The main differences
between the novels and the short stories
SIMENON SIMENON. DIMENSION SOCIALE
DANS LES NOUVELLES MAIGRET 1/ LE CONTEXTE
Les
principales différences entre les romans et les nouvelles
SIMENON SIMENON. LA DIMENSIONE SOCIALE
NEI RACCONTI DI MAIGRET 1/ IL CONTESTO
Le principali
differenze tra i romanzi e i racconti
In
a recent post, Murielle Wenger recounted the re-appearance of Maigret after an
absence of over two years in a series of short stories published in
‘Paris-Soir-Dimanche’ from 1936-1937. The most obvious contrast between these
Maigret inquiries and the 1931-1934 Fayard texts is that the former are short
stories while the latter are full-length novels, albeit not particularly long
ones. This change in form has important implications for Simenon’s approach. A
short story necessarily concentrates on a smaller group of characters and deals
with a shorter period of time. Inevitably, this allows less possibility for the
development of characters or for the creation of social context by the
accumulation of descriptive detail. It might, therefore, be thought that the
short story form is particularly appropriate for the deductive sub-genre of
crime fiction, focusing on an enigma to be solved rather than the social causes
of crimes.
Simenon
had already written a number of detective short stories in the period preceding
the publication of the first Maigret novels. These originally appeared in 1929
in Détective magazine under pseudonym
but were collected and republished under Simenon’s own name in 1932 as Les 13 Coupables, Les 13 Enigmes and Les 13
Mystères. The stories are short and have little by way of characterization
or social context. The methods of inquiry used in the ‘13’ series are much
closer to the short story model of Poe or Doyle than to what would become the
‘Maigret method’: the ‘detectives’, Froget, G-7 and Leborgne, act by reasoning
and deduction, unlike Maigret, one of whose catch-phrases is ‘I don’t think
anything’, and their cases are usually narrated in the first-person by an
admiring
The
impact of the change in format from novel to short story in the 1936-1937
Maigret narratives is immediately obvious in three areas: first, the duration
of the inquiries; secondly, the limitation of Maigret’s physical movements;
thirdly, the implications for Maigret’s method in solving cases. Typically, the
Fayard novels span a period of between five days and a week; most of the short
stories are restricted to a period of twenty four hours or less: the action of
‘La fenêtre ouverte’ occupies an
afternoon and an evening; ‘Rue Pigalle’ and ‘Les larmes de bougie’ a morning and an afternoon; ‘Jeumont,
51 minutes d’arrêt!’ a single day;
‘La péniche aux deux pendus’ a single evening and night. The novels often
involve Maigret in travel from one location to another; in contrast, most of
the short stories unfold in a single
setting: the lock at Coudray in ‘La péniche aux deux pendus’; an office
building in the rue Montmartre in ‘La fenêtre ouverte’; a nightclub in ‘Rue
Pigalle’; a railway coach in ‘Jeumont, 51 minutes d’arrêt!’.
The
short time span and the confinement of the commissaire to a single location
have important consequences for his method of working. In the novels, Maigret
works by what might be termed ‘progressive penetration’, gradually immersing
himself in the social context in which the crime has been committed. Although
Maigret does not spurn conventional clues or the use of techniques such as
forensics and handwriting analysis, his approach is based on atmosphere and
instinct and his sensitivity to people and places. In short, it is a social
rather than a logical or technical approach to police investigation.
In
the short stories there is
insufficient time for the deployment of such a method. Maigret relies much more
on conventional clues, such as an analysis of the seating
plan of the victim’s train compartment and the details of which passengers got
off and back on the train at different stations in ‘Jeumont, 51 minutes
d’arrêt!’. Logic and deduction play a much greater part in the resolution of
many of these cases than they do in the Fayard novels, as both Maigret and the
narrator note: ‘It’s like this! I’ve been looking for the only logical
explanation of the facts. It’s up to you to prove it or get somebody to
confess.’ (‘Jeumont, 51 minutes
d’arrêt!’/’Jeumont, 51 Minutes’ Stop!’); ’This was one of those rare cases
which might have been solved from diagrams and documents, by deduction and by
scientific police methods. Indeed, when Maigret left the Quai des Orfèvres he
was already acquainted with every detail.’ (‘Les larmes de bougie’/‘Death of a Woodlander’)
Does
this mean, therefore, that the social dimension of the Fayard Maigret texts is
absent and that a sensitivity to social class and environment plays no part in
Maigret’s approach in these stories? In
a subsequent post, I will contend that, despite the restrictions of the short
story format, social class continues to be an important feature of many of the
inquiries in that it often provides the background to the crime as well as
determining the behavior of the protagonists.
William
Alder
