Maigret hesitates

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Maigret hesitates (French: Maigret hésite ) is a crime novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon . It is the 68th novel in a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories about the detective Maigret . The novel was written in Epalinges from January 24th to 30th, 1968 and was published by Presses de la Cité in the same year . The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published in 1970 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in an anthology with Maigret and the murderer and Maigret and his childhood friend . In 1982 the Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Annerose Melter.

A murder is announced to Commissioner Maigret by an anonymous letter. The stationery quickly leads him to the stately home of a lawyer. Maigret questions the family and employees, but without any concrete evidence, the inspector hesitates to suspect anyone. He posts his inspectors in front of the building, although he fears that they will not be able to prevent the murder.

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Place Beauvue near Avenue de Marigny in the 8th arrondissement of Paris

It is March 4th and spring can be felt in Paris for the first time. An anonymous letter arrives at the Quai des Orfèvres announcing: “A murder will be committed soon, probably in the next few days. Maybe from someone I know, maybe from myself. ”More letters with details are announced, but although the letterhead is detached, Maigret quickly takes the expensive and rare stationery to a house on Avenue Marigny. It is the home of the former President of the Court of Cassation, Gastin de Beaulieu. After his retirement, his daughter and her husband Émile Parendon, a lawyer specializing in maritime law , live here .

The 46-year-old Parendon, who looks like an intelligent gnome on Maigret, is unimpressed by the anonymous letter. He would much rather talk to Maigret about his hobbyhorse, Article 64, which regulates incapacity in French criminal law. In Parendon's view, no one is ever wholly responsible for their actions. Madame Parendon, an attractive, urbane society lady, makes a completely different impression than her eccentric husband. The spouses have become estranged from each other. Émile isolates himself from the social activities of his wife, who considers him insane. The couple have two children, 18 and 15 years old, named Bambi and Gus. In addition to the domestic workers, the ambitious trainee lawyer René Tortu, the Swiss Julien Baud, who makes his way as a clerk in Paris, and the young secretary Antoinette Vague work in Parendon's domestic law firm. She was once in a relationship with Tortu, but now openly admits to being Parendon's lover, whom she admires despite his unimpressive appearance.

Maigret is unsure what to think of the announced crime and whether it is not all just a joke. But there are more letters that reprimand his rushing forward and are more urgent in tone. Maigret, for example, has the house guarded by his inspectors Lapointe and Janvier, without real belief that they can stop possible events inside. And indeed there is a dead person the next morning: Antoinette Vague's throat was cut with an eraser . In the subsequent questioning, Maigret first reveals Gus as the author of the anonymous letters. The boy knew about the tension between his parents and was afraid for his father, whom he believed too weak to defend himself without help. Madame Parendon is convicted of murder based on statements from neighbors. She actually planned to kill her husband, but at the last moment she killed the young lover instead, knowing that this would hit him even harder. Now it is she who looks with horror at the examination of her mental sanity.

interpretation

Similar to Maigret has scruples , Maigret hesitates about an unusual detective novel in which the investigation precedes the actual crime. When Maigret is still unable to prevent the murder, his sympathy for the young secretary is mixed with remorse that goes so far that the inspector bites his pipe stem in grief. The case leads the Commissioner into the milieu of the upper bourgeoisie. But both the milieu and the study of a person who transfers their own mental disorders to others, according to Michel Lemoine in the novel, take a back seat to the main theme: the discussion of Article 64.

