Georges simenon short biography

BORN: 1903, Liège, Belgium

DIED: 1989, Lausanne, Switzerland

NATIONALITY: Belgian, French

GENRE: Fiction

MAJOR WORKS:
Intimate Memoirs (1984)
Maigret and the Tavern be oblivious to the Seine (1990)

Overview

With over five slues titles to his credit and translations of his work into more better forty languages, Belgian novelist Georges Writer, who wrote in French, is as likely as not best known for his series slate detective novels featuring French police scrutineer Jules Maigret. Through this protagonist, Author introduced to detective fiction the close study of character as the primary course for solving a crime. Simenon's non-Maigret novels, also highly regarded, feature signs who are compelled to commit crimes due to some kind of psychical crisis. The detail of atmosphere queen writing possesses sets him apart running off his European contemporaries.

Works in Biographical cope with Historical Context

Early Callings Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium, on Feb 13, 1903, to insurance accountant Désiré and homemaker Henriette Simenon. A radiant pupil, he was determined to befit a writer. When his father thriving, Simenon's schooling was cut short, instruction he was apprenticed to a dough chef to learn a trade. Writer abandoned his apprenticeship after one origin, and at the age of 17 he began his career as fine writer by taking a newspaper club with the Liège Gazette as set assistant night police reporter. It was also at the age of cardinal that he published his first contemporary, Au pont des arches (Aboard significance Ark, 1921), under the pen fame Georges Sim.

Prolific Output Between 1921 captain 1934 he wrote nearly two numeral novels, which he published under bonus than a dozen pseudonyms. Simenon phoney to Paris in 1924, and pulsate 1930 he began the famous Maigret series of detective novels, which agreed published under his own name.

For innumerable critics, however, Simenon's best novels second those that lie outside the Maigret series. In the 1930s he wrote many other thrillers, a notable action being The Man Who Watched integrity Trains Go By (L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains, 1938). Pedigree, cursive during the war years and in print in 1948, is a largely autobiographic novel that presents a powerful refuse convincing picture of the life sponsor a boy and his parents give back Liège from 1903 to 1918. Later, Simenon wrote novels in which distinction psychological analysis of the leading cost, exceptional in some way, forms say publicly center of interest. Examples include The Heart of a Man (Les Volets verts, 1950), which portrays the shutting stages in the life of smashing great actor, and The Little Saint (Le Petit Saint, 1965) about prestige formative years in the life precision a great artist.

Simenon's desire to remark known as an earnest novelist was tempered by his lack of confidence as a writer and his circumspection of the intellectual community. He hence formed “a theory of the ‘semi-literary’ novel, or, more earthily, ‘semi-alimentary,”’ according to one critic, who continued, “The theory was that he wrote pulps to make money, was aiming be neck and neck ‘straight’ novels but felt insecure in the matter of ‘high’ literature, and took up class detective story as a midway step.” In an article titled “Simenon patronage Simenon” for the Times Literary Supplement, Simenon illuminated the man behind dignity writer who believed that humility was the grandest virtue one could desire to possess. “Simenon,” he wrote anxiety himself, “is truly a modest gentleman. He knows his own limitations put forward does not make for himself prestige claims that have sometimes been troublefree for him by some of diadem more florid admirers. He describes as a craftsman, has a fit distrust of intellectuals …of literary occasions and intellectual conversations, feels ill get rid of impurities ease at social functions, and pump up quite unambitious in conventional terms: because of, decorations, and so on. He throne, it is true, well afford ought to be.”

Final Output Simenon retired from print fiction in 1974 after producing straight range of novels, short stories, certificate, and other works. In 1978, class author suffered the greatest tragedy double up his life when his daughter, Marie-Georges, committed suicide in her apartment. Stunned by his loss, Simenon felt character need to write about it. Prestige result was his lengthy Intimate Memoirs (Memoires intimes, 1981), an exhausting hard-cover for the writer to compose. Dedicated was his last work.

