Georges Simenon

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (13 February 1903 – 4 September 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.

Simenon was born at 26 rue Léopold (now number 24) in Liège to Désiré Simenon and his wife Henriette Brüll. Désiré Simenon worked in an accounting office at an insurance company and had married Henriette in April 1902. Although Simenon was born on Friday 13 February 1903, superstition resulted in his birth being registered as having been on the 12th. This story of his birth is recounted at the beginning of his novel Pedigree.

The Simenon family traces its origins back to Belgian Limburg. Simenon could trace his line back to peasants living in the area since as early as 1580. His mother had origins from Limburg, the Netherlands and Germany while his father was of Walloon origin. One of his mother's most notorious ancestors was Gabriel Brühl, a criminal who preyed on Limburg from the 1720s until he was hanged in 1743. Later, Simenon would use Brühl as one of his many pen names.

In April 1905, two years after Simenon's birth, the family moved to 3 rue Pasteur (now 25 rue Georges Simenon) in Liège's Outremeuse neighbourhood. Simenon's brother Christian was born in September 1906 and eventually became their mother's favourite child, much to Simenon's chagrin. Later, in February 1911, the Simenons moved to 53 rue de la Loi, also in the Outremeuse. In this larger home, the Simenons were able to take in lodgers. Typical among them were apprentices and students of various nationalities, giving the young Simenon an important introduction to the wider world; this marked his novels, notably Pedigree and Le Locataire.

At the age of three, Simenon learned to read at the Saint-Julienne nursery school. Then, between 1908 and 1914, he attended the Institut Saint-André. In September 1914, shortly after the beginning of the First World War, he began his studies at the Collège Saint-Louis, a Jesuit high school.

In February 1917, the Simenon family moved to a former post office building in the Amercoeur neighbourhood. June 1919 saw another move, this time to the rue de l'Enseignement, again back in the Outremeuse neighbourhood.

Using his father's heart condition as a pretext, Simenon decided to put an end to his studies in June 1918, not even taking the Collège Saint-Louis' year-end exams. He subsequently worked a number of very short-term odd jobs.

In January 1919, the 15-year-old Simenon took a job at the Gazette de Liège, a newspaper edited by Joseph Demarteau. While Simenon's own beat only covered unimportant human interest stories, it afforded him an opportunity to explore the seamier side of the city, including politics, bars, and cheap hotels but also crime, police investigations and lectures on police technique by the criminologist Edmond Locard. Simenon's experience at the Gazette also taught him the art of quick editing. He wrote more than 150 articles under the pen name "G. Sim." He began submitting stories to Le Matin in the early 1920s. ...

Source: Article "Georges Simenon" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

The INTP personality type is intellectually curious and enjoys the more complex and theoretical problems, often for their own sake. Practical application has little interest for them, preferring to identify the solutions and then leave someone else to plan the work. They do however like things done properly and have very high standards. The routine, the detail bores them rigid and they will put off completing tasks, especially those that they see as unnecessary, preferring to 'blitz' them nearer the deadline. For the INTP follow-through does not come naturally, and completion will be via huge bursts of energy at the last minute but it will be done.

INTPs are extremely independent, of thought and action, and will value trait that in others. They can play the team game, but then prefer to go and get on with it, working in sporadic bursts of energy. Although quite deep and private, the INTP can at times seem totally outspoken because of their directness of communication and economy of words. The INTP is blunt, to the point and would not be easily side-tracked. Other people may assume that the INTP says very little, but this is only when there is nothing to say. General chitchat or conversations with no purpose will bore them so they prefer to speak only about areas that interest them, things they consider important. There is an expedient side to the INTP character, and this means they will focus on their own interests and will immerse themselves in such activities. Their boredom threshold is low and once the activity becomes mundane, maintenance or about follow-through, the INTP will once again disappear into their own world of ideas, possibilities and the complex.

They do however dislike sloppy work or sloppy thinking or illogical arguments or poor enunciation. They are flexible, do not like to be fenced in but have very high standards. INTPs are cynical individuals, (they prefer to call themselves ‘realists!’), intensely logical, analytical and detached, they believe solely in the power of logic, finding it difficult to express or even to ‘do’ emotions. Rarely intimidated the INTP will work through even the most apparently momentous problems with the same logical demeanour and furrowed brow that they would display when doing Sudoku. Any problem is simply a problem and it will have a logical answer. Try and flatter an INTP and they will become very suspicious. Give an INTP a compliment and they’ll think, ‘what’s s/he after!’ They are very good at evaluating, seeing the flaws in any argument or the downside in any situation and their cup is always half empty, never half full.

INTPs are thoughtful, analytical characters. They may disappear so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them, and the people in it. Precise, formal and proper, INTPs will often correct others should any shade of meaning be even slightly ambiguous. They may not want to do ‘it,’ but if it must be done then it should, indeed must, be done properly, according to agreed protocols, the INTP protocols.

The INTP is so independent of thought and in vehemently arguing a point they may very well be trying to convince themselves as much as the opposition. Getting to the heart of 'the truth' is extremely important to the INTP but will be as far as they will probably want to take it. Knowing ‘the truth,’ knowing they can back it up with logic is enough for them and they do not feel any need to prove it or to go further and demonstrate it to other people, indeed that would not be the INTP way.

Knowing they are right is all the INTP needs and then they can turn their thoughts privately to other logical, and interesting, activities. One INTP friend will only have lunch if it means sitting down with a ‘proper’ knife and fork, with ‘proper’ being the key word for him, obsessed with the ‘right’ ways of doing things and ‘right’ can be defined as what the INTP has concluded after much logical deliberation.