Review: MASTER FLEA by ETA Hoffmann

Original Publication Date: 1822

Genre: fairy tale, fantasy

Topics: trust, love, friendship, coming of age, forgotten for a reason
 















Review by heidenkind:

Peregrinus Tyss is an odd duck. If he was living in the 21st century, he'd probably be diagnosed with Asperger's; but as it is, he lives in 19th-century Frankfurt and people just assume he's stupid.

Since Peregrin is an orphan and has no friends, every Christmas he picks one family and brings a bunch of presents to them dressed as Santa. But while delivering presents to a bookseller and his children, Peregrin is assaulted by a strange, beautiful woman who acts like she knows him. This lady is obviously Bad News (obvious to the reader, that is); fortunately for Peregrin, he's managed to collect Master Flea, whom the woman needs to keep herself alive. Grateful for Peregrin's protection, Master Flea helps him navigate the waters of social life among the muggles and the mythical beings that suddenly surround him.

I enjoyed Master Flea at first, but as the story went on it started to wear on me. First of all, the eponymous Flea doesn't even show up until the "Third Adventure," nearly halfway through the book! Before that, we are introduced to Peregrin, a femme fatale named alternatively "fair Alina," Dörtje Elverdink, and a mythical princess called Gamaheh of Famagusta; a guy named George Pepusch, who's actually the Thistle of Zeherit; Pepusch's bestie, Leuwenhock, who's actually a magician; Peregrin's lodger, who's Leuwenhock's nemesis and fellow magician; and et. al. I probably forgot a few people there, but you get the idea. This is the type of book where everyone has two or three names, like Lord of the Rings, only not as tolerable. And I was never able to get through Lord of the Rings, sooooooooo.

This is also the type of book where there's only one female character, and she's not really a character, more of a MacGuffin. Alllllllll the men in this story are after Alina/Dörtje/Gamaheh, for no reason I could see because she's a total bitch.  But she is beautiful, so I suppose that's all that matters.

There are some fun scenes in Master Flea, like when Master Flea gives Peregrin a glass that lets him see what people are *really* thinking when they talk to him (the glass, incidentally, is a small concave disk that fits over his eye, and to take it out he leans over and blinks very wide and it pops out and back into its box–so, ETA Hoffmann basically invented contact lenses). Naturally, whatever they're thinking is the exact opposite of what they're saying. But this went on for way too long and there was way too much of it.

The book also bounced around a lot and there was a ton of information about other fairies and mythical creatures, most of which I not only didn't care about but was annoyed with, considering keeping the thrice-named circus of the regular characters straight was exhausting enough.

Finally, I found the conclusion to be extremely irritating.

Master Flea a really weird book. Like, REALLY weird. It's over-the-top and all over the place. I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, and I think I'm going to avoid ETA Hoffmann books in the future from now on. Sorry, ETA.






Download Master Flea by ETA Hoffmann at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: THE GOLD BAG by Carolyn Wells

Original Publication Date: 1911

Genre: Mystery

Topics: Society, trust, family


















Review by heidenkind:

Burroughs, a young detective, goes to West Sedgwick to investigate the murder of a millionaire. The old man was found dead in his study, and the only clue was a gold bag (and a flower petal, but the book's called The Gold Bag, so let's just focus on that). Was the killer the millionaire's beautiful niece, who stood to inherit his entire fortune? Or was it her sketchy fiance, or his secretary? Burroughs and a whole team of detectives just can't figure it out.

The Gold Bag is probably the worst detective novel I've ever read in my entire 29 years of reading mysteries. Even Inspector Gadget has more going on with his little gray cells than Burroughs.

Here's the thing: The Gold Bag is the second book in The Fleming Stone Mystery series. Stone is (almost exactly) like Sherlock Holmes: he can draw conclusions about people and events by observing the tiniest details. But calling The Gold Bag a Fleming Stone novel is like calling 21 Jump Street a Johnny Depp movie. Yeah, maybe his scene was the best one in the film, but it was just the one scene.

In The Gold Bag, Fleming Stone makes a brief appearance in the first chapter, then doesn't show up again until the very last chapter, and the last part of the last chapter at that. Meanwhile, Burroughs is the main character and "detective," and THE MAN IS AN INCOMPETENT IDIOT. He couldn't detect his way out of an elevator. And it's not played for laughs, either–Carolyn Wells seems to actually believe he and the other detectives (there's a whole slew of them, standing around doing nothing) are conducting some sort of legitimate investigation here.

No.

