Maigret and the Apparition

Rating:
Summary: Slendid evocation of painting's world
Review: As usually, Simenon creates a splendid atmosphere with Maigret.
It's a jubilation to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Dialogue heavy detecting by numbers
Review: This is the first Maigret novel I have read, although I have heard audio dramatisations of the stories and seen televisations. I was a little disappointed. Aware that Simenon produced a vast number of books, almost a production line of material, I did not have high expectations of its qualities. The novel did not transcend them.

The basic plot is simple: a police colleage of Maigret is shot. He is badly injured, his last words before slipping into unconsciousness relate to "an apparition". Maigret is brought into the case and investigates, initially as a controlling force, later through direct interviewing. The investigation leads Maigret into the heart of the Parisian art world, and a sordid world it is too.

Simenon's writing technique is to describe little. The plot is pushed forward by dialogue, and it is dialogue that accounts for the characterisation.

There is something to be said for this approach in certain stories, and in works by some writers the sparseness of description and revelation through dialogue becomes valuable. However, in such writers dialogue does not also bear the burden of progressing the story. The technique (as used by Carver, Kelman, et al) is most effective in stories where little happens. Alterntaively, it can be useful where there is clear first person narration. Sadly, here a lot happens, and the novel is in the third person. The technique is functional at best.

The characterisation appears to be perfunctory, although the reviewer accepts that increased familiarity with the characters in a series of novels inevitably increases the depth of characterisation - and as this is a first reading the subtler nuances of the characters may be missed.

Maigret himself and his wife are most fully drawn, and there are some charming side characters (including a voyeur who keeps watch over his neighbourhood noting the comings and goings from a Dutch art colllectors home; and the wealthy Ducth art collector himself).

In some ways the novel feels like a film treatment, and it is perhaps with actors filling the roles that the characters would take on a little vitality.

This book was not for me, but in its favour it was quickly read. Perhaps the best of Simenon lies elsewhere...

Rating:
Summary: Dialogue heavy detecting by numbers
Review: This is the first Maigret novel I have read, although I have heard audio dramatisations of the stories and seen televisations. I was a little disappointed. Aware that Simenon produced a vast number of books, almost a production line of material, I did not have high expectations of its qualities. The novel did not transcend them.

The basic plot is simple: a police colleage of Maigret is shot. He is badly injured, his last words before slipping into unconsciousness relate to "an apparition". Maigret is brought into the case and investigates, initially as a controlling force, later through direct interviewing. The investigation leads Maigret into the heart of the Parisian art world, and a sordid world it is too.

Simenon's writing technique is to describe little. The plot is pushed forward by dialogue, and it is dialogue that accounts for the characterisation.

There is something to be said for this approach in certain stories, and in works by some writers the sparseness of description and revelation through dialogue becomes valuable. However, in such writers dialogue does not also bear the burden of progressing the story. The technique (as used by Carver, Kelman, et al) is most effective in stories where little happens. Alterntaively, it can be useful where there is clear first person narration. Sadly, here a lot happens, and the novel is in the third person. The technique is functional at best.

The characterisation appears to be perfunctory, although the reviewer accepts that increased familiarity with the characters in a series of novels inevitably increases the depth of characterisation - and as this is a first reading the subtler nuances of the characters may be missed.

Maigret himself and his wife are most fully drawn, and there are some charming side characters (including a voyeur who keeps watch over his neighbourhood noting the comings and goings from a Dutch art colllectors home; and the wealthy Ducth art collector himself).

In some ways the novel feels like a film treatment, and it is perhaps with actors filling the roles that the characters would take on a little vitality.

This book was not for me, but in its favour it was quickly read. Perhaps the best of Simenon lies elsewhere...