Maigret before the jury

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Maigret before the jury court (French: Maigret aux assises ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 55th novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret . The novel was written in Echandens from November 17 to 23, 1959 and was pre- published in 21 parts from April 15 to May 19, 1960 by the French daily Le Figaro . The book was published in May 1960 by the Paris publisher Presses de la Cité . The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch that same year . In 1979 Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Wolfram Schäfer.

After a brutal robbery of an old lady and her little foster daughter, the killer seems to be quickly found in the old woman's nephew. An anonymous complaint, a mountain of debts and a number of circumstantial evidence speak against him. But Commissioner Maigret is dissatisfied with the obvious solution to the case and continues to investigate the alleged perpetrator in his environment even after the arrest. At the trial before the jury , it is his testimony that turns the process around.

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Palais de Justice in Paris

It's a rainy October and Maigret, who is 53 years old two years before his retirement, has just returned from a holiday in the Loire , where the prospective reindeer and his wife decided to buy their future retirement home in Meung-sur-Loire . Back on duty, the Commissioner is called from the Quai des Orfèvres to the adjacent Palais de Justice to testify before the jury. Maigret hates appearances in court, where people are judged on the basis of files and brief statements without the judge or jury ever having really dealt with their life and their environment. This is no different in the present case either.

Gaston Meurant, a taciturn frame maker , is charged with the murder of his aunt Léontine Faverges, a former matchmaker , and her four-year-old foster child Cécile Perrin on February 28, the year when Léontine's savings hidden in a flower vase were stolen. An anonymous call directed the criminal police on the trail of Meurant, who was going to visit his aunt that evening and whose suit was stained with blood. But for Maigret, despite the circumstantial evidence against the frame maker, many things did not fit together. Shortly before the crime, Meurant had been seen in a different suit in his workshop, and the child-loving man could easily have avoided committing the robbery in the presence of the little girl. Last but not least, it was the atmosphere of Meurant's apartment, which was not determined by the educated craftsman, but by his attractive, easy-going wife, a waitress fond of cinemas, magazines and penny novels, that led Maigret on a different trail.

The inspector continued to investigate after Meurant's arrest, focusing on his wife Ginette. In fact, he soon found out that Gaston was cheating not only with his brother Alfred, a criminal from Toulon , but with a number of other acquaintances, including a little man nicknamed "Pierrot" whom she regularly met in an hour hotel . It is thanks to the unusually thorough judge Xavier Bernerie that Maigret is allowed to present his unofficial investigation to the jury, which ultimately leads the jury to acquit Meurant. However, the defendant is by no means grateful, but resents the inspector for the rumors about his idolatrously loved wife. Only after an intensive conversation with Maigret does Meurant understand that he was the victim of a plot that, in addition to stealing the money, also aimed to convict him and thus free his wife from her marriage bond. Because only this comes into question, having borrowed the suit in which the murder was committed.

Hotel de ville in Melun

On the spur of the moment, Meurant, who has been released, travels to Toulon, from where, after a heated exchange with his brother, he continues purposefully to Chelles . Maigret has the frame maker shadowed by his inspectors, but without revealing to them that the horned husband is carrying his brother's revolver with him. So it comes as it has to come. Meurant tracks down the criminal Pierre Millard alias "Pierrot", the last lover of his wife, who was referred to Ginette by his own brother. Only after he has shot his rival does the angry Meurant find his peace and allow himself to be arrested without resistance. The booty found in the dead person's possession identifies him as the wanted double murderer of aunt and child. Maigret is now looking forward to two new jury trials: one against Ginette for aiding and abetting in the robbery, which of course faces an uncertain outcome, as she will deny her involvement in the act of her lover, and one against Meurant for the murder of Millard, which is outside of his jurisdiction Melun will take place. The superintendent doubts he will reveal the full truth about his role in Meurant's reckoning with his wife's lover. And he longs for his upcoming retirement more than ever, after which he will never have to testify about people again.

