Maigret and his revolver

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Maigret and his revolver (French: Le revolver de Maigret ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 40th novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret . Written from June 12 to 20, 1952 in Lakeville , Connecticut , the novel was published in September of that year by the Parisian Presses de la Cité and simultaneously printed in 28 episodes from September 1 to October 2, 1952 in the daily Le Figaro . The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published in 1956 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch . In 1988, Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Ingrid Altrichter.

It is rare for Madame Maigret to call her husband on the Quai des Orfèvres . Inspector Maigret is immediately alarmed when his wife reports about a visitor who is as young as she is excited and urgently calls for the inspector. But when Maigret arrives at home, not only has his guest disappeared, but also his service weapon. The search is running all over Paris: They are looking for a young man with Maigret's revolver.

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Rue Popincourt in the 11th arrondissement of Paris

It's a sunny June in Paris . Madame Maigret announces an excited young visitor to her husband who wishes to see him. But Inspector Maigret is stopped by a colleague, and when he finally reaches his apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, the visitor has already disappeared, along with Maigret's revolver, a Smith & Wesson of the FBI , which he brought back from a study trip from America without ever using them. Worried about what the nervous boy is up to with his gun, the inspector starts a manhunt. In the evening he and his wife visit his friend, the doctor Dr. Pardon. He has invited a patient who is also urgently looking for the inspector's acquaintance, but is unable to attend due to a sudden illness and meets as little with Maigret as the gun-thief in the morning.

When visiting the sick the following day, when Maigret Dr. Pardon me, it turns out that the two visitors from the previous day are father and son. François Lagrange, known as the Baron, is a feeble, effeminate man who all his life lived more badly than right on supposedly big business ideas, the realization of which always failed in the end. While the two older children have long since left the incapacitated Lagrange and broken off all contact, only 18-year-old Alain, who still looks up to his father, lives in his run-down apartment. But since his visit to the inspector and the theft of the revolver, the young man has disappeared. The bedridden Lagrange, on the other hand, was still perfectly healthy that night , according to the concierge, and dragged a heavy suitcase to the Gare du Nord , where he left it in the luggage storage.

When Maigret discovers a corpse in the suitcase, the farce of missed visits suddenly turns into a murder case. The dead person is the MP André Delteil, who was feared throughout the French parliament because of his inquisitorial questions. His brother Pierre suspects a political murder, but Maigret continues to cling to the suspicious Lagrange, who now pretends to have lost his mind or is actually crazy because of the nervous tension. In any case, he evades questioning through childish behavior, so that psychiatrists examine his sanity. Meanwhile, Maigret leads the search for the son in the Boulevard Richard-Wallace to an acquaintance of the father, an attractive lady by the name of Jeanne Debul, who has fled to London , where the young Alain pursues her after he had previously used armed force for the money Stole plane ticket.

Savoy Hotel in London

Inspector Maigret also travels to London and meets Scotland Yard's Inspector Pyke again. He goes straight to the Savoy Hotel , where Jeanne Debul stayed, but who only treats him arrogantly. With growing uneasiness in a foreign country with its strange conventions, the French commissioner monitors the Savoy in order to catch Alain Lagrange, who is searching all the luxury hotels for his father's acquaintance. After the boy stole a passepartout , Maigret tracks him down in the abandoned suite of the French woman under her hotel bed, where Alain lay in wait with his revolver to settle accounts with Debul. Maigret talks to the boy until he has won his trust and Alain voluntarily hands him the revolver and reveals the background to the crime.

François Lagrange was a former lover of Jeanne and has remained a slave to her to this day. She used him to blackmail acquaintances from her past life with piquant details. André Delteil was also one of the victims of blackmail. When Lagrange tried to make his own profit from the extortion, the politician, worried about his reputation, stood at his door one day and threatened him with a pistol. Ironically, the cowardly Lagrange came into possession of the weapon in the course of the conflict and shot Delteil. His son Alain discovered the body and wanted to contact Maigret, but then he decided to use his revolver to practice vigilante justice on the woman he blames for the demise of his weak father. Without official arrest, Maigret accompanies the young man home, where his father is still playing the madman, in order to avoid the death penalty. The Commissioner, however, hopes to hold Jeanne Debul accountable after her return, as he promised his youthful companion.

