Editions Pocket has reissued the works of the legendary French detective in pocket format. An opportunity to discover some of these colorful and saucy detective stories. The proof is in the pudding, with a reissue of the volume Antifreeze in the calbuteus.
In recent years, authors of thrillers and detective novels have been on a roll: a screen adaptation of a Maigret novel, the publication of The Alaska Sanders case by Joël Dicker (which, despite its huge sales, is said to be very boring)... You can see this for yourself when strolling through the bookshops: new detective novels and the shelves dedicated to this genre are well-stocked. It was in a bookshop (and quite recently) that the author of these lines became acquainted with a detective legend, Commissaire San-Antonio, known as «Sana» or «San-A» to fans.
A successful series
A detective series written by the French writer Frédéric Dard, who died in 2000 at his home in Bonnefontaine, in the canton of Fribourg, the «San-Antonio» series symbolizes an astonishing publishing success, with no fewer than 175 volumes (not counting the off-series) spanning some five decades (the first tome Settle his account was published in 1949 and the last, Killer cereals, posthumously in 2001).
«San-Antonio is station kiosk literature. For me, going the distance means being able to be read entirely on the Paris-Lyon route.» (Frédéric Dard, in the large-format Frédéric Dard, délit d'imagination, devoted to him by RTS).
Every detective series has its Commissioner. There's something for everyone: from the California playboy in the convertible to the moody Swedish inspector (with his three-day beard), not forgetting Commissaire Maigret, there's something for everyone. But if, like the author of these lines, you're not necessarily charmed by moody commissaires and, let's face it, you're more looking for a good laugh than a fine psychological analysis of the characters, then San-Antonio is for you. Hence the fact that the author considered his stories ideal for reading on the TGV between Paris and Lyon.
San-Antonio, a cultured, skilful man with a taste for good food and pleasure, and a macho streak, is entrusted with a variety of missions over the course of several volumes, ranging from espionage to murder investigations, kidnappings and the fight against secret societies. These missions are, of course, always successful, and the author recounts them with humor and other sauciness.
San-Antonio in Namibia
Antifreeze in the calbuteus, number 167 of the collection, originally published in 1996, and its cover illustration by Johann Sfar are a real eye-catcher. As it says on the back cover, «this book is all about chicorne». Proof that Frédéric Dard, an author who wrote for the average person, was happy to incorporate slang, anglicisms, puns and wordplay into the French superintendent's investigations.
«Anxious to replace his shattered workforce, Nautik Toutanski instructed various correspondents with whom he was in contact to find him new recruits. He was disappointed to learn that this laudable profession was being lost. All he managed to get from an African “impressario” was three men with a decent record of service. It is the adventure of these three individuals that we propose to relate.»
This volume sees San-Antonio and his two sidekicks, Alexandre-Benoît dit Bérurier, and Jérémie Blanc, a police inspector of Senegalese origin, kidnap an island dictator by the name of Nautik Toutanski (note the burlesque inventiveness of the name). Nautik Toutanski is responsible for the disappearance of several caissons of uranium in Namibia, and the trio of detectives are tasked with tracking down this mysterious cargo. Following Toutanski's confession and rapid death, the detectives fly to Namibia, where they meet a nymphomaniac German guide, Fräulein Gretta Dübitsch, who helps them with the investigation.
The investigation is easy to read: the chapters are short and alternate between the narrative, San-Antonio's reflections («we drove through a nature where the square meter of land must be worth less than in Times Square») and a few, sometimes incongruous, dialogues between the protagonists. In short, Frédéric Dard's stories are laugh-out-loud funny.
«I offer her another cup of caoua, but she refuses:
- I don't mean to be rude: I think it tastes funny.
- There's nothing more pernicious than coffee," decrees His paunchy Majesty. If I listened to myself, I'd only drink my wife's coffee. I don't mean to speak ill of Berthe, but she's doing the
a juice of the world and its periphery.»
Why (re)read San-Antonio?
The «San-Antonio» series is a little dated for our times, and for certain subjects. But not totally. Readers are still hungry for adventure, action and thrills. And perhaps that's why Pocket has decided to reissue Dard's works in small, single-volume editions.
In addition to the author's style, what made the series so successful, and remains so today, is the writer's ability to insert a few reflections and philosophical digressions (which, it must be admitted, seem quite unsuited to the detective genre) into his stories, giving them a touch of humanity. And for readers, food for thought.
«I've definitely met some strange creatures in the course of my career. It's worth noting that you'll come across them everywhere. You rub shoulders with them without realizing it. They pass by, sinoquized to the hilt, and you pay them no mind. It's only when you take a break from them that you discover the spider weaving its web in their brain, between the hypothalamus and the choroid plexus. In the long run, it doesn't mean a thing: one jobastre more or less, and that's it for the final rendering. We end up giving our uniform back to the earth that produced us.»
Write to the author: ivan.garcia@leregardlibre.com
Header image: © Photo San-Antonio
Frédéric Dard / San-Antonio
Antifreeze in the calbuteus
Editions Pocket
2022 [1996]
238 pages
French 
German 
English