Flou

I have already mentioned the Russ handbook of reference 2 at reference 3. Today I notice a connection with Maigret.

In the course of a discussion of the tricky interaction between what arrives at the eye and what is already in the brain, all that knowledge about how the world out there ought to be, which delivers the result to the visual field most of us know and love, in the chapter on human vision, Russ mentions a detective story by one Tony Hillerman, in which his Navajo detective, Joe Leaphorn, explains that, when looking for tracks, you must not look for anything in particular, because if you do that, you won't see the things that you're not looking for.

While Simenon, in 'Maigret et la Vieille Dame', writing rather before either Russ or Hillerman were active, in fact at just about the time that I was born, explains the Maigret secret, which does not sound that different. You wander about, talking to people, soaking up the atmosphere of the place. Almost trying not to think. Drifting into a state where everything is rather vague, or flou. Maybe helped along by large intake of nicotine and modest intake of alcohol. And when enough data has been soaked up in this way, without attempting to put any order onto it and resisting the temptation to chase any particular hare (or red herring), on a good day, a solution to the puzzle will emerge (rather as a torus emerges from staring at the block of random looking coloured dots in the intriguing figure 2.36 in Russ, the work of one Bela Julesz. See reference 6). A solution which you do chase down. And being Maigret, most days are good.

That is not to say that you don't do the regular police work: checking alibis and statements, checking financial and sentimental affairs, all that kind of stuff. But Maigret is sufficiently senior, that most of that can be left to subordinates. All the stuff which Morse says that Lewis is so good at.

An approach which may well work best when Maigret is working out in sticks, as he in this case. Out in some small seaside resort with its small and relatively closed world, not so far removed from the country house murders of Agatha Christie. Although, as I have mentioned before (at reference 5), I can't see her talking about this kind of thing.

All of which goes to my own interest in the ease with which one can slip into chase mode too soon. That you come up with the solution before you have enough information, and after that, one is only too apt only to take on information which fits with the solution you already think you have. I think the trick must lie in the timing; getting the right balance between soak and chase, between false positives and false negatives. Or put another way, learning to keep one's hunches, one's intuitions under control. Or, as is said often enough on ITV3: 'let's keep an open mind on this one'.

PS: Hillerton may not have been as big a cheese as Simenon was in his day, but he clearly did pretty well, with Leaphorn being his Maigret, as it were. See reference 4. Maybe I will give him a try - after Wilkie Collins that is, said in this week's NYRB to be the inventor of the modern detective story.

Reference 1: Maigret et la Vieille Dame - Simenon - 1949.

Reference 2: The Image Processing Handbook - John C. Russ - fifth edition (of seven), 2006.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/roseview.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hillerman.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/jules.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Julesz.