interpretation

According to Murielle Wenger, Maigret and his revolver is an unusual Maigret novel. The atmosphere of the book is more reminiscent of Simenon's romans durs (hard novels) without Maigret's participation, for example in the drawing of the wretched Baron Lagrange and the unscrupulous Jeanne Debul, who makes a living as a cold-blooded blackmailer. The New Yorker describes the former as "big, flabby booby", Hans Reimann simply as " Kanaille ", while Tilman Spreckelsen sees her as a " femme fatale " who will not escape punishment, entirely like in the Beatles song Sexy Sadie . Madame Maigret, who attests to Bettina Göcmener's “angelic patience” while waiting for her husband, is of a completely different nature. For Ira Tschimmel, she always remains in her petty-bourgeois gender role , which is shown, for example, in her silence when her husband and Dr. Pardon speaks. Tilman Spreckelsen points out Madame Maigret's awkwardness when using the phone and her low tolerance for alcohol. After a strong performance at the beginning, she remained pale throughout the rest of the novel: "What a shame!"

Also unusual is the setting that Maigret takes from his native Paris to London, where he feels like a prisoner in the lobby of the Savoy Hotel . According to Tilman Spreckelsen, the inspector feels uncomfortable, intimidated and inhibited in his usual approach when he is abroad, until he becomes ill-tempered and grumpy. After all, he proves “an amazing local knowledge, at least for the shortest route to the bar”, so that he asks himself: “Was Maigret ever as thirsty as on his trip to London?” The elementary sensation of thirst when Maigret opened the hotel bar waiting, according to Josef Quack, “nobody described it so simply and so forcefully” as Simenon. And as if it weren't enough that he desperately thirsts for beer, the inspector at the Savoy Grill is not allowed to smoke his beloved pipe either, but forced to have a cigar, albeit with all sorts of polite apologies. After all, Maigret keeps himself safe with the consumption of hors d'oeuvre , lobster and a bottle of Rhenish wine.

The reason why father and son Lagrange turned to Maigret and the latter even led an album with newspaper clippings about him was his almost legendary reputation for forbearance and humanity, which the commissioner sometimes also violates laws or defends guilty parties in the interests of higher morality to let. Although even childless, Maigret shows, according to Spreckelsen, “an understanding of the son's need [...] to venerate the father and that of the father to protect the son under all circumstances”. Alain in particular, according to Göcmener a “troubled angry boy”, arouses a “nostalgia of fatherhood” (Wenger) in the inspector, which is a recurring motif in the series, and also towards the young robber Paulus in Maigret as a furnished man or towards him Aunticide Lecoeur in Maigret and the man on the bench shows. In order to tame the boy who is lying under the bed with his pistol drawn, the inspector tells him the story of a cat that has taken refuge in a tree that it no longer dares to come down from. He uses a very similar animal metaphor in Maigret and the Wine Merchant , where he compares the murderer to a shy squirrel. Despite all knowledge of human nature, the case remains unsolved in the end. The inspector can reconstruct a probable hypothesis of the crime, but no confirmation is available, as the perpetrator prefers to play the madman.

background

Advertising poster with the “Cadum Baby” in Paris

The years between 1950 and 1955 belonged to the most productive phases of the writer Georges Simenon. He lived in Lakeville , Connecticut on the Shadow Rock Farm and wrote a total of 13 Maigret novels and 14 other novels without Maigret. Maigret and his Revolver was created in June 1952 immediately after returning from a trip to Europe lasting several months. For Simenon, who emigrated to America after the Second World War , the trip turned into a triumphant homecoming, during which he visited the real Quai des Orfèvres in Paris and his hometown Liège , among other places .

Simenon in Maigret and his revolver gave his creation Maigret two other names in addition to the widely used first name "Jules": "Jules-Joseph Anthelme". On the other hand, ten volumes previously in Maigret's first investigation , the commissioner was still called "Jules Amédée François Maigret". This is not the only confusion of names that the Commissioner has to endure. In the foreword of a later edition, the author returned to the original name. The "Cadum Baby" that the fat, chubby François Lagrange of Dr. Pardon the comparison is a reference to a picture by the French painter Arsène-Marie Le Feuvre for an advertising campaign for the French cosmetics company Cadum , which became the company's trademark and remained on many posters and advertisements in France for decades.

reception

The Publisher's Trade List Annual summed up Maigret and his revolver : “After a young man makes off with Maigret's revolver, this well-drawn suspense story takes Commissioner Maigret from Paris to London to investigate one murder - and prevent another. “For British Book News , the ingredients of theft, extortion, murder and violence came together to create a good story. These Maigret was the same inimitable "shrewd, ruthless when the occasion demands, unconventional, but always human." Kirkus Reviews evaluated: "In short, unusually structured with a disturbing portrait of the unfortunate Lagrange: Convincing, unconventional Simenon." The New Yorker counted the novel among "some first-class novels" that Simenon wrote during his stay in America in the early 1950s.

