Georges Simenon's Realistic Twist and the Meaning of Renato Olivieri's Tribute to Maigret (or of the Change from Detective Story to Social Thriller)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v9i6.1915Keywords:
detective fiction, thriller, mystery novel, noir, realism, Simenon.Abstract
This essay is composed of two parts. The first identifies two key moments in the development of a very popular genre: detective fiction. Permeated by the relevance of social phenomena (order and conflict, law and crime) this genre takes on a properly realistic dimension when it combines the formal rigour of the investigative method (whose archetype is Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes) with the acknowledgement of aspects beyond the detective’s deductions, to consider society and its complexity as the true protagonists of the storytelling. This has paramount consequences on both narrative structure and plot, but also on the social philosophy of detective fiction, inaugurating a reflection on realism in social thrillers (masterfully represented by Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret). In the second, shorter part, the analysis focuses on a fragment of Renato Olivier’s work, allowing for a comparison of the two key moments in the genre related to the investigative method and to understand its development following literary realism.References
. Essays (books, chapters and articles)
Alexander, J. 2012Trauma. A Social Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Berger, P. and Kellner, H. 1964 Marriage and the Construction of Reality, in «Diogenes», 1964, pp. 1-24.
Berger, P. and Luckmann, Th. 1966 The Social Construction of Reality, New York, Doubleday & Co.
Bhaskar, R. 1979 The Possibility of Naturalism, Harvester, Hemel Hempsted.
Boltanski, L. 2009 Énigmes et complots. Une enquête à propos d’enquêtes, Paris, Gallimard.
Boltanski, L. 2011 Uno studio in noir, in «Sociologia e Politiche Sociali», 22, 2, 2019 (forthcoming).
Bourdieu, P. 1998 La domination masculine, Paris, Éditions du Seuil.
Cavell, S. 1981 The Pursuit of Happiness: the Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Corcuff, P. 2013 Polars, philosophie et critique sociale, Paris, Textuel.
Corcuff, P. 2019 Critica sociale, fratture identitarie e politiche dell’apertura dell’essere nelle culture quotidiane contemporanee, in «Sociologia e Politiche Sociali», 22, 2, 2019 (forthcoming).
D’Agostini, F. 1999 L’anomalia paradigmatica. Breve storia della filosofia del Novecento, Torino, Einaudi.
Damasio, A. 2003 Looking for Spinoza. Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain.
Doninelli, L. 2002 Prefazione, in G. Scerbanenco, Venere privata, Milan, Garzanti.
Durkheim, E. 1893 De la division du travail sociale, Paris, Alcan, trad. it. La divisione del lavoro sociale, Milan, Comunità, 1962.
Elder-Vass, D. 2010 The Causal Power of Social Structures. Emergence, Structure and Agency, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Elder-Vass, D. 2012 The Reality of Social Construction, Cambridge University Press.
Ferraris, M. 2004 Goodbye Kant!, Milan, Bompiani.
Ferraris, M. 2012a Manifesto del nuovo realismo, Roma-Bari Laterza.
Foucault, M. 1994 La vie des hommes infâmes, in Dits et écrits, vol. III, Paris, Gallimard.
Goffman, E. 1963 Stigma. Notes on the Management of the Spoiled Identity; New York, Simon & Schuster.
Griswold, W. 1994 Culture and Society in a Changing World, Thousand Oaks, Calif., Pine Forge Press.
Havveyda 1956 Petite histoire du roman policier, Paris, Editions du Pavillon.
Kaufmann, J. 2008 L’étrange histoire de l’amour heureux, Paris, Armand Colin.
Khun, Th. 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press.
Kracauer, S. 1925 Der Detektiv-Roman. Ein philosophischer Traktat.; Italian translation Il romanzo poliziesco, Milan, SE, 2011.
Illouz, E. 2014 Hard-Core Romance: “Fifty Shades of Grey”, Best-Sellers, and Society, Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press.
Laugier, S. 2014 Cultura popolare e immaginario morale, in «Sociologia e Politiche Sociali», 22, 2, 2019.