interpretation

Gaston Meurant, the defendant in Maigret before the jury , stands for Ira Tschimmel in his development on behalf of many Simenon's heroes. Together with his wife Ginette, he has built a bourgeois illusory world that he struggles to maintain despite various challenges until it is finally brought down by force. Meurant learns of his wife's infidelity and is charged with her lover's crimes. Torn from his bourgeois existence, he doesn't know what to do otherwise than by murdering his rival. Compared to the exploration of the character of Meurant, who would rather sit innocently in prison than let the missteps of his wife and thus the failure of his lifelong dream become public, the typical set pieces of a classic detective novel take a back seat. Neither the murdered, nor evidence such as the traces of blood on the suit or the criminal activities of the brother are examined more closely in the novel. The clarification of the case happens rather incidentally and by chance.

Instead, as in many of the later novels in the series, the focus is on “Maigret's discomfort with the system and practice of justice”, so that Josef Quack speaks of an “example novel” in this regard. For Maigret, the course of a court hearing shows the character of a formalistic ritual , a ceremony , so that the commissioner repeatedly compares the courtroom with a cathedral . By abstracting the proceedings in court, the accused is judged outside of his social environment and thus depersonalized . The “dignity of office” of judges and lawyers isolates them from real life. The testimony is compressed into a mere digest. In contrast to a historian, who often researches a biography for his entire life, the commissioner has to penetrate a foreign milieu within a very short time and uncover the truth by means of fewer interviews. The judge should then even get an impression of the situation purely from the files in a fraction of the time in the neutral atmosphere of his office, which for Maigret is simply an impossibility. So it is not surprising that the topos of the miscarriage of justice plays a major role in many of Simenon's novels, in Maigret fights for a man's head or Maigret and the unruly witnesses . In Maigret's confession , even Commissioner Maigret is unable to prevent the fatal execution of a wrongful judgment.

In a second novel in the Maigret series, the commissioner takes part in a court case. However, in Maigret, Arizona, he is an uninvolved and amused observer of an amateur game. In Maigret before the jury , however, according to Murielle Wenger, he is concerned with fundamental questions of law and justice . Maigret does not believe that one can even judge a person, that a person is ever completely responsible for his actions and that there is even a generally applicable concept of guilt . For him, it is never just about solving a case, but about understanding the deed, the generally applicable human truth. In doing so, the commissioner is not satisfied with gaining theoretical knowledge; he also repeatedly intervenes in practical terms as a “repairer of fates” in the lives of the people involved. In Maigret before the jury , this goes so far that in the end he lets the horned husband execute the double murderer and lover of his wife instead of ensuring the timely intervention of his inspectors, which in a certain sense even provokes the act. According to Josef Quack, such an appearance as a "judge in his own power" is not uncommon in the series. In the first novel, Maigret and Pietr the Latvian , the commissioner had the murderer judge himself; in many others such as Maigret and the Hanged Man from Saint-Pholien , Maigret at the Newfoundland Drivers ' Meeting , Maigret with the Flemish people, or Maigret and his rival , he decided on his own initiative against prosecution of the perpetrators and lets them go.

background

Echandens Castle , Simenon's residence from 1957 to 1963

After Georges Simenon returned to Europe from America in the mid-1950s and settled in Echandens in Switzerland , the author found himself in a personal crisis at the end of the decade. The marriage with his second wife Denyse was broken up to the point of violence, which was also a consequence of the excessive consumption of alcohol on both sides. Simenon was showing signs of depression and suffering from a variety of physical ailments ranging from headaches to insomnia to paralysis in one arm that temporarily prevented him from using a typewriter. Simenon wrote the novel Maigret before the jury , which he dedicated to his wife Denyse, in September 1959 in the middle of writer's block , with Stanley G. Eskin noting that the only four months that had passed since the last novel were for the Fast and prolific writers Simenon took an unusually long pause: "What is a write inhibition according to Simenon's standards would be at most a coffee break for any other author."

