Romans 1 - (Bibliotheque de la Pleiade)

by Georges Simenon

L'homme vrai, pour Simenon, c'est l'«homme nu», débarrassé de ses masques géographiques, historiques ou sociaux. Ce n'est pas à proprement parler un héros, il est «n'importe qui dans la rue», mais, placé dans une situation de crise, il va jusqu'au bout de lui-même et révèle ce qu'il a en lui d'essentiel. Le roman de Simenon n'est donc pas une chronique : c'est une crise. Resserrement de l'action, tension du récit, rupture, passage à l'acte. Le personnage joue son destin comme aux dés, la mort est souvent au rendez-vous, le lecteur est porté par l'envie de savoir. On voit tout ce que le roman-crise doit au roman policier, et l'on comprend ce qui fait l'unité de l' uvre. Simenon a trouvé dans ses propres récits d'énigme - les «Maigret» qui lui valurent ses premiers succès - de quoi structurer le genre auquel il tenait le plus, le «roman dur» (entendre : non-policier), qui est aussi un «roman pur» : dépourvu de considérations abstraites, composé de «mots matière», apte à saisir les êtres dans leur vérité. Il aura passé sa vie à parfaire et à épurer sa formule. Son extraordinaire productivité l'a parfois desservi. Les romans rassemblés dans la Pléiade - cinq «Maigret», seize «romans durs» - retracent sa trajectoire et manifestent la cohérence de son ambition.

Hardcover

Published May 18, 2013

About the author

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.

Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.

He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.

During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).

Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).

In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.