Maigret loses an admirer

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Maigret loses an admirer (French: Cécile est morte ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 22nd novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective inspector Maigret and was written in Fontenay-le-Comte in December 1940 . The novel was prepublished in 45 issues of the Paris-Soir daily from February 18 to April 5, 1941 . The book edition followed in 1942 together with Maigret and the cellars of the "Majestic" and Maigret in the judge's house in the anthology Maigret revient at the Editions Gallimard . The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 1967 , again in an anthology with Maigret hat patience and Maigret and the maid . In 1987, Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Ingrid Altrichter.

Nobody takes the young woman, who regularly appears at the Paris criminal police to report mysterious nightly activities in her apartment, really seriously. And since she only wants to talk to Inspector Maigret, she is soon mockingly called his “admirer”. But suddenly the visitor disappears from the police station and Maigret begins to worry about her.

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Palais de Justice with transition to the Quai des Orfèvres
Mairie in Bourg-la-Reine

The first autumn fog is rising in Paris, and on the Quai des Orfèvres - as so often in the last few weeks - Cécile Pardon is waiting for Maigret. The young woman, who serves her aunt Juliette Boynet as a housemaid, regularly claims to have discovered traces of a nocturnal intrusion in the shared apartment. She always demands to speak only to Inspector Maigret, so that she is already derisively referred to as his "admirer" by his colleagues. Even the Commissioner has better things to do than take care of the persistent guest, because a gang of Polish robbers is imminent. So he makes Cécile wait for several hours in the antechamber known as the “aquarium”. When she disappears from there, Maigret can't help worrying about the visitor, who doesn't look at all like it, to give in and to retreat.

Inspector Maigret visits Cecile's apartment in nearby Bourg-la-Reine and discovers the strangled Juliette Boynet. Shortly afterwards, Cécile is also found in a broom closet in the corridor between the Quai des Orfèvres and the Palais de Justice , to which her murderer must have lured her from the police station. It soon turns out that Aunt Juliette was extremely wealthy and had invested her money in dubious establishments. Not only does the distant relatives travel to her funeral, the Monfils, the Boynets and the Machepieds, who vie for the inheritance, but also half of the Parisian red-light district .

Juliette Boynet's right-hand man in her business was former attorney Charles Dandurand, who had to surrender his license for indecent acts with minors. He was already the lover of young Juliette in Fontenay-le-Comte before she married the building contractor Joseph Boynet and moved to Paris. After the husband's death, Dandurand resumed contact with Juliette and now lives in the apartment below. They kept their regular meetings a secret from their niece, who regularly poured bromine salt into her tea to put her to sleep.

On the evening of her death, however, Cecile's unemployed brother Gérard was visiting his sister and desperately begging for money. To calm his nerves he drank her tea, which is why Cécile stayed up the following night for the first time and overheard her aunt's meeting with her lover. After his departure, she confronted Juliette about the hidden assets. An argument broke out in the course of which the humiliated Cécile strangled her aunt. When she and Gérard then rummaged through the aunt's files, they came across evidence that Juliette, with the help of Dandurand, had murdered her husband in order to obtain his inheritance. Cécile wanted to surrender and give Maigret the documents to her aunt, but the lawyer, who had heard everything in the noisy house, lured the young woman out of the police station into a deadly trap and destroyed the evidence.

When Maigret Dandurand confronts the results of his investigation, he denies any involvement in the murders, and his lawyer speaks of a web of suspicions. The superintendent, whose investigation is being followed by an American criminologist named Spencer Oats from Philadelphia , fears that he will have to let go of the suspect when Étienne Monfils provides the necessary evidence, despite the fact that Monfils nullifies his claim to the inheritance: for fear of being betrayed by her accomplice Juliette had deposited evidence of Dandurand's complicity in a photograph.

background

When in 1942 the anthology Maigret revient with the novels Maigret and the cellars of the "Majestic" , Maigret in the house of the judge and Maigret loses an admirer appeared at the Éditions Gallimard , Simenon's readers celebrated who had been anticipated with rumors , the "resurrection" of the character Maigret. Eight years earlier, Simenon had retired his successful serial hero with the 19th novel Maigret in order to turn to higher literary ambitions. But in the uncertain situation of the Second World War with the impending birth of his son Marc , the future father would have been, as Guy Maron puts it, "stupid to miss a chicken that lays golden eggs".

