Maigret Forum Archives 2008

Maigret of the Month: Maigret tend un piège (Maigret Sets a Trap) 1/1/08 – For me the book's main interests are first the talk between Maigret and Prof. Tissot where they discuss between men of exprience, experiences in other men's lives, and second, the confrontation between Maigret and Moncin, his wife and his mother. He really plays the two women against each other to let the truth come out. During all the first part of the book, there is a feeling that Maigret is not at ease and cannot do what he likes so much: getting to know the victims, here they lived. There are too many victims and the process does not work. It looks like it is not a "Maigret type of crime" -- serial kilers are not for Maigret. I went around Paris this morning and took some pictures of the main places of the book. All the places are really near to each other. Each of the streets named does cross another one named in the book. [click on an image to enlarge] Ave. Rachel is very short and wide. It has a length of 100 m and at its other end is the entry to the Montmartre cemetery. There is also a stair going up to Rue Caulincourt (near the bridge above the cemetery). It would be difficult to hide in a street like this one. It is between Place de Clichy and Place Blanche which are two very populous places with lots of trafic. The cemetery being closed at night, Avenue Rachel is probably quiet. The picture is taken from Blvd de Clichy toward the entry of the cemetery. (a) Rue Etex (now called Rue de la Barrière Blanche) is not a very nice street, with a very long wall for the cemetery, and the hospital on the other side. It is only 250 m from the building were Moncin was a kid. You can see it with the hospital on the left of the picture. (c) This picture of Rue Lepic was taken from the level of the Moulin de la Galette looking up in the direction of the place were the murder took place. (b) The building on Blvd St Germain where Moncin lived was being restored and hidden by protection so I could not take a picture of it. I took the 232 Blvd St-Germain which is similar. Both buildings are at the corner of Rue St-Thomas d'Aquin (that is the St-Thomas Church in the background). There is a direct connection by subway between Montmartre (station Pigalle, Abesse and Lamark-Caulaincourt) and Rue Solferino by line 12 so it was convenient for Moncin to use it to visit his mother (20 min). Rue Durantin (below) is an average street, running in 3 parts and crossing Rue Tholoze. This picture of Rue Tholoze (right) is taken from the crossing with Rue Durantin, looking up toward Moulin de la Galette. So you can see that all the places are really mixed together. (it is tiring to walk up and down all the time in this part of Montmartre). (d) (e) Avenue Junot is a wide avenue that ends up in Rue Norvins. (f) At the start of Rue Norvins, there is today the Place Marcel Aymé, for the French writer who wrote "Walker-through-Walls". Marcel Aymé did the preface to "The Yellow Dog", which is the only preface I can remember for a Maigret. In Rue Norvins, I found only one small alley, a dead end -- Impasse du Tertre, where Moncin could have been hidden to wait for his prey. (f) Rue Maistre is divied in two parts: one along the cemetery and a short one between Rue Caulaincourt and Rue des Abesses. (g) (h) This (right) is the corner of Rue Caulaincourt where there is the buidling where Moncin grew up. It is just in front of a large intersection and overlooking the cemetery. Here is a GoogleEarth picture all the places in the order they appear in the book (from a to h): A movie was made in 1958 by Jean Delannoy with Jean Gabin playing Maigret. Other well known French actors like Lino Ventura (Inspector Torrence) and Annie Girardot were in the movie, which can be found on DVD. Regards, Jérôme

