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Michel Lebrun

Autor/a de Pleins feux sur Sylvie

45 obres 79 Membres 2 Ressenyes

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Inclou el nom: Lebrun Michel

Obres de Michel Lebrun

Pleins feux sur Sylvie (1969) 7 exemplars
Loubard et Pecuchet (1982) 5 exemplars
De val slaat dicht 3 exemplars
Spécial Michel Lebrun (1996) 3 exemplars
未亡人 3 exemplars
Les ogres (1990) 3 exemplars
Pousse au crime (1959) 2 exemplars
Autoroute (1993) 2 exemplars
Caveau de famille (2001) 2 exemplars
L'almanach Du Crime 1984 (1983) 1 exemplars

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I took a short train journey to Toulouse last Friday and got the chance to visit a couple of second hand bookshops which were quite different from each other. The first was Joseph Gibert near the Capitol, which was really a bookshop with some second hand books mixed amongst the new books on the shelves. All the books were in good condition and the only way you would notice the second hand stock was that it had a bright yellow label and a two euro reduction. I suppose the advantage is that you might find books that are out of print. I found two Geoges Simenon Maigret books published in 1951, but I had to work hard to get them as they were on the bottom shelf and I am not quite so agile as I used to be. Before catching the train home I had time to walk down to the river to find the Bouquiniste Brocanteur at the pont Neuf. This was the other kind of second hand bookshop where all the books are second hand. There were some areas and shelving named according to genre, but much of the stock was piled up in heaps on the floor which leant against the shelves, there was also plenty of cardboard boxes packed with books. No hope of finding anything you might be searching for, but a great place for browsing and it was there that I bought:

[Le Guide du Polar]: Histoire du Roman Policier Français by Michel Lebrun and J.P. Schweighaeuser.

Only when I saw the book did I realise I wanted a guide to french crime writing in the mid 20th century, which also supplied pocket histories of popular authors and their best work. This was published in 1987 and so by no means up to date, but was perfect for me. The first chapter is pre-polar: that is before 1900 and a chance to drag in such famous names as Honoré de Balzac, Françoise Vidocq and of course Emile Zola. The second chapter covers Maurice LeBlanc and Arsène Lupin as well as the mystery story writer Gaston Leroux. There is an interesting chapter on the magazines that sprung up from 1910 onwards like Fantômas and the authors that supplied them with short stories or serials. The first real detective novels appeared after 1920 with authors such as Gabriel Bernard, André Armandy, H.G. Magog. It also saw the first 'collection' of books specialising in the genre "Masque" and paved the way for other publishing houses to follow suit.

!930-1940 was the golden age for detective novels; Georges Simenon of course but also Pierre Véry, Claude Aveline, Steeman, and Jacques Decrest. Authors tended to have more than a couple of pseudonyms and so it was useful to have the guide and google to sort them out. Typically crime writers also wrote film scripts and the book covers these as well. There is a section at the end of each chapter that gives pocket biographies of other less well known (today) authors. 1940-1950 was a more difficult period, certainly because of the war, but also because of the invasion of American crime fiction. Much energy was spent on making translations of American books. The collection called Série Noir was launched in 1945 and all the books apart from one, published between 1945-50 were translations. The American invasion continued between 1950-60, but french authors were beginning to make a comeback: Leo Malet in the 1940's with his Nestor Burma series, then Terry G Stewart pseudonym for Serge Arcuoët and Thomas Narcejac, Jean Sabran and Louis C. Thomas. However the genre was starting to widen under the influence of the American writers and Auguste Le Breton introduced his Rififi series, books with a noir edge whose criminals used gangster slang. 1960-70 saw an explosion of writing in the crime genre, which now encompassed espionage, suspense, humour, fantasy; really too much to get a handle on and plenty of new french writers in the genre including Michel Lebrun (co-author of this guide). There were plenty of authors that were new to me in this section and the final two sections that followed.

Le Guide du Polar cost me 6 euros, but I have the feeling it is going to cost me much more as I track down some of these writers. I feel quite a few lists shaping up. The book was probably only worth three stars when it appeared in 1987 as it is part of Guide Culturels Syros written for a popular market, but for me it was a 5 star read.
… (més)
1 vota
Marcat
baswood | Feb 20, 2023 |
Un petit polar de gare bien sympa, vraiment !

Ce grand prix de la littérature policière en 1956, raconte une histoire surprenante. L’assassinat de Sylvie Sarment, starlette de cinéma que tout le monde (j’exagère un peu) s’accuse d’avoir tué.

Des dialogues peut-être un poil vieillots (on écrit plus vraiment comme ça) pour un polar très cinématographique
 
Marcat
noid.ch | Nov 12, 2022 |

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Obres
45
Membres
79
Popularitat
#226,897
Valoració
4.2
Ressenyes
2
ISBN
36
Llengües
3

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