So, who out there has heard of Arsene Lupin?
Is he a classic figure of literature who needs no introduction?
Or is he an obscure literary footnote that I need to explain beforehand?
I had never heard of Arsene Lupin until I was in my 20s. (...but then that's not saying much. There's a lot I haven't heard of.)
Arsene Lupin is a gentleman thief, master of disguise, and amateur detective who was created by French writer Maurice Leblanc, and appeared in several short stories and novels from 1905 to 1939.
He's somewhat known in the English speaking world among genre fans. But he's a household name in his native France.
And, interestingly enough, he's also a household name in Japan
In Japan, Arsene Lupin continues to be popular through the long running anime series Lupin III (W). Lupin III is a huge part of pop-culture in Japan, and in Japan you would see this character everywhere--on TV, on video games, on posters, on t-shirts. et cetera.
Eventually, after seeing this character everywhere for several years, I got curious enough to research his story, and through the magic of Wikipedia I found out that Lupin III was the grandson of Arsene Lupin, and then I found out that Arsene Lupin was a classic pulp fiction character from around the turn of the century.
My interest was piqued. As a fan of trashy pulp fiction, I was interested in the adventure stories of Arsene Lupin, gentleman thief.
As a literary snob, I thought that reading these books would help me in my never ending pursuit of becoming "a well-read man".
(According to my own private definite of a "classic", anything before World War I automatically qualifies. So all the pulp - fiction from the turn of the century gets grandfathered in.)
So I put Arsene Lupin's adventures on my long list of books to get around to someday.
...and then a couple months ago, I saw this omnibus collection in Saigon. And so I thought, "Yeah, why not?"
What is an Omnibus?
So...it turns out I don't know what an "Omnibus" is.
I assumed that since "omni" means "all" that an "omnibus" would be a complete collection.
"Great," I thought to myself. "I've just finished the complete Sherlock Holmes. Why not knock out the complete Arsene Lupin next?"
...only to get the book home, and discover that this volume contained only 4 books out of the 25 Arsene Lupin books.
And worse yet, it wasn't even the first 4 books.
The completist in me balked at jumping into the middle of the Arsene Lupin canon. I almost put this book aside in favor of waiting until I found the first book, and trying to read the Arsene Lupin canon in order.
But then, I thought to myself, "Self, realistically, when are you ever going to get around to reading the entire Arsene Lupin canon?"
My backlog of unread books is large enough as it is.
It was better, I eventually decided, to just read this collection now and get a small taste of Arsene Lupin now rather than wait for a more complete collection which I might never get around to.
And so, I jumped into this volume.
Clocking in at 739 pages, this Omnibus contains 4 separate books bound up in one:
Arsene Lupin Versus Homlock Shears (1908)
The Confessions of Arsene Lupin (1913)
The Golden Triangle (1918)
The Eight Strokes of the Clock (1923).
I'll say some words about each book in turn briefly.
Arsene Lupin Versus Homlock Shears
Way back when I first started researching Arsene Lupin on Wikipedia, one of the first things I discovered was the history of his rivalry with Sherlock Holmes. (The feud is infamous enough that I think it's one of the first things everyone learns about Arsene Lupin).
Maurice Leblanc first pitted Sherlock Holmes against Arsene Lupin in a 1906 short story. But when Arthur Conan Doyle got litigious, the name was changed to "Homlock Shears".
(In some editions, as in the picture above, it's "Herlock Sholmes".)
The publisher's introduction to my copy says: "This playing about with Holmes's name was fooling no one, but provided Leblanc with a loophole enabling him to carry on using the character."
Arsene Lupin Versus Homlock Shears, the first book in this collection, is itself a collection of two smaller books: The Fair-Haired Lady and The Jewish Lamp. Both of these stories pit the British detective against the French master-thief.
While the stories were all-right in-and-of themselves, in my opinion the publisher bungled by making this the first book in the collection.
Before the reader can enjoy the clash of titans that is Arsene Lupin versus Sherlock Holmes, the reader needs some time to get to know who Arsene Lupin is. Once the reader has gotten to know Arsene Lupin, and, more importantly, gotten to like Arsene Lupin, then they can be expected to cheer him on in his battle with Sherlock Holmes.
But to just throw the readers into this clash, without properly introducing Arsene Lupin first, was unfair of the publisher.
(This is especially true in the English translation, because most of the English-speaking world will already be familiar with Sherlock Holmes, but not Arsene Lupin).
I really wish the first book in this volume had been the first book in the Arsene Lupin canon: Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. That book would have established how Arsene Lupin gained so notorious a reputation. And it would established his rivalry with a French police inspector named Ganimard. It would even have established the start of his rivalry with Sherlock Holmes. (The first clash between Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes actually occurred in a short story, which was included in Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar.)
With none of that background, I had to just jump into the second book with these already established characters and relationships.
Following the plot wasn't particularly a problem, but I wasn't emotionally invested in Arsene Lupin. Instead, the character I was invested in was Sherlock Holmes. (I had, after all, just finished the Sherlock Holmes book the month previous.) Because these stories were written by Maurice Leblanc, I knew Arsene Lupin had to triumph. But Sherlock Holmes was the character I sympathized with.
It didn't help that both of the stories were written from Sherlock Holmes's perspective. How could I get to know and sympathize with Arsene Lupin when the stories unfolded entirely from Sherlock Holmes's point of view?