Bettina Göcmener described in Die Welt : “Understanding as well as concern and not just the desire for clarification drive Maigret. That doesn't detract from the tension. ”One does not become addicted to reading from the“ lovingly drawn everyday life ”, but from the“ ease with which Simenon tells his criminal cases and stories - and the humanity of his detective. ”Tom Rusch criticized the unlikely coincidences of the plot which, despite its artificial arrangement, never gets boring, which is mainly due to the drawing of the figures and their network of relationships. According to Tilman Spreckelsen, the jubilee novel of the 40th appearance of Commissioner Maigret is a “basic nervousness”. But the author is “doing his job well, almost accident-free”. Hans Reimann drew the conclusion: “It was pleasant to work with Maigret. Unpleasant to be worked on by him. "

The novel was filmed twice. In 1960 Rupert Davies played the commissioner in a British TV series, and in 1985 Jean Richard on French television. Two radio play adaptations were made on German radio. In 1959 the Südwestfunk produced a radio play directed by Gert Westphal , the Maigret was spoken by Leonard Steckel . Two years later, a production by Bayerischer Rundfunk followed with Paul Dahlke and Traute Rose under the direction of Heinz-Günter Stamm .

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Le revolver de Maigret . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1952 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1956.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-257-21576-2 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 40. Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23840-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1946 à 1967 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Le revolver de 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. 73.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Maigret of the Month: Le revolver de Maigret (Maigret's Revolver) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  5. ↑ The New Yorker Volume 60, Part 6, 1984, p. 158.
  6. ↑ a b Hans Reimann : The Literazzia . Volume 6, p. 64.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret Marathon 40: Maigret and his revolver . On FAZ.net from January 22, 2009.
  8. ↑ a b c Bettina Göcmener: More! In: Die Welt from February 17, 2007.
  9. ↑ Ira Tschimmel: Detective novel and representation of society. A comparative study of the works of Christie, Simenon, Dürrenmatt and Capote . Bouvier, Bonn 1979, ISBN 3-416-01395-6 , p. 88.
  10. ↑ 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. 16.
  11. ^ Joan P. Alcock: Food in the Detective Novel . In: Harlan Walker (Ed.): Food in the Arts. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1998 . Prospect Books, Devon 1999, ISBN 1-903018-01-3 , p. 19.
  12. ↑ 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 , pp. 43, 45.
  13. ↑ 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. 17.
  14. ↑ 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. 38.
  15. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon . Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , 335-336.
  16. ↑ Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23840-2 , p. 12.
  17. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret's first investigation . Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23830-3 , p. 145.
  18. ↑ Maigret's first name - Maigret and firearms on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  19. ↑ Georges Simenon: Maigret and his revolver . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23840-2 , p. 21.
  20. ↑ "After a young man makes off with Maigret's revolver, this well-plotted suspense story carries Superintendent Maigret from Paris to London to investigate one murder - and prevent another." Quoted from: The Publisher's Trade List Annual Volume 2, RR Bowker 1986, P. 74.
  21. ^ "Maigret is his usual inimitable self - shrewd, ruthless when the occasion demands, unconventional, but always human." Quoted from: British Book News . British Council 1956, pp. 388-389.
  22. ^ “Short, unusually structured, with a disturbing portrait of the unfortunate Lagrange: satisfying, offbeat Simenon.” Quoted from: Maigret's Revolver on Kirkus Reviews of October 12, 1984.
  23. ^ "Another of the several first-rate novels that Simenon wrote during his American sojourn in the early nineteen-fifties." Quoted from The New Yorker Volume 60, Part 6, 1984, p. 158.
  24. ^ Tom Rusch: Worldwide Detectives . On Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  25. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  26. ↑ Maigret and his revolver in the HörDat audio game database .