Wigtown Book Festival - John Simenon - Exciting News! 1/18/08 – I am feeling very guilty that I have not reported on this event, featuring John Simenon, till now. But if you read to the end of this you will find some exciting news! Wigtown, in Dumfries and Galloway, in South-West Scotland, is the Scottish Book Town, an attempt to emulate the economic success of Hay-on-Wye. Anyone who has been to Hay-on-Wye knows it was founded by an eccentric bookseller, Richard Booth, a real book lover, but that it has been taken over by "luvvies" from the London Media, to the extent that the Festival is sponsored by The Guardian and all the events are London-centric. Anyway, Wigtown is virgin territory, with about 15 bookshops ranging from the professional to the frankly amateur, but John Simenon's talk was sponsored by the first bookseller who was instrumental in gaining Book Town status for Wigtown. I drove down on a glorious Autumn day and grabbed a bite to eat in the cafe before attending M. Simenon's talk. His main thesis was that his father had anticipated recent psychological discoveries about such aspects of humanity as empathy and failure, but the most interesting aspects for me were the personal insights into the life of his father and his family. He revealed that he was to blame for his father's reputation as "the man who slept with 10,000 women" because, as a film publicist, he was asked to arrange for an interview between his father and Federico Fellini, who had just directed "Casanova". When Fellini said that Casanova had only (!) seduced about 300 women, Simenon said, "That's nothing," and said that if you counted them up he himself had had about 10,000 sexual encounters i.e. had had sex 10,000 times. Anyone could achieve that in about 30 years, if one were lucky! Anyway, the figure was probably exaggerated, but it was picked up by the journalist who was present and so the legend was born. John became very emotional on recalling the suicide of his sister, Marie-Jo, and the effect it had on his father, but he emphasised that his father was a very good father who cared for his children, loved them, helped them with their homework.... In the public session I said I was reading the Maigrets in sequence (which brought a gasp from the audience!) and I said that in the Maigrets of the 1950s (my personal favourites) Simenon was living in America but that the novels of that period seemed to be very atmospheric of Paris, and I wondered if his father was nostalgic about the France he had left. I didn't get a straight answer, but John said that his father had left France because of the terrible atmosphere which obtained after the war, a sort of witch-hunt against collaborators or even those who were suspected of being collaborators. For the same reason he hated the McCarthy witch-hunts, and he left America for the same reason. Later, in private, I asked John if he would ever write about his father, and he said he would not, as it would be too painful. Now for the big news! He indicated that as his father's executor, he was negotiating with the BBC about issuing the Rupert Davies Maigrets on DVD and that this should happen in 2008! The programme for the 2008 Wigtown Book Festival can be found here. I stayed at the Bruce Hotel in Newtown Stewart, which I can thoroughly recommend! Roddy