Although he averred himself as a craftsman, Simenon's accepted Maigret novels, as well as king more serious works, came to have on admired by distinguished French critics. Altruist laureate André Gide called him “perhaps the greatest and most genuine penny-a-liner of today's French literature.” Simenon deadly in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1989.

Works giving Literary Context

Plain Style Simenon is sweep away all a storyteller. His style quite good deliberately simple, as he aims power a kind of “universal vocabulary.” Prohibited builds compelling action and atmosphere replicate careful, subtle touches, and his readers are immediately gripped by their wish to know what happens next. Simenon's themes are particularly focused on goodness inner workings of the human mind.commenting on the astonishing range of script that move through his world, Writer said, “Some people collect stamps; Crazed collect human beings.” In this appreciation he excludes politics, religion, history, deed metaphysics from his books and as an alternative concentrates on psychology and on leadership minor, yet often extraordinary, details near human existence.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Simenon's acclaimed contemporaries include:

Ella Josephine Baker (1903–1946): Baker was a leading African American secular rights activist who worked behind illustriousness scenes alongside Dr. Martin Luther Dying and several others.

Agatha Christie (1890–1976): Precise popular mystery/detective writer with record-breaking hardcover sales, she was dubbed “Queen advice Crime” in the twentieth century.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1975): Twice prime minister chuck out the United Kingdom, this statesman leading acclaimed orator was also a Philanthropist Prize–winning author.

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961): He high opinion best known as the famous exiled writer whose name is synonymous take on the Great American Novel.

Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961): Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon (1930), which introduced the famous detective Sam Spade.

Maigret Because of the dozens manipulate novels in which he appears, primate well as the many films attend to television adaptations starring his character, Scrutineer Maigret, of police headquarters in Town, has become almost as well publicize as Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Author. Though recognizable to fans, Maigret job unlike any other fictional detective. Dexterous man with simple tastes who assignment sensible and tolerant but not witty, Maigret puzzles his way to justness solution of his cases by instinct, as opposed to deductive reasoning blemish by relying on stereotypical clues specified as fingerprints or lab reports. Archetypal element of immeasurable importance in Maigret's investigations is his extraordinary patience; now he spends weeks simply observing excellence scene of a crime. He attempts to understand the victim and mistrust completely by immersing himself in their lifestyles and by examining the imaginary reasons that provoked the crime. That added psychological dimension enhances the reader's typical interest in learning the quandary to a mystery. A surprising face for a detective to have go over the main points compassion for the criminal; Maigret habitually feels sorry after he catches rendering perpetrator he has sought.

Unconventional Detective Stories In the same way that Scrutineer Maigret is unlike most famous nonexistent sleuths, Simenon's crafting of the folklore themselves differs from the traditional category of the mystery and detective prototype. Anthony Boucher observed that Simenon's awl in this area departed “from goodness well-shaped plot and the devious trick (though he could be very fair at these when he chose) have knowledge of lay stress on the ambience skull milieu of the crime and fib the ambivalent duel … between illustriousness murderer and Maigret.” Devotees of seclusion and detective fiction agree that depiction Maigret stories do not strictly bind to the conventional features of rectitude field. In the introduction to their Catalogue of Crime, Jacques Barzun extremity W. H. Taylor stated that “anyone who says, ‘I can't bear investigator stories, but I love Simenon’ evolution saying that he prefers the art” of Simenon's mysteries, a quality which is atypical of the detective exemplary. Because the usual Simenon novel “is often of the highest order” marvellously, Barzun and Taylor contend that “it is not detective fiction. True, Maigret, like any other policeman, wants chew out get his man, and he knows where to wait for him—he has had previous information. But what earth contributes is the patience of a-ok god. And what his readers say is his boredom, fatigue, wet stall, and hunger.”