Lyotard, J. 1979 La condition postmoderne, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit.
Mandel, O. 1989 Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story, University of Minnesota Press
Martignani, L. 2015 Preferisco ignorare Bukowski! La costruzione sociale dell’amore tra conversazione privata e criterio politico nell’opera di Jean-Claude Kaufmann. Postfazione a Per una storia politica e sociale dell’amore, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2015, pp. 205-238.
Martignani, L. 2016 The Place of Construction in Sociological Realism, in «Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour», 2016, 46, pp. 517-536.
Martignani, L. 2018 Realismo sovversivo. Sociologia del genere noir, Verona, Ombre corte.
Oliva, C. 2003 Storia sociale del giallo, Lugano, Todaro Editore.
Parsons, T. and Bales, R. F. 1955 Family, Socialization and Interaction Process, Glencoe, The Free Press.
Pistelli, M. 2006 Un secolo in giallo. Storia del poliziesco italiano, Rome, Donzelli.
Polillo, M. 1980 Introduzione a G. Simenon, Maigret e la moglie, Milan, Mondadori, 1980.
Rorty, R. 1979 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press.
Scerbanenco, C. 2018 Il fabbricante di storie. Vita di Giorgio Scerbanenco, Milan, La nave di Teseo.
Schudson, M. 1989 How Culture Works: Perspectives from Media Studies on the Efficacy of Symbols, in «Theory and Society», 18, 2, 1989, pp. 153-180.
Sciascia, L. 1954 Il metodo Maigret, Milan, Adelphi (ed. 2018).
Searle, J. 1995 The Construction of Social Reality, New York, Free Press.
Spinoza, B. 1988 Etica e trattato teologico-politica, Torino, Utet.
Tedeschi, A. and Negretti, A. 1977 Introduzione a E. McBain, 87° Distretto: Corpo a corpo con la mala, Milan, Mondadori, 1977.
Vattimo, G. 2012 Della realtà, Milan, Garzanti.
Vattimo, G. e Rovatti, P. (eds) 1983 Il pensiero debole, Milan, Feltrinelli.
Weber, M. 1919 Politik als Beruf; trad. it. La politica come professione, Torino, Einaudi, 2004.
Weber, M. 1920 Zwischenbetrachtung. Theorie der Stufen und Richtungen religiöser Weltablehnung, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. I, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1920, pp. 536-73; Italian translation Considerazioni intermedie, in Sociologia delle religioni, vol. I Torino, UTET, 1988; translated and edited by Alessandro Ferrara, Rome, Armando, 1998 (V reprint 2006).
Zizek, S. 2009 Politica della vergogna, Milan, Nottetempo.
Novels
Conan Doyle, A. 1887 A Study in Scarlet, London, Ward Lock & Co.
Olivieri, R. 1978 Il caso Kodra, Milan, Mondadori.
Scerbanenco, G. 1966 Venere privata, Milan, Garzanti.
Scerbanenco, G. 1966 Traditori di tutti, Milan, Garzanti.
Scerbanenco, G. 1968 I ragazzi del massacro, Milan, Garzanti.
Scerbanenco, G. 1969 I milanesi ammazzano al sabato, Milan, Garzanti.
Simenon, G. 1963 La chambre bleue, Paris, Presses de la Cité; English translation The Blue Room, London, Penguin Classics, 2005.
Simenon, G. 1968 Maigret hésite, Paris, Presses de la Cité; English translation Maigret hesitates, London, Penguin Classics, 2019.
Simenon, G. 1980 Maigret e la moglie, Milano, Mondadori (Le fou de Bergerac (1932; Italian translation Il pazzo di Bergerac); L’amoreux de Madame Maigret (1944; Italian translation L’innamorato della signora Maigret); L’amie de Madame Maigret (1950; Italian translation L’amica della signora Maigret); Un Noël de Maigret (1951; Italian translation Un Natale di Maigret).
De Angelis, A. 1930 Il banchiere assassinato, Milan, Mondadori (new edition Milan, Castelvecchi, 2004).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
