Arsène Lupin is what I like to call a black-hole character. The very fabric of spacetime bends to suit his will4.5
"Et ce fut cela, de par ma volonté."
Arsène Lupin is what I like to call a black-hole character. The very fabric of spacetime bends to suit his will. That is just the way his fictional universe works. Detective fiction, too, seen from a certain perspective, relies on the fact that detectives are black-hole characters: the normal view is that the detective uncovers a hidden past, but I think it may be equally stimulating to also put it in different terms, and say that he or she weaves a story in the present, inventing a verisimilar tale on the basis of the clues at their disposal, and that story, de par leur volonté, creates the truth of what happened. Hence, the infallibility of Holmes, of Poirot, of Miss Marple, of Nero Wolfe, of Columbo...
Lupin's stories, according to what the popular imagination makes Lupin out to be, should be the opposite of a detective story. In actual fact--at least, this is the case for the stories contained in this volume, that is, the first Lupin stories published by Leblanc--they are closer to that model than one would expect. Lupin's deductive feats have nothing to envy to those of Holmes (although the latter enjoys listening to himself much more), and the success of his felonies often relies on his solving riddles, puzzles, and even other crimes.
But Lupin, unlike any detective that I can think of, except maybe, though in a different way, Christie's Mr Quin, is a phantasm. The only times he really exists is when he takes on a different identity in order to mingle with true people in the real world. The rest of the time, when he acts as what he really is--the criminal mastermind--he is only an idea, a name. He knows of this paradoxical incorporeality of his, too: and he both revels in it and is saddened by it. This combination of euphoria and melancholy proves irresistible for the reader, or at least it did in my case.
What else can I say? I fell in love with this character, and I fell in love with Leblanc's ability. He may not have been the most refined of writers, but there isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that he was exactly the writer that this character needed. (In the third story, "L'evasion d'Arsène Lupin," in the space of a single page Leblanc is able to go from a passage worthy of a psychological novel or story à la Poe, with Ganimard on the brink of madness in front of Lupin's unexpected transformation, to Lupin incapacitating Ganimard with a jujitsu move. And somehow, this improbable and contradictory mosaic of cheap spy-thriller tricks and psychological anguish not only doesn't strike as ridiculous, but manages to give more character to the whole. I'm oh so in love.) I will definitely be reading the rest of the series as soon as I can....more
"Là, je fus envahi par un scrupule saugrenu. Moi, un homme, devais-je vraiment recourir à de telle ruses pour berner un singe? La seule conduite digne"Là, je fus envahi par un scrupule saugrenu. Moi, un homme, devais-je vraiment recourir à de telle ruses pour berner un singe? La seule conduite digne de ma condition n'était-elle pas de me lever, de marcher vers l'animal et de le corriger à coups de bâton?"
Ulysse Mérou is one of the most unlikable protagonists I have ever had the fortune (yes, fortune) of encountering. The reason why La planète des singes (in English Planet of the Apes, the novel that gave rise to the famous franchise) works so well and what makes it such an extraordinary literary artefact is precisely the hypocrisy and contemptuousness of this character, which forces the reader to confront fully the paradoxes and perhaps irresolvable contradictions of Ulysse's improbable situation.
This novel was originally written in 1963, which is not too long ago after all, but still, I'm somewhat hesitant to recognize the unambiguous intention, on Boulle's part, to make Ulysse Mérou as unpleasant as he comes off today: his complacency and unchallenged sense of superiority are traits which modern-day fictional heroes don't share anymore--not intentionally, anyway. I loved this incompatibility, this feeling that the book had somehow escaped the plan that its author had (probably) intended for it and turned itself into something different and new, something that, miraculously, has been able to make of an apparent flaw its greatest strength. For me, La planéte des singes is the textbook definition of aging like a fine wine....more
"Je n'avais à moi que ma pensée, et je m'indignais qu'on pût me la ravir ou me la surprendre contre ma volonté.... dès ce moment, ma façon de pense4.5
"Je n'avais à moi que ma pensée, et je m'indignais qu'on pût me la ravir ou me la surprendre contre ma volonté.... dès ce moment, ma façon de penser fut pour moi seule."
"My thoughts were the only things that belonged to me and I felt indignant that someone might snatch them from me or detect them against my will.... From that time onward, I was in complete command of my thoughts." (Translation by Douglas Parmée, Oxford University Press)
What is absolutely stunning about this epistolary novel is Laclos's skill in rendering the uniqueness of each of his characters solely through their letters. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that it would be possible, for someone who has read the book, to open it on a random page and identify the character who is writing even without relying on textual indications such as the headings specifying who is writing to whom, or references and information which can be known only to certain characters. Not only that, but there is also a perceptible difference in the discourse of each of these characters according to the person they are speaking to. To complicate things further, the relationships between the characters, obviously, evolve through the narrative, which reflects on the tones they use with each other. As one of the characters writes, "une Lettre est le portrait de l'âme. Elle... se prête à tous nos mouvements" ("a letter is the portrait of the soul... it lends itself to all our emotions"), and Laclos is a master in exploiting this fact. His masterful construction of these 'levels of impersonification' gives to the characters and their story a life-like quality which is almost eerie in its perfection, not to mention the engaging commentary it provides on the inherent human tendency (or practice?) to wear a different mask according to the social environment we're navigating or the people we're interacting with.
And, can I say it? I rooted for Madame de Marteuil. Elle est magnifique, and as far as I'm concerned, she is also the true protagonist of this novel. She is fantastically evil, of course, and in real life I'd want her safely locked away in a maximum-security prison with no means of external communication, but she is the life of this book, and hers is the perspective that is truly capable of revealing the deep-seated and disgusting hypocrisies of this social milieu.
And to conclude on a personal note, this is the first book I've read entirely in French and I'm very, very proud of myself, and fabulously happy that the book didn't turn out to be too difficult from the point of view of the language, or a bore from the point of view of the story. I'll admit that I was briefly bored at times reading some of the letters written by Cécile, Danceny, or la Presidentesse de Tourvel (often inane beyond comprehension), and for this reason it's not a perfect 5/5 rating, but I couldn't hope for a more thought-provoking and engaging read....more
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