My first inkling that this "investigation" wasn't going to go so well came in Chapter Four, during the coroner's inquest. Gregory Hall, the fiance of the victim's niece, was on the stand answering questions about his movements on the day of the murder. He'd actually been away on business that night–or so he claimed–but when asked where he stayed and what business, exactly, he was engaged in, Hall refused to answer with, "As it has no bearing on the matter in hand, I prefer not to answer that rather personal question."

Exquise me? This is a murder investigation, buddy, we decide what's relevant, not you. Instead of saying that, however, the coroner's like, "Oh, okay then, we'll respect your privacy. You obviously didn't do it, after all, since you were out of town!"

Ummm...

Then there's Florence Lloyd, who is clearly Suspect Number One. Her uncle told her he was going to cut her out of his will if she married Hall, AND she admitted to owning a gold bag like the one found in the office. But she gave it away, she doesn't remember to who. Florence is dismissed by Burroughs and everyone else out of hand because she's a pretty, wealthy young woman, so OBVIOUSLY she couldn't have killed anyone. In fact, Burroughs develops a tendre for her that kind of made me throw up a little in my mouth.

At first I assumed that the detectives were just lazy, or maybe in the past respecting people's privacy was more important than finding a man's killer. But really this is all about assumptions and labels and society. At one point someone suggests the victim's brother, who stands to inherit now that Florence is cut out of the will, might be the killer. To which Burroughs laughs and says–direct quote–"Don't be absurd! A man would hardly shoot his own brother."

Dude, have you heard of these two guys called Cain and Abel? That story ring any bells in your echoing headspace?

It gets even more ridic. When Burroughs finally finds the owner of the gold bag-the person who either killed the victim or was the last to see him before he was murdered-he lets her know he's coming, affording her an opportunity to write him a letter stating that she has no idea who did it and isn't involved in the affair at all. "I would go straight to you, and tell you all about it, but I am afraid of detectives and lawyers... But I am going to see Miss [Florence] Lloyd, and explain it all to her, and then she can tell you."

Inexplicably, Burroughs' reaction to this woman's letter is to smile and think to himself, "Marathon Park [where the woman lives] was evidently no place to look for our criminal." Say the fuck what? This is based on her handwriting and the fact that the tone of the letter made her sound like "a foolish little woman." As opposed to a woman who's clearly trying to avoid talking to the police?!?

At this point in the book, I really hoped Fleming Stone would show up and declare Florence to be the killer within three seconds, despite the fact that Florence was the only character in The Gold Bag I even remotely liked. That didn't happen. Honestly, I don't remember who the killer turned out to be, I just didn't care by that point. The only thing that kept circling in my mind was that Wells made Anna Katharine Green look like freakin Agatha Christie-a prescient thought, as it turned out, because guess whose books convinced Wells to start writing mysteries?

AKG strikes again.

Aha! I knew I'd seen that millionaire-who-was-killed-in-his-study plot before.

The Gold Bag is pretty awful. Not only is the crime solving lazy, so's the writing. L A Z Y. Wells did no research into her topic, put zero thought into her characters or story, and the only things remotely good about the book were stolen from other books. The Gold Bag is only original in its terribleness.




Download The Gold Bag by Carolyn Wells at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Short Story Review: Midnight on Beauchamp Row by Anna Katharine Green

Original Publication Date: 1895

Genre: "Horror." Kinda.

Topics: trust, marriage, unintended consequences













Review:

Letty Chivers is a young bride vaguely dissatisfied with her life, whose husband has some sort of job that requires him to carry large amounts of money around. Whenever the money's in the house, Letty gets nervous, but Ned never leaves her alone with it. Then one night he comes home and says he HAS to do something for work and won't be home until after midnight. In the meantime, he needs to leave the money with her.

Letty wants to go to her friends' house to wait for him, but Ned won't let her because he doesn't like her friends. So, with a "Tata, Little Woman!" Ned rides off into the night. It is then that Letty faces the true horror of her imagination: an uninvited guest.

Most of the time I would stop my summary there, but you guys HAVE to know what happens at the end of Midnight on Beauchamp Row. If you don't want to be spoiled, go here, read the story, then come back. I'll wait.

Are you back? Did you ever leave? It's okay, I'll catch you up.

Lettie's uninvited guest is a vagrant, whom she is SURE wants to steal her husband's money. So, to keep him from getting it, she throws it outside. Fiscal responsibility, folks! Then she feeds him dinner because that's only polite. All the while, though, she's thinking, "Why didn't I poison him? I could have grabbed some arsenic in the kitchen!" At some point she remembers there's a gun in the house and plans to shoot him, but it turns out Ned took the gun when he left. Meanwhile, the crude vagrant who offends all her delicate feminine sensibilities offers to do the dishes, which is pretty damn decent of him.