For Pierre Assouline , one can hardly avoid seeing the pessimistic plots in Simenon's novels of this phase as a reflection of the author's personal discouragement. In Maigret before the jury, a detective Maigret longs for his retirement, who has grown tired of devoting himself to the problems of others. For Murielle Wenger, too, Maigret in the novel shows unusually agreement to turn his back on the Quai des Orfèvres in order to retreat to his newly acquired refuge in Meung-sur-Loire , which is reminiscent of a rectory. In general, in the late novels of the Maigret series, a certain “enough is enough” mood prevails, which is determined not least by the changed world with its modern investigation methods and a new generation of decision-makers. But the thought of Maigret's departure is usually always riddled with pain and nostalgia.

reception

Kirkus Reviews read a "Simenon in good shape". There are no surprises, but a “precise, economic narrative in an atmosphere of quiet melancholy”. Tilman Spreckelsen also saw the bleakness of the last cases in the Maigret series as the reason why the commissioner foresaw a murder “which he smiles and tolerates. And maybe even a little promoted. ”On the other hand, he did not really want to believe the author that the inspector was deriving the incompatibility of the couple's apartment, and he asked:“ Is it that simple? If it were so, no one could endure even ten Simenon novels in a row. ”For Oliver Hahn from maigret.de, the novel was highly recommended.

Maigret before the jury was discussed because of his "judiciary-critical traits" in the concise dictionary of criminology in the chapter Criminologically significant descriptions of court proceedings . There it was said: “The atmosphere in the courtroom will be critically commented on.” The theatricality and the formulaic ceremony of the hearing, the “convulsive, stiff posture” and the coldness of the audience towards the accused “are vividly emphasized”. The effort to establish the truth is emphasized, but criticized that it takes place on a purely abstract, theoretical basis, in which the investigating judge only experiences the accused in the sterile atmosphere of his office.

The novel was filmed twice as part of television series about Commissioner Maigret: in 1961 Rupert Davies played the Commissioner in the British episode Raise Your Right Hand , and in 1971 Jean Richard in the French TV series. In 1990 the Süddeutsche Rundfunk produced a radio play directed by Otto Düben . The narrator was Wolfgang Reichmann , the inspector Maigret was spoken by Joachim Nottke .

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Maigret aux assises . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1960 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret before the jury . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1960.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret before the jury . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret before the jury . Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-257-20692-5 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret before the jury . Complete Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 55. Translation: Wolfram Schäfer. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23855-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1946 à 1967 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Maigret aux assises 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. 79.
  4. ↑ 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 , pp. 54-55.
  5. ↑ Lucille F. Becker: Georges Simenon . House, London 2006, ISBN 1-904950-34-5 , p. 54.
  6. ↑ a b c 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. 44.
  7. ↑ 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 , pp. 79-80.
  8. ↑ Lucille F. Becker: Georges Simenon . House, London 2006, ISBN 1-904950-34-5 , p. 53.
  9. ↑ Michel Lemoine: Cour d'assises . In: Robert Frickx, Raymond Trousson (eds.): Lettres françaises de Belgique. Dictionnaire of the oeuvre. I. Le roman . Duclout Paris 1988, ISBN 2-8011-0755-7 , p. 116.
  10. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 402.
  11. ^ A b Maigret of the Month: Maigret aux Assises (Maigret in Court) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  12. ↑ a b Pierre Assouline : Simenon. A biography . Chatto & Windus, London 1997, ISBN 0-7011-3727-4 , p. 305.
  13. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 338.
  14. ^ "No surprises here, but a concise, economical narrative in an ambience of gentle melancholy: Simenon in good form, circa 1959." In: Maigret in Court by Georges Simenon at Kirkus Reviews.
  15. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 57: Before the jury . On FAZ.net from May 15, 2009.
  16. ↑ Maigret before the jury on maigret.de.
  17. ↑ Rudolf Sieverts (Ed.): Short dictionary of criminology. Volume 2: Criminal Policy - Intoxicant Abuse . De Gruyter, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-11-090033-5 , p. 60.
  18. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  19. ↑ Maigret before the jury in the HörDat audio play database .