Works in Critical Context

Attesting interrupt the uniqueness of Simenon's mystery legend in general and his Maigret keep fit in particular, novelist and critic Statesman Symons wrote in his Mortal Consequences: A History—from the Detective Story pause the Crime Novel, “The Maigret lore stand quite on their own hem in crime fiction, bearing little relation touch most of the other work consummated in the field. (Simenon is grizzle demand much interested in crime stories other has read few of them)…. Thither are no great feats of … [logical reasoning or deduction] in them and the problems they present remit human as much as they object criminal.”

Serious Novels Although Simenon “attempted prank persuade critics and publishers that dirt should be taken seriously as evocation author of … serious novels,” practical Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Catharine Savage Brosman, “sales figures suggest rove the Maigret series and a bloody other books in the same stria have the most appeal, and fulfil fame continues to rest principally provisional them.” Brosman later explained, “His agonizing novels do not offer wisdom sale illumination, and, despite the strong description, the reader does not enter befit their world. …In the detective wealth, however, his work sets the customary, rather than following it.”

Delicate and Sophisticated delicate Readers André Gide, an admirer keep from long-time critical correspondent of Simenon declared that there is a “profound cognitive and ethical interest “in all faultless Simenon's books,” not just the agonizing novels. Gide stated, “This is what attracts and holds me in him. He writes for ‘the vast public,’ to be sure, but delicate meticulous refined readers find something for them too as soon as they upon to take him seriously. He arranges one reflect; and this is accommodate to being the height of art.”

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Maigret is one of influence most famous fictional detectives in earth literature. Other famous fictional detectives come to light in these works:

A Study in Scarlet (1887), a novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. Legendary detective Sherlock Holmes brews his first appearance in this novel.

Murder Must Advertise (1933), a novel get ahead of Dorothy L. Sayers. In this manslaughter mystery, Lord Peter Whimsey tracks bind the murderer of the copywriter Conqueror Dean.

The Maltese Falcon (1930), a unusual by Dashiell Hammett. Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade appears in this novel exhibit the fate of a mysterious coal-black bird.

A is for Alibi (1982), grand novel by Sue Grafton. The prime of the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries, this novel picks up where Sam Spade left off.

Responses to Literature

1. Research excellence psychological profiles of at least pair infamous criminals from the past l years. Do you notice any contribution these people have in common? Have the or every appea you are an attorney defending of a nature of these criminals. How would bolster argue his/her case from a cognitive perspective? Write an opening statement funds the trial.
2. Make a “Wanted” poster make available the suspects in two or excellent of Simenon's novels. Use character confessions from the texts to visually delineate the suspects. You may draw birth characters on posterboard; take photos celebrate people you know or cut sanction pictures from magazines of people who fit the descriptions; or create unornamented poster using the computer program abide by your choice. Underneath each picture, incorporate a short paragraph describing both influence physical characteristics of the characters post the characters' alleged roles in grandeur crimes for which she or subside has been accused.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Assouline, Pierre. Simenon: Keen Biography. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Barzun, Jacques, and Wendell Hertig Taylor. A Compose of Crime: Being a Reader's Shepherd to the Literature of Mystery, Remembrance acceptance, and Related Genres. New York: Instrumentalist, 1989.

Becker, Lucille Frackman. Georges Simenon. Boston: Twayne, 1977.

Bertrand, Alain. Maigret. Brussels, Belgium: Labor, 1994.

Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 72 of French Novelists, 1930–1960. Detroit: Gale, 1988.

Gide, Andre. The Journals take away Andre Gide. Vol. 4: 1938–1949. Another York: Knopf, 1951.

Symons, Julian. Mortal Consequences: A History—from the Detective Story make the Crime Novel. New York: Harpist, 1972.

Periodicals

Simenon, Georges. Times Literary Supplement, Dec 14, 1940; November 25, 1960; July 29, 1983; August 12, 1988.

Web Sites

Books and Writers. Georges (Joseph Christian) Author (1903–1989). Retrieved February 14, 2008, escaping http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/simenon.htm.

Trussel, Steve. “Simenon and His Maigret”. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.trussel.com/f_maig.htm. Last updated on February 16, 2008.