While he's doing the dishes, ANOTHER vagrant bursts into the house! Except this one is black, so he's extra-dangerous. Vagrant #2 is all, "Where's the money?" and goes straight to the cabinet where Letty put it, except naturally it's not there anymore. Then vagrant #1 comes in from the kitchen and whacks vagrant #2 upside the head. Vagrant #2 goes splat and vagrant #1 observes that he's dead--he knows, since he's killed men before. But it's all good, cuz he was saving Letty from the colored person.

They're going to dump the body outside, but Letty wants to make sure he's dead first (so she can whack him again if he isn't?). It's then that she notices vagrant #2 is not actually black--instead, it's her husband in black face!

I'm sorry, but... WHAT?! Of all the things I hoped would happen during the course of this story--Letty plotting to steal the money from her hubby and running away, her and the vagrant falling in love and running off together, etc.--her husband stealing the money from her while in black face was noooowhere on the list. Zomg, race should not be the big reveal/plot twist. No no no no no.

Of course, Letty's not terribly upset by this (although more upset than when it was just a homeless person), because she wasn't that happy with her marriage to begin with. She doesn't know why, but I do: her husband's a controlling dick who treats her like she's ten years old. In the brief period of time he's on the page, he calls her "little" twice. AND he leaves her home alone at night all the time. No wonder she's so nice to vagrants, eh? It's the only action she gets in that house!

This is a pretty odd story. Not just the actual events that happen during the course of the tale, but the tone itself is odd. For one, the way Letty is treated is very The Doll's House-ish. Is Anna Katharine Green making a negative comment on how patronizing and controlling Ned is? I don't know. At most points in the story, it seems like this is taken as acceptable, normal behavior. But then he dies, and no one feels bad about it because he's a jerk, so that means... it's bad. Right? And Letty isn't fulfilled in the marriage, so I think Green is saying, "Yo, we have needs and desires, too, boys." But that message isn't terribly clear.

Also, the events of the story have a very comedy-of-errors feeling to them, but the tone of the writing is weirdly dire, so it all comes off as a little stilted. Then the ending is put forward so matter-of-factly and you're like, "Denouement, plz!" I'm still rooting for Letty and vagrant #1 to get married and have fourteen children.

Anna Katharine Green is the first woman to write a mystery novel, which I haven't read. But judging by this short story, I would definitely be interested in seeing what that's all about--because if it's anything like this story, it's some serious wtf.

Guest Review: THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Original Publication Date: 1905

Genre: Adventure, historical fiction

Topics: the French Revolution, trust, rule of law













Review by Kay of Kay's Bookshelf:

Summary: A novel about a brave and noble Englishman who, together with his little group of faithful friends, repeatedly risked his life saving French aristocrats from the guillotine. The success of their enterprise is based on the fact that no one knows the identity of the leader. Now, however, a French agent knows just the way to unmask him: he makes one of the ladies at the English court an offer she cannot refuse — either she finds out who the famed hero is, or her brother dies.

General impression: I don’t know what to make of this. I feel like it has this great potential and yet all the interesting parts are missing.

Setting: The year is 1792, a short while after the French revolution. Beheadings happen every day, as the people, drunk on their new-found freedom, are also thirsty for revenge on their former oppressors. On the other side of the channel, the English are horrified at the news of the bloodshed. The King, the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the political leaders are as yet undecided whether they should openly condemn France’s behavior or just keep quiet, not to risk a conflict. However, a bunch of English young people have decided to do more that just decry the situation: they spend their time working up schemes to smuggle the unfortunate “aristos” from their now hostile motherland to the safety of the British soil. Their leader, who calls himself The Scarlet Pimpernel (after a humble little red roadside flower), is a paragon of resourcefulness and a master of disguise — which is how he managed to keep his identity hidden for so long.

It is obvious that the author herself is firmly on the aristocrats’ side, being openly against the ‘regular people’. The former are gracious, well bred, and the ones we root for; the latter are dirty and mean. The reason for that became obvious when I read about the author’s early life: of noble descent herself (her father was a Baron, her mother a Countess), she and her family left her native Hungary in 1868 as they were afraid of a peasants’ revolution.

Characters: As a sidenote, the dialogue was awfully sprinkled with interjections. It felt like there hardly ever was a sentence without a “Lud!” or “Zooks!” or “Bah!” or “Odd’s fish!” or something such. While at times there was indeed the need to show someone’s surprise, or Marguerite’s pretend flippancy, having basically every character exclaim something every few minutes became tiring after a while.

As for the characters, I felt them more cardboard-y than anything else. Marguerite St. Just/Blakeney, for example, is not only a very beautiful woman but is also considered the wittiest in Europe(!). Alas, this last part remains unproven, although we spend about half the book reading her inner