Maigret of the Month: Maigret tend un piège (Maigret Sets a Trap) 1/20/08 – [translation] 1. Bibliographic Points The first Maigret written by Simenon after his definitive return to Europe, this novel inaugurates in a way a "turning point" in the career of his character, in the sense that the Chief Inspector's investigations will tend more and more to resemble the author's questionings about the nature of man, his responsibility, and his fate. After the Maigret of the Fayard cycle, a "granite block" sure enough of himself (see LET: "He formed, in a way, a block that the atmosphere refused to absorb.") and the "lighter" Maigret of the Gallimard cycle (see FEL or SIG, for example), the Presses de la Cité cycle, after forming the basis for the reconciliation of the author and his character (PRE, MEM) and reinstalling Maigret in his function of chief investigator (MOR, JEU, BAN, etc.), shows him more and more questioning his métier and his role, taking up in his doubts Simenon's own questionings. We can simply consider the titles of some of the novels appearing in the years 1956-1960, Maigret's Failure, Maigret has Scruples or Maigret Has Doubts. Questioning his métier and the power it actually imparts (ECH, SCR), questioning the justice of man (CON, ASS), leading to the cases which haunt the end of the cycle, on the true responsibility of man – and of the criminal – (HES, TUE, VIN). Maigret Sets a Trap is the only one in the corpus written at Mougins. The following novels, ECH and AMU, will be written in Cannes; then VOY, SCR, TEM, CON, ASS, VIE, PAR, BRA, CLI, COL, CLO and FAN will be written in Simenon's first Swiss domicile, the Château d'Echandens, called "Noland" in the datings of the writing of the Maigrets. The 13 final novels of the Presses de la Cité cycle will be written in the house Simenon had built in Epalinges. 2. "to see the hallway still filled with journalists and photographers"... (bea) Among the secondary characters, but nonetheless important, in this novel, are the reporters, in particular "Little Rougin" and The Baron. Maigret has had more than one affair with reporters in the course of his career (see for example PRO, GAI, noy, CEC, MAJ, JUG, VAC; MME, PIC, LOG, MIN, VOY, TEM, ASS, VIE, BRA, PAT, VIC, HES, ENF, TUE, SEU), and he has had a more or less cordial relationship with them, sometimes using them, sometimes irritated by their persistence, while recognizing that they were doing their job. Generally anonymous in the novels, some receive a name, and sometimes Simenon grants them a physical description... thus, in JAU, the reporter Vasco, in golf culottes and red sweater; in PEU, Lomel, a redhead with plump red cheeks, wearing a tan raincoat; in CON, the reporter Pecqueur, with a chubby face, large cheeks, blue-eyed with red hair, smoking a too-big pipe to make himself look important; in AMU, little Lassagne, thin and redheaded, lively as a monkey. We have to wonder whether redheads are a journalistic specialty, for we also find in VIN a nameless reporter, but described as a tall redhead, with his hair unkempt! And we also note in ECO the reporter Albert Raymond, his raincoat cinched with belt, a too-big pipe in his mouth, not more than 22, thin, with long hair... Doesn't that bring to mind a certain young Sim, newly disembarked in Paris, filled with ambition...? 3. "Above all, he needed to understand." (TEN, Ch. 6) I agree with Jérôme that the interest of the novel resides in the discussion between Maigret and Tissot, and their vision of man, but I also find that the novel is interesting in the rapport which develops between Maigret and Moncin, not exactly their relationship of policeman and prime suspect, but the rapport that Maigret tries to establish with another man, in particular a man who has "crossed the line", who has, in a way, put himself outside the bounds of ordinary social life. It is especially fascinating to discover the almost relentless quest led by Maigret to try to understand: see Ch. 3: "Each time he thought about the murderer, Maigret was overcome with a feverish impatience. ... He needed to know.", Ch. 7: "he didn't understand yet. The "spark" hadn't been produced. At no moment had he the feeling of human contact between himself and the decorator.", and in Ch. 8: "For me, you are still a human being. Don't you understand that it's exactly that that I seek to elicit from you, that human spark?". 4. The plum brandy again! I've already spoken about plum brandy in the December 2007 MoM, but I'd like to return to it for two reasons... first, to emphasize the importance that this drink takes on in Maigret's investigations. It's particularly striking in this novel, since it appears at three points in the investigation... in Ch. 3, Maigret hesitates to take a little glass of sloe gin before going to Montmartre; at the end of Ch. 4, Maigret returns home from Montmartre, and has a glass as "revenge" for the failure of his trap; and lastly, in Ch. 7, it's Mme Maigret herself who serves it to Maigret, like a "provision" she supplies her husband before he heads to the site of a new murder. Sloe gin is the symbol of the security of his hearth, the reassuring object, the symbol of the life of all the days when Maigret was plunged into an unknown world. In this sense, I'd like to bring together the last sentence of the novel, "She felt confused, like he had returned from far away, that he needed to reaccustom himself to everyday life, to rub shoulders with men who'd reassure him.", with this passage taken from SCR, after Maigret has scanned numerous psychiatric works to try to understand the case of Marton, "In the end, he rose, having had enough, tossed the book on the table and, opening the buffet in the dining room, brought out the carafe of plum brandy, and filled one of the little glasses with the gilt edges. It was like a protest of good sense against all the learned mumbo-jumbo, a way of once more planting his two feet firmly on the ground." The second reason why I return to the sloe gin, is that in the last MoM, I posed the question of whether the buffet in the Maigrets' dining room contained raspberry brandy as well. Looking through the corpus once more, I found the answser! It's found in VIN: "Towards noon, Maigret murmured, hesitatingly, "I think I'd like for an apéritif a little glass of sloe gin. She didn't disagree, and he opened the buffet. There was a choice between sloe gin and raspberry brandy, both from his sister-in-law's in Alsace." 5. The Attic of the Law Courts (Palais de Justice) or: Moers's Empire You will have noted the importance given, in the novel, to material clues, like the button torn from Moncin's jacket. Thanks to the work and knowledge of Moers, Maigret can take up the trail of the killer. "Maigret handed him the button and Moers grimaced. "That's all?" "Yes." Moers turned it over and over in his fingers. "You want me to take it upstairs and examine it?" "I'll go with you." And so, let's do as Maigret, and, following him, climb to the attics of the Palais de Justice... complete article original French Murielle Wenger