Simenon wrote Maigret Losing an Admirer in December 1940, a year in which he was not very literary literary after Maigret's creation in the judge's house in January, as his attention was being occupied by other events. After the German attack on the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, Simenon reported to the Belgian embassy, ​​which appointed him commissioner for Belgian refugees in the Charente-Maritime department . In this function he was responsible for the accommodation of many thousands of refugee compatriots from May to August of that year, whose fate he dealt with in the 1946 novel Le Train (filmed as Le Train - Just a touch of happiness ). The end of 1940 a French physician in Simenon diagnosed incorrectly heart problems and attested him a short life expectancy, which prompted the writer to write his memoirs, which he later Roman pedigree (German: Pedigree ) reworked. It wasn't until December that he returned to work on a Maigret novel. During the occupation of France , Cécile est morte was made into a film in December 1943 by Continental-Film , which is under German control .

Murielle Wenger groups Maigret loses an admirer together with the novel Maigret and the Maid, and Maigret and the Young Dead from 1954 under the common theme Maigret and the young women . With the latter, Maigret has lost an admirer in common that the main female character, to whom the inspector has developed a special bond, has already died. Peter Foord points out that Simenon took up the basic theme of a woman, who in vain seeks help from the inspector because her apartment is plagued by inexplicable changes, 30 years later in Maigret and the crazy widow , although the course of the plot differs significantly. The motif of a Polish band of robbers, on the other hand, can already be found in some earlier works, such as the Maigret short story Stan le Tueur (1937/38) and the non-Maigret novel L'Outlaw (1939). Thomas Wörtche recognizes parallels between the house community in Maigret, who live indifferently side by side, and loses an admirer with “the lovely tenement biotope” in Monsieur Hire's engagement .

interpretation

Even the opening scene of Maigret loses an admirer defines the atmosphere of the novel: from a café near the Place de la Bastille, the inspector is surrounded by a scent “of white coffee and warm croissants with a very faint hint of rum”. The memory of this moment makes the commissioner grab his own rum later. As is often the case with Simenon, the action is shaped by the weather: If Simenon hadn't thoroughly enjoyed the first autumn mist on his way to the office, his admirer would not have been murdered. For Tilman Spreckelsen , the case was not a lucky star right from the start. The inspector refuses a person seeking help because he finds them both annoying and ridiculous, and thereby puts himself to blame. Later on he shows himself to be an “extremely prudish person” who is constantly confronted with vice and debauchery, ranging from a precocious drifter, an indecent couple in the cinema to the morality criminal Dandurand. After all, his arrest gives him satisfaction in the end. The former lawyer is one of the few perpetrators in the Maigret series to whom the inspector does not show his proverbial sympathy, but by whom he feels deeply repulsed.

In contrast to previous detective characters , Maigret is portrayed as a normal person, according to Jane Alice Knap. Thus, its sluggishness at the beginning of the novel exposes a typically human weakness. His fallibility predestines him as a figure of identification for the readers. For a long time Maigret finds himself in a dead end in his investigation into the residents of the house in Bourg-la-Reine. The turning point is the appearance of the American criminologist Spencer Oats, in whom Maigret gradually builds trust until, according to Peter Foord, it serves as a kind of soundboard during his interrogations. In an interview with the criminologist, Maigret expresses his skepticism towards a "psychology of criminals". For the Commissioner, criminals before their act are “people like everyone else” who “are driven by any human passion” that everyone carries within themselves: “Out of jealousy, out of greed, out of hate, out of envy, less often out of need ". After their deed, however, they are no longer his business, but those of the courts and prisons.

reception

Stanley G. Eskin called Maigret loses an admirer "a wonderful story and a kind of festival of Maigret performances" that show a commissioner "in top form". Simenon succeeds in uniting a well-constructed puzzle with an exciting solution "according to the best detective romance tradition" with his idiosyncrasies and breaches of the rules of the genre. Guy Maron expressed a similar opinion, for whom the novel proved that Simenon was able to create a "real thriller full of rhythm and mystery" from his famous atmospheric descriptions. Thomas Wörtche praised Juliette Boynet's portrayal of Juliette Boynet, which was typical of the time and timelessly precise at the same time: “a bitter, frustrated woman who draws her lust from her wealth, which rests on the possession of a whole chain of brothels”, although he has “the clumsy German title” of the Romans wanted to forget quickly.

