Review: The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Leblanc
Robotech_Master
I am told that Maurice Leblanc once bemoaned that writing so many
novels about master thief and adventurer Arsene Lupin had spoiled him
for writing about anybody else: the protagonists of any other books he
tried to write invariably turned into Arsene Lupin, no matter who they
had originally been _supposed_ to be. Perhaps this explains the
curious little author's note that begins _The Eight Strokes of the
Clock_:
| These adventures were told to me in the old days by Arsene Lupin, as
| though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince Renine. As
| for me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the
| actions, the behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it
| very difficult not to identify the two friends as one and the same
| person. Arsene Lupin is gifted with a powerful imagination and is
| quite capable of attributing to himself adventures which are not his
| at all and of disowning those which are really his. The reader will
| judge for himself.
| --M.L.
A thematically-related series of eight short stories that originally
appeared in Excelsior Magazine in 1922-23, _Eight Strokes_ has the
distinction of being the last Arsene Lupin novel to fall before the
Bono Act public domain cut-off date--if, indeed, an Arsene Lupin novel
it is. The eight tales follow the adventures of "Prince Serge Renine"
(exactly what kingdom he's supposed to be a prince of is never
explained--it could well be that "Prince" is just his given name. I
guess that would make him "the Prince formerly known as Lupin") and
his assistant, Hortense Daniels, as they unravel eight perplexing
mysteries--or, rather, as "Renine" unravels them and Hortense tags
along. Chronologically, the stories are set in 1911, between Lupin's
retirement from crime at the end of _The Hollow Needle_ and his
greatest adventure of all, _813_.
In the first story, "On the Top of the Tower," Renine prevents
Hortense from eloping with a man she actually finds distasteful, but
sees as the only way out of her distressing home life with an uncle
for whom she does not particularly care. He accomplishes this feat by
shooting out the tires of the car in which they are leaving--and when
Hortense chases him down to berate him, he charms her into
accompanying him exploring a nearby abandoned chateau. In this
chateau they discover a still-running clock that chimes the hour of
eight o'clock--twenty years after it should have stopped--a hidden
telescope...and an ancient crime.
The solution to this mystery frees Hortense from her uncle, and Renine
strikes a bargain with Hortense: as the clock struck eight times, she
will accompany him on seven more adventures. At the end, he will
recover an heirloom brooch that was stolen from her years before--and
in return, she will give him... he's too much of a gentleman to say
what, but they both know exactly what he means.
And so their adventures begin, as they proceed to solve seven more
mysteries, each more mysterious than the last. How was a box set on
fire when there was nobody in the room? How was a man stabbed in the
back when nobody went into or out of his cottage after he entered it?
Why are women being systematically murdered with identical hatchet
blows to the forehead, several months apart? And will Hortense
overcome her reluctance to meet with Renine as the adventures come to
a close and the time to honor their agreement draws near?
Arsene Lupin is a product of the same literary period as Sherlock
Holmes, albeit from the other side of the English Channel. As a
result, their adventures end up being a trifle similar; as with
Holmes's Watson, Lupin often adventures with a less adroit
companion--be it his girlfriend of the moment, a police inspector, or
even Maurice Leblanc "himself"--to throw his cleverness into relief.
In this case, the role is served by Hortense, for whom Lupin has
fallen as he has for so many other women before or since. Hortense is
a typical Watson in that she is invariably mystified by Lupin's leaps
of intuition, and dazzled by the cunning that he applies to solve
crimes and catch true culprits. This isn't to say that she is stupid,
just that Lupin has the sort of pure brilliance that--just as with
Holmes--can only be explained by the writer "cheating" and setting up
the mysteries just so he can knock them down.
Perhaps it's just that I've been watching the new Doctor Who and
Doctor Who Confidential series lately, but it seems to me that there's
something of the Doctor about Arsene Lupin, in the way he will take on
companions (and paramours) to dazzle with his whirlwind manner,
amazing intelligence, and leaps of intuition for the space of an
adventure or two--before moving on to someone else. Even his romance
with Hortense, whom he woos over the course of the eight mysteries in
this book, is fated to last only a short while before Lupin finds new
loves in _813_ and _The Teeth of the Tiger_. (Lupin's previous lovers
having died through natural causes or accidents, or rejected him when
they found out he was a criminal, or even run away to a convent(!), it
can be said that Arsene Lupin does not tend to have the best luck with
women.)
Some of the mysteries seem quaint when viewed from a century later.
In "The Tell-Tale Film," Renine correctly identifies a supporting
actor's obsession with a silent film's leading lady from the
out-of-character smouldering glances he casts at her in the scenes
they share on film. (The medium was so new back then that they could
get away with that; these days, they'd call that either "bad acting"
or "bad directing.") Subsequently, Renine and Hortense discover that
he has indeed kidnapped her and is hiding in one of the locations
where the film was shot--this apparently being before studio movie
sets were in common use.
In another story, the hatchet-wielding serial killer turns out to be
an insane sociopath. It's not a terribly surprising explanation, and
one could say it even presages modern-day literary serial killers such
as Hannibal Lecter--but all the same, it's rather disappointing in a
series that is generally characterized by adversaries who are
fiendishly clever rather than just off their nut.
Apart from the author's note at the beginning, and a couple of
gratuitous references stuck into the story, there's nothing really in
this work that requires Renine to be Lupin, apart from exhibiting the
same cleverness, cunning, and personality. Renine is always referred
to as Renine, though this is nothing new--Lupin is generally referred
to only by his alias even in books when we already know exactly who he
is (such as _The Teeth of the Tiger_).
All in all, the mysteries are entertaining, and the romance with
Hortense is diverting, but the stories are not as interesting as
Lupin's longer novels, where more time can be taken to set up the
crime and its solution, nor are they as fun as Lupin's earlier career
where he debonairly commits the most outrageous crimes while thumbing
his nose at the inspectors sent to track him down. Still, as a
collection of short stories it can be read in more than one sitting
without losing track of the story, and Leblanc had quite a gift for
coming up with clever crimes. It's a shame that the Arsene Lupin
tales have been largely forgotten over the years.
--
Chris Meadows aka | Homepage: http://www.terrania.us
Robotech_Master |
robo...@eyrie.org | Earn a free iPod and a free Mac Mini!
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Dr Hermes
Thank you for a very well-written and enlightening review. Arsene Lupin
is (like too many other characters from that era) a name I have seen
mentioned in various contexts without ever knowing much about him.
Robotech_Master
> Thank you for a very well-written and enlightening review. Arsene
> Lupin is (like too many other characters from that era) a name I
> have seen mentioned in various contexts without ever knowing much
> about him.
Thanks. I may do similar reviews of a couple of other Lupin books
I've read.
Meanwhile, you can learn a good deal more about Arsene Lupin by
watching the Lupin III anime _Castle of Cagliostro_ while listening to
the mp3 audio commentary track I recorded for it that in part compares
Lupin III to his esteemed ancestor. (Be sure and watch the movie
without the commentary first, if you haven't seen it yet.)
Find it here:
http://www.terrania.us/journal/2004/08/lupin-iii-castle-of-cagliostro.html