Real pré-salé meat? 1/23/08 – In Maigret and the Pickpocket (chapter 4) the proprietor of the restaurant offers Maigret a lamb dish. His description of this dish is that it is "real pré-salé meat". I can't find this term in my French dictionary and online translators baulk at the "pré" whilst translating the "salé" to mean "salty". Can someone translate this into an English idiom? Cheers! Keith My dictionary shows pré-salé as "[salt meadow] lamb". (A salt meadow is a meadow near the sea.) <ST>

Real pré-salé meat? 1/24/08 – Regarding Keith's question, "Agneau pré-salé" are lambs raised in meadows not far from the sea. Many are raised in the Mont Saint-Michel Bay between Normandy and Brittany. The meadow is covered by sea water and that brings iodine to the lamb dish. As written, they are difficult to find outside of the main production area. See the Wikipedia article. Regards, Jérôme

Real pré-salé meat 1/28/08 – Many thanks for the answer to the salt-meadow lamb question. Seriously excited about the issue of the Rupert Davies DVDs! Let's hope it comes to fruition. Cheers! Keith

Maigret’s Paris 1/29/08 – New Year greetings from ‘Down Under’ to all the dedicated Maigretophiles who visit this web site. Special greetings to Murielle, Jerome and other regular contributors; and of course Steven. I have had the intention for some time to post some photos I took in May 2005 on a visit to Paris with my wife. We stayed at the Hotel Beausejour Montmartre in Rue Lecluse (nr Place de Cliché) and tramped the streets of the quarter armed with the article “In the Footsteps of Chief Superintendent Jules Maigret in Montmartre”, by Joe Richards. I can’t compete with Joe’s excellent photos. I was grateful for his learned text. Great news about the Rupert Davies DVD’s. I am enjoying the Bruno Cremer Maigret series at present. All this talk of salty lamb. Don’t forget Gruyère Salé, the delicious salty hard cheese from Switzerland. (click on an image to enlarge) To begin, the notorious 67 Rue Caulaincourt. An agreeable street today with cafes and decent beer. Place Constantin-Pecquer and statue of Eugene Carriere. Together with modern Parisian vehicular transport. It is of course very easy to get around Paris with the Metro and public maps everywhere; and Montmartre is a delight for the stroller. Rue Lepic, with the Moulin de la Galette prominent over the trees. I had not realised that this was the same place as depicted in a famous Renoir, which one can see at the Musee de Orsay. Vital food stores on the Rue Lepic: a wonderful cheese shop, next to a chocolate shop, next to a butchery. Pure pleasure. The service was charming. We do have a rudimentary grasp of French, which appears to be appreciated. Just making the effort is very worthwhile. This well dressed stranger with a pipe visiting the Quai des Orfevres, which I understand is no longer police headquarters. Here he is again at a bookstall on the bank of the Seine, with a Simenon, Maigret paperback. The bookseller (a little old lady, straight out of Maigret) told me this author was quite popular (“pas mal”). I agreed, and bought a couple. This magnificent cockerill, presiding at the bird market not far from the Police Headquarters. I can’t recall a bird like this one in the Maigret corpus. I’m sure someone will put me right. Don Greenfield Wellington, NZ

Peter Foord's Simenon Collection to be Auctioned 1/31/08 – Peter Foord's large collection of Simenon books is going to be sold. The books will be sold by auction on the 26th February by G E Sworder and Sons at their auction rooms in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex. Their website is at www.sworder.co.uk Martin and Christine Lock

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