In 1967, Der Spiegel found in the anthology by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, which also contained the novels Maigret hat patience and Maigret and the maid , “the best crime fiction, a touch of sex, but above all an assortment of concierges and petty bourgeoisie, of coffee and rum smells Impressionistic summer days like hardly any other contemporary work of 'high literature'. ”For the New York Times , Simenon was more concerned with the character and the atmosphere than with conclusions. Kirkus Reviews described Maigret's method as "a combination of good food and drink, psychology and sudden inspiration". The novel transforms the smallest of the petty bourgeoisie into a world of its own. According to Thomas Narcejac, it was an "authentic novel" in terms of the composition, the choice of staff and the color of the plot.

The novel was filmed a total of six times. In 1943, the film Cécile est morte (German: His most difficult case , later: Maigret and the headless woman ) was made with Albert Préjean , directed by Maurice Tourneur . 12 years later, a remake by Stany Cordier starring Maurice Manson came to French cinemas under the title Maigret dirige l'enquête . This was followed by four film adaptations in the context of television series about Commissioner Maigret. The leading roles were played by Rupert Davies (Great Britain, 1963), Gino Cervi (Italy, 1964), Jean Richard (France, 1967) and Bruno Cremer (France, 1994). The episode marked the start of both Cervi's and Richard's series.

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Cécile est morte . In: Maigret revient . Éditions Gallimard, Paris 1942 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret is patient . Maigret and the maid . Maigret loses an admirer. Translation: Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1967.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret loses an admirer. Translation: Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1968.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret loses an admirer . Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-257-21521-5 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret loses an admirer . All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 22. Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23822-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1924 à 1945 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of the Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Cécile est morte in the Simenon bibliography by Yves Martina.
  3. ↑ Oliver Hahn: Bibliography of German-language editions . Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2003 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2004, ISBN 3-86525-101-3 , p. 77.
  4. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 248.
  5. ^ A b Guy Marron : Maigret sort du purgatoire . In: Le Soir of May 5, 2003.
  6. ↑ a b c Maigret of the Month: Cécile est morte (Maigret and the Spinster) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  7. ↑ Patrick Marnham: The Man Who Wasn't Maigret. The life of Georges Simenon . Knaus, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-8135-2208-3 , p. 279.
  8. ↑ Maigret Forum Archives 2010 on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  9. ↑ Melanie Wigbers: Krimi-Orte im Wandel. Design and functions of the scenes in crime stories from romanticism to the present. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8260-3368-1 , p. 117.
  10. ↑ a b c Thomas Wörtche : Precise, typical of the time and yet timelessly precise . Lecture on kaliber38.de.
  11. ↑ Georges Simenon: Maigret loses an admirer . Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23822-8 , p. 6.
  12. ↑ The Role of Alcohol and Drinking in George Simenon's Maigret Novels . In: Culinary Historians of Boston Newsletter Vol. XVIII No. 4 March 1998.
  13. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 22: Maigret loses an admirer . On FAZ.net from September 10, 2008.
  14. ↑ Maigret of the Month: Une erhur de Maigret (Maigret's Mistake) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  15. ↑ Jane Alice Knap: Use of the Detective Novel Form by CP Snow, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Vladimir Nabokov. University of Wisconsin, Madison 1989, p. 101.
  16. ↑ Georges Simenon: Maigret loses an admirer . Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23822-8 , pp. 144-145.
  17. ↑ 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. 51.
  18. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , pp. 249-251.
  19. ↑ criticism . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1967, p. 167 ( online ).
  20. ^ Paperbacks: New and Noteworthy . In: The New York Times, May 30, 1982.
  21. ^ "A combination of good food and drink, psychology, and sudden inspiration [...] who converted petit, petit bourgeoisdom into a world all his own." Quoted from: Maigret and the Spinster by Georges Simenon at Kirkus Reviews .
  22. ↑ Thomas Narcejac : Le cas "Simenon" . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1950, p. 140.
  23. ↑ Maigrets Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  24. ↑ Maigret - novels and stories - adaptations for the large and small screen on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.