Article 64 is quoted in the novel as: "A crime or misdemeanor does not exist if the accused was insane at the time of the act or if he was driven by a force that he could not oppose." Parendon wants this Reform articles because he does not believe “that a human being is ever fully responsible.” This is the result of his refusal to hate other people, which he clings to when he learns of his wife's deed. In Parendon's declaration that he had not done anything to counter the threat posed by his wife because one day he decided to accept all the consequences of his marriage and way of life, the commissioner discovered a contradiction to his convictions: Obviously, Parendon had an independent decision for his life met. Maigret's position on the question of accountability remains open. Only at the end of the novel does the fact that it is now up to the psychiatrists to judge Madame Parendon that he no longer regrets dropping out of his medical studies. Because then he does not bear the burden of the doctors to decide at the end of the case. When they met Parendon for the first time, he had already confessed: “I'm glad not to be a judge. I don't need to judge that way ... "

Simenon has repeatedly raised the question of human responsibility in his work, for example in Maigret has scruples and Maigret and the knife . The discussion between Maigret and Parendon over Article 64 continues similar conversations between Maigret and his friend, Doctor Pardon, in Maigret continues a trap and Maigret's confession . Stanley G. Eskin points out that it is no coincidence that the lawyer in Maigret is called Par (en) don. The intensive examination of Article 64 is also reflected in Simenon's survey by five psychiatrists, which was published in the volume Simenon on the Couch . There the author proclaimed: “For thirty years I have been fighting for this notorious Article 64, which is about determining whether a person is actually responsible or not.” And later he prophesied: “In a few years the judges and the jury decides on the fate of the criminal, but committees made up of doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists. "

reception

Best Sellers magazine ruled in 1970 that Maigret hesitates "may not be quite as gripping as some of the Inspector's earlier adventures, but it is most fascinating". Murielle Wenger praised the novel's fascinating gallery of characters as well as the wealth of detail, which ranges from Maigret's memories, impressions and perceptions to descriptions of his method. The novel really screams for a film adaptation, and it is hardly surprising that the episode Maigret chez les riches has become the most successful in the Maigret series with Bruno Cremer .

The novel was filmed three times: as part of the television series with Jean Richard (1975), Boris Tenin (1981) and the aforementioned series with Bruno Cremer (2000). In 1989 the WDR produced a radio play adaptation under the direction of Dieter Carls . In addition to Charles Brauer as Maigret, the speakers included Charles Wirths , Karin Anselm and Herbert Bötticher . In 2018, an audio book reading by Walter Kreye was published by Audio Verlag .

expenditure

  • Georges Simenon: Maigret hésite . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1968 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the murderer . Maigret and his childhood friend . Maigret hesitates . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1970.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1971.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Translation: Annerose Melter. Diogenes, Zurich 1982, ISBN 3-257-20757-3 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Complete Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 68. Translation: Annerose Melter. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23868-6 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kampa, Zurich 2018, ISBN 978-3-311-13068-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1968 à 1989 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of the Omnibus Verlag.
  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. 82.
  3. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 7.
  4. ^ A b Maigret of the Month: Maigret hésite (Maigret Hesitates) on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  5. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 68: Maigret hesitates . On FAZ.net from August 28, 2009.
  6. ^ Didier Gallot: Simenon ou La comédie humaine . France-Empire, Paris, 1999, ISBN 2-7048-0887-2 , p. 258.
  7. ↑ a b Michel Lemoine: Meigret hésite . 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. 303.
  8. ↑ a b Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 24.
  9. ^ Georges Simenon: Maigret hesitates . Diogenes, Zurich 2009, p. 148.
  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. 52.
  11. ^ Stanley G. Eskin: Simenon. A biography . Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-01830-4 , p. 396.
  12. ^ Pierre Assouline : Simenon. A biography . Chatto & Windus, London 1997, ISBN 0-7011-3727-4 , p. 334.
  13. ^ Georges Simenon: Simenon on the couch . Diogenes, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-257-21658-0 , p. 81,.
  14. ^ Georges Simenon: Simenon on the couch . Diogenes, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-257-21658-0 , p. 103.
  15. ^ "'Maigret Hesitates' may not be as gripping as some of the Inspector's earlier adventures, but it is most intriguing, nonetheless," In: Best Sellers . Volume 30. Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, Washington 1970, S: 58.
  16. ↑ Maigret Films & TV on Steve Trussel's Maigret page.
  17. ↑ Maigret hesitates in the HörDat audio game database .