeated in later novels such as Maigret and the Old People or Maigret and the Unruly Witnesses . Stanley G. Eskin counts the Lachaume family among those "villains from the upper class [...] for whose moral depravity [Maigret] has only contempt". Ulrich Schulz-Buschhaus sees the struggle of the representatives of a bourgeoisie , “which Maigret regularly frightens”, for the preservation of an old-fashioned biscuit factory, however, also marked with emotion. The bourgeois industrialist family is accorded that compassion that in Simenon's work is generally reserved for the petty bourgeoisie , because they are threatened in the same way by the process of proletarianization . George Grella draws parallels from the Lachaume family to the Peeters clan in the early novel Maigret with the Flemings , whose members are also all involved in a murder. According to Gavin Lambert , the late Maigret novels often repeat themes from the early books, but in a grimmer tone. The atmosphere of Maigret and the stubborn witnesses reminds him of Maigret's night at the intersection , only it is even shabbier and more run-down.

reception

According to Alexandra Krieg, Maigret and the stubborn witnesses are “one of Simenon's numerous novels that are transparent from front to back”. The motive for murder does not come as a surprise, and the novel draws its "tension in no way from an exciting and opaque plot". In the end, however, the perpetrator and the course of events were of no interest at all, rather one wished "Simenon would continue his intense and subtly rousing description of the milieu indefinitely". John G. Cawelti's narrative structure is reminiscent of classics of the genre such as Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers , but the novel points beyond such precursors and becomes an “investigation into human complexity and ambiguity” par excellence. There are no material clues that justify the case, but rather the character and social background of the characters that trigger an inevitable chain of events.

The Spectator summarized: "Rushed and hindered by an overly enthusiastic examining magistrate, Papa Maigret is investigating who is nearing retirement in a desolate corner of Paris". Kirkus Reviews ruled: "The master of patience ponders persistently." Punch magazinesaw the inspector "aging, battered and bullied by an examining magistrate with fresh ideas." Although the resolution of the case is not particularly satisfactory, the novel otherwise reaches Simenon's standard. Best Sellers magazinepraised “extraordinary characterization and interesting plot, developed through artfully natural dialogues and a masterful selection of details that paint the background”. According to The Publisher , Maigrets must use all of his knowledge of human nature and infinite patience to resolve a case where everything initially conspired against him. Reclam's detective novelist drew the conclusion: "Maigret's methods have once again proven to be justified."

The novel was filmed four times as part of television series about Commissioner Maigret. The leading roles were played by Rupert Davies (Great Britain, 1962), Kinya Aikawa (Japan, 1978), Jean Richard (France, 1978) and Bruno Cremer (France, 1993).

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1957 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the unruly witnesses . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1959.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the unruly witnesses . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the unruly witnesses . Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-257-20716-6 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the unruly witnesses . All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 53. Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23853-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1946 à 1967 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants in the Simenon 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. 81.
  4. ↑ Maigret of the Month: Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants (Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  5. ^ Bill Alder: Maigret, Simenon and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and Stories . McFarland, Jefferson 2013, ISBN 978-0-7864-7054-9 , p. 168.
  6. ↑ Maigret and the unruly witnesses on maigret.de.
  7. ↑ Alexandra Krieg: In search of traces. The detective novel and its development from the beginning to the present . Tectum, Marburg 2002, ISBN 3-8288-8392-3 , pp. 57-59.
  8. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 53: The stubborn witnesses . On FAZ.net from May 2, 2009.
  9. ↑ John G. Cawelti: Adventure, Mystery, and Romance . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1976, ISBN 0-226-09866-4 , p. 130.
  10. ↑ Maigret of the Month: La Première Enquête de Maigret (Maigret's First Case) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  11. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 403.
  12. ^ Ulrich Schulz-Buschhaus : Forms and ideologies of the crime novel. An essay on the history of the genre . Athenaion, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-7997-0603-8 , pp. 162-163.
  13. ↑ George Grella: Simenon and Maigret. In: Adam, International Review. Simenon Issue, Nos. 328-330, 1969, p. 56 ( [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.trussel.com  
  14. ^ Gavin Lambert: The Dangerous Edge . Grossmann, New York 1976, ISBN 0-670-25581-5 , p. 183. (also online )
  15. ↑ Alexandra Krieg: In search of traces. The detective novel and its development from the beginning to the present . Tectum, Marburg 2002, ISBN 3-8288-8392-3 , pp. 58-59.
  16. ^ "Inquiry about human complexities and ambiguities". Quoted from: John G. Cawelti: Adventure, Mystery, and Romance . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1976, ISBN 0-226-09866-4 , pp. 129-130.
  17. ↑ "badgered and hindered by new and all too enthusiastic examining magistrate, papa Maigret, nearing his retirement, patiently interrogates his way [...] in a dreary corner of Paris". Quoted from: The Spectator Volume 203, 1959, p. 916.
  18. ^ “The master of the waiting game deliberates doggedly.” Quoted from: Versus Inspector Maigret by Georges Simenon on Kirkus Reviews .
  19. ↑ "aging, ailing, harassed by a young examining magistrate with new-fangled ideas [...] Solution not love especially satisfying, but otherwise well up to standard." Quoted from: Punch tape 237, 1959 S. 681st
  20. ↑ "superior characterization and interesting plot, developed by artfully natural dialogue and expert choice of detail in filling in background". Quoted from: Best Sellers. From the United States Government Printing Office . Volume 20, 1960, p. 101.
  21. ^ The Publisher , Volume 176, 1962, p. 40.
  22. ^ Armin Arnold, Josef Schmidt (Ed.): Reclams Kriminalromanführer . Reclam, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-15-010279-0 , p. 311.
  23. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.