Also, and again, speaking as someone who just finished the Sherlock Holmes stories, I still had a lot of fondness for the character, and wasn't prepared for the crude caricature that Maurice Leblanc created.
"Maurice Leblanc! What have you done with Sherlock Holmes?" I cried out.
In the authentic Conan Doyle stories, Sherlock Holmes shied away from the spotlight. He offered his services to the police for the love of the mystery only, and didn't want any of the public credit when the mystery was solved.
In Maurice Leblanc's parody, Sherlock Holmes is obsessed with the potential glory of capturing Arsene Lupin, and gets increasingly angry when his efforts fail.
Even though I knew that reducing the normally stoic Sherlock Holmes to an angry wreck was supposed to be part of the fun of the parody, I could never fully let myself go along with it. I had grown to like this character too much. And I couldn't sympathize with Arsene Lupin, because I didn't know Arsene Lupin.
All that is to the negative.
On the positive side, these stories are very readable. And I can forgive everything if the story is readable.
So, I read through that book, and onto the next one in the collection:
The Confessions of Arsene Lupin
Now this was where I got hooked on Arsene Lupin. This was the kind of book that should have started off the collection.
It's ten short stories featuring Arsene Lupin.
These stories are a lot of fun.
Arsene Lupin is portrayed as being a genius of observation and deduction, just like Sherlock Holmes. But unlike Sherlock Holmes, Arsene Lupin leads a sort of duel career. Sometimes he will use his gifts to help him carry out the perfect robbery, and sometimes Arsene Lupin will use his gifts to help catch a killer, or help a damsel in distress.
Although he's one the wrong side of the law himself, Lupin is generally portrayed (with some inconsistencies) as being opposed to violence. And so he'll occasionally help the police apprehend a dangerous killer.
He's also extremely chivalrous, and goes out of his way to help all beautiful French girls who might be in any danger.
The variety in the amount of roles that Lupin is capable of playing helps to add an element of unpredictability to these short stories. When Lupin enters into the story, you're never sure if he's there to help, or to rob. And this increases the suspense of the narrative, and, in my humble opinion, even makes these stories more fun than the canonical Sherlock Holmes.
Maurice Leblanc also gets a lot more far-fetched, and a lot sillier, than Arthur Conan Doyle. But that also can be all part of the fun. You know the mystery is probably going to have some sort of ridiculous ending, but trying to guess in what way it will be ridiculous allows for a lot of reading pleasure.
The Golden Triangle
You've got to give Maurice Leblanc credit for mixing up his style. Almost all of the Sherlock Holmes stories follow the exact same format. But you never know what you're going to get with an Arsene Lupin story.
For example, The Golden Triangle is an Arsene Lupin story in which Arsene Lupin isn't even in the book for most of it.
For most of its space, this book has a completely different protagonist, Patrice, who, through a series of extremely unlikely (but nonetheless entertaining) events, finds himself entangled in a web of Turkish spies, hidden gold, and some sort of mysterious link to his past. (This story was published during World War I, so the Turks play the role of bad guys here.)
Arsene Lupin doesn't even show up until about two-thirds through the book.
This book has a plot which is completely ridiculous, and over-relies on coincidences and contrivances. But if you're willing to forgive all that, it can also be a lot of fun. (In fact, as with most of Arsene Lupin's stories, the ridiculousness of the plot is actually part of what makes it so fun.)
This is a story that belongs squarely to that by-gone age of pulp fiction Adventure Magazines and dime-store spy novels. There are secret doors, treasure maps, swarthy Middle-Eastern spies, criminal conspiracies, and elaborate death traps. It's a lot of fun if you just let yourself get caught up in the pure cheesiness of it.
There's also a really intense scene early on in which the criminals are arguing with each other, and one of them is trying to torture the other one into telling where the gold is hidden. It is told with such great drama and suspense that I was glued to the book for those pages.
Afterwards, I found out the Publisher had also praised this section. (Following my usual custom, I read the Publisher's introduction last). From the Publisher's introduction: "The story is dark and very modern in tone; indeed, the torture scene in Chapter Four is quite brutal and could easily feature in any current thriller."
I agree that it is quite brutal. But modern and current? Not in my opinion. The story was completely old-school pulp fiction. It reminded me more of the Dick Tracy than anything.
The racial stereo-typing in this story also makes it very dated. The black skinned Senegalese character Ya-Bon is portrayed as loyal but dim-witted.
The Eight Strokes of the Clock
This is a collection of short stories, much like The Confessions of Arsene Lupin. In this book Arsene Lupin goes on an adventure with a young woman, and the two of them wander around encountering people with problems, and helping them solve their problems.
Much of the praise I gave to The Confessions of Arsene Lupin is true for this book as well, although the variety of roles Lupin has is reduced. In this book his role of a thief is down-played in favor of his role as wandering-do-gooder.
But I enjoyed all 8 mysteries in this last book as well.
Final Verdict on "The Omnibus"
Boy, I really wish they would have included the first book: Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. But other than that omission, I have nothing but praise for this book.
And furthermore, I suppose as a reader I bear some of the responsibility for the omission. I should have gone online and tracked down a public domain version of the story (like this one here at Project Gutenberg) and taken it upon myself to read it before continuing on to the rest of the stories in the Omnibus.
And that would be my advice to any potential readers who happen to come across this book.
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Add this book to my list of "Classic Books Which are Fun to Read". (Since at least half of this collection was written before World War I, I'm counting it as a classic.)
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