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kynan 's review for:
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar
by Maurice Leblanc
TL;DR: A burlesque of an inverted Sherlock Holmes. Fun and, although methodologies are of its time (1907), the stories themselves aren't dated.
TL: Arsène Lupin is an intelligent and ebullient front-man, I got the impression of a somewhat evolved grifter. The author hints at Robin Hood-esque qualities for his "hero", M. Lupin most definitely has a chivalrous side, indeed a stereotypically-French desire to uphold and defend the lady at all costs! However, when it comes down to the planning and execution of his various schemes and heists, if Lupin is desirous of some item he will go about obtaining it, regardless of the gender and station of its current owner.
Most of the stories in this book feature Lupin brazenly asserting his current nom de guerre to a victim, usually whilst overtly stating that, despite his features, he couldn't possibly be Arsène Lupin, before proceeding to rob them blind. The majority of Lupin's tricks work due to the glacial speed with which information moves at the time. It's quite possible to carry out a daring heist in a city, travel for 8 hours and be completely unknown and able to operate an identical heist in whatever city you touch-down in next. Lupin's trickery would not make a modern mystery, but since these are stories from the early 1900's, that matters not a whit! In fact, Mr Leblanc seems to go to great detail to pepper his tales with "modern" lawmakers tools and techniques, making several references to the Bertillon system which, it turns out, is where mugshots came from!
The book contains 9 short stories, beginning with "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin" which nicely sets the scene for the protagonists modus operandi, and the subsequent tales deal with Lupin's imprisonment and escape and ongoing entertainment of the French newspaper-reading public. It seems Lupin is not so much a single-operator, as the man in the limelight with a truly vast array of willing (and, given Lupin's nature, perhaps not so willing) assistants. This is neither bad nor good, but I bring it up just because of the comparison to Sherlock Holmes which must be made due to the fact that the final story involves the meeting of Lupin and Holmes (the latter who'd been around for 20 years at that stage). As a fan of Conan Doyle's detective, I was not well impressed with Leblanc's interpretation of Holmes and I don't think that the suggestion of Lupin being a far superior nemesis to Moriarty is apt, or valid.
That gripe aside, this is a fun selection of Boy's Own style short-stories.
TL: Arsène Lupin is an intelligent and ebullient front-man, I got the impression of a somewhat evolved grifter. The author hints at Robin Hood-esque qualities for his "hero", M. Lupin most definitely has a chivalrous side, indeed a stereotypically-French desire to uphold and defend the lady at all costs! However, when it comes down to the planning and execution of his various schemes and heists, if Lupin is desirous of some item he will go about obtaining it, regardless of the gender and station of its current owner.
Most of the stories in this book feature Lupin brazenly asserting his current nom de guerre to a victim, usually whilst overtly stating that, despite his features, he couldn't possibly be Arsène Lupin, before proceeding to rob them blind. The majority of Lupin's tricks work due to the glacial speed with which information moves at the time. It's quite possible to carry out a daring heist in a city, travel for 8 hours and be completely unknown and able to operate an identical heist in whatever city you touch-down in next. Lupin's trickery would not make a modern mystery, but since these are stories from the early 1900's, that matters not a whit! In fact, Mr Leblanc seems to go to great detail to pepper his tales with "modern" lawmakers tools and techniques, making several references to the Bertillon system which, it turns out, is where mugshots came from!
The book contains 9 short stories, beginning with "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin" which nicely sets the scene for the protagonists modus operandi, and the subsequent tales deal with Lupin's imprisonment and escape and ongoing entertainment of the French newspaper-reading public. It seems Lupin is not so much a single-operator, as the man in the limelight with a truly vast array of willing (and, given Lupin's nature, perhaps not so willing) assistants. This is neither bad nor good, but I bring it up just because of the comparison to Sherlock Holmes which must be made due to the fact that the final story involves the meeting of Lupin and Holmes (the latter who'd been around for 20 years at that stage). As a fan of Conan Doyle's detective, I was not well impressed with Leblanc's interpretation of Holmes and I don't think that the suggestion of Lupin being a far superior nemesis to Moriarty is apt, or valid.
That gripe aside, this is a fun selection of Boy's Own style short-stories.