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gsanta1 's review for:
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief
by Maurice Leblanc
DID NOT FINISH
My dad really likes Lupin. He told me he thinks Lupin is better than Holmes so I wanted to read some and see for myself.
Lupin is certainly interesting.
Instead of a Detective, we have a master Thief as the protagonist. We have a detective but he plays the foolish adversary.
The stories are mostly Lupin doing something difficult, like breaking out of prison, and then having it explained to us at the end.
It reminded of a magic show. I think it’s because every story is a sleight of hand.
Like a lot of early crime stories, it has no characterization. I don’t know anything about any of the people in the stories.
I think I still prefer Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes has the gothic ambiance and it has higher stakes.
I also didn’t like the cat and mouse aspect of this book.
However, I found the denouement in these stories better then Sherlock Holmes.
(It also didn’t make sense when Lupin poisoned himself for three months to disfigure himself enough to escape identification. How could he find all the different chemicals while in prison?)
I look back at Poe’s The Purloined Letter and think “ah, that was a good piece of writing.”
Lupin is certainly interesting.
Instead of a Detective, we have a master Thief as the protagonist. We have a detective but he plays the foolish adversary.
The stories are mostly Lupin doing something difficult, like breaking out of prison, and then having it explained to us at the end.
It reminded of a magic show. I think it’s because every story is a sleight of hand.
Like a lot of early crime stories, it has no characterization. I don’t know anything about any of the people in the stories.
I think I still prefer Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes has the gothic ambiance and it has higher stakes.
I also didn’t like the cat and mouse aspect of this book.
However, I found the denouement in these stories better then Sherlock Holmes.
(It also didn’t make sense when Lupin poisoned himself for three months to disfigure himself enough to escape identification. How could he find all the different chemicals while in prison?)
I look back at Poe’s The Purloined Letter and think “ah, that was a good piece of writing.”