Inquest on Bouvet  

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L'Enterrement de Monsieur Bouvet (1950; English: The funeral of Mr Bouvet) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon. It was translated in English as Inquest on Bouvet and as The Burial of Monsieur Bouvet.

Contents

Summary

One morning in August, a small bourgeois man, Mr. Bouvet, dies suddenly, while leafing through the pictures of a bouquiniste on the banks of the Seine, not far from his apartment on the quai de la Tournelle. He is believed to be without family. The scene having been photographed by an American student, his portrait is spread by the press.

A woman introduced herself and recognizes the dead man as her husband, Samuel Marsh, an American citizen, whose whereabouts she had lost twenty years ago while he was working in a gold mine in Congo. The daughter of the deceased and her husband show up at the bedside of the dead man. A dispatch arrives from Antwerp: Marsh's former partner in Congo-Brazzaville, Joris Costermans, has proof that Marsh's identity is also false.

Inspector Beaupère's investigation leads to the discovery of the dead man's sister in the person of Mrs. Lair: his real name is Gaston Lamblot, the son of a family from Roubaix who, after starting his university studies, mysteriously disappeared. At the Judicial Identity Department, a file from 1897 shows that Lamblot was involved in a criminal case of settling accounts. Inspector Beaupère, continuing his research, finds a former prostitute, Mme Blanche, who lived with Lamblot, who frequented anarchists circles before World War I.

At the end of these setbacks, which delayed Mr. Bouvet's funeral to the great disappointment of his concierge, who had made all the arrangements, a new incident occurs: the arrest, in front of Mr. Bouvet's home where he had come to prowl, of a character whom the concierge recognizes and took to be a "Kraut" who, during the German occupation, had come to see Mr. Bouvet while he was hiding in the free zone. In reality, it is an agent of the Intelligence Service, O'Brien, who had heard of the agent Corsico, "the best paid spy of the 1914-1918 war", working for England in Spain: it was none other than Mr. Bouvet, whom O'Brien, knowing that he was wanted by the Gestapo, had seen fit to warn, even though he did not know him.

Mr. Bouvet can finally be buried, and will leave surrounded by those who found him.

== Particular aspects of the novel The story, which proceeds from the twists and turns brought about by the revelation of the successive identities of the peaceful Mr. Bouvet, gives us a glimpse of the life of the man. The underlying theme of marginality is that of the "old man's life". The underlying theme of marginality emerges sporadically and takes shape in the episodic figure of an old tramp nicknamed the Professor.

Work description

Space and time frame

Space

Paris (the quays of the Seine).

Time

Contemporary time, in the aftermath of World War II.

The characters

Main character

Gaston Lamblot, aka René Bouvet, aka Samuel Marsh, aka Corsico, married to an American woman. Father of a daughter whom he lost sight of after his household was abandoned in 1932. About 75 years old.

Other characters

  • Mrs. Jeanne, Mr. Bouvet's janitor
  • Mrs. Mary Marsh, his wife
  • Mrs. Lair, his sister
  • Miss Blanche, one of his former companions
  • Inspector Beaupère, of the French Judicial Police.


Adaptations

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Inquest on Bouvet" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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