Scan barcode
A review by trin
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
3.0
As a romance and an adventure, this is great fun. They layers of deception and misunderstanding between Percy and Marguerite, even if all secrets are known at the outset to the reader, are delightful to unpick, with some very real tension, as there is also between the Pimpernel and his arch-rival, Chauvelin. Without this story I doubt we'd have Zorro, or Lord Peter Wimsey, or Francis Crawford of Lymond. Many of my favorite guys!
Minus a star, however, for Orczy's depictions of class and analyses thereof. The rich are all noble, the poor dirty, and while I don't in the least think the French Revolution was pure and good (hey! maybe it's gone too far if you're killing kids!), like...uh, they had a point. Truly shocking that a baroness would get this so wrong, lol.
Minus a star, also, I'm afraid, for the antisemitism. When I saw there was a chapter titled "The Jew," I can't even begin to describe how my heart sank. I had to take a break partway through reading this chapter to cook and realized as I was chopping some garlic that I was deeply anxious, as if something horrible was looming over me; I realized it was the thought of going back and seeing just how bad it would be.
It's pretty bad!While no actual Jews appear on screen -- for reasons that are immediately obvious (I am a better spy than Chauvelin) -- characters' attitudes certainly are, and while it is somewhat satisfying that Chauvelin ultimately loses partly because his antisemitism blinds him, the text never really refutes these. Can't say I love the Russian Roulette of classic literature and never knowing when, in a random fun adventure, I'm going to have my personhood attacked. It's a bummer. :(
Minus a star, however, for Orczy's depictions of class and analyses thereof. The rich are all noble, the poor dirty, and while I don't in the least think the French Revolution was pure and good (hey! maybe it's gone too far if you're killing kids!), like...uh, they had a point. Truly shocking that a baroness would get this so wrong, lol.
Minus a star, also, I'm afraid, for the antisemitism. When I saw there was a chapter titled "The Jew," I can't even begin to describe how my heart sank. I had to take a break partway through reading this chapter to cook and realized as I was chopping some garlic that I was deeply anxious, as if something horrible was looming over me; I realized it was the thought of going back and seeing just how bad it would be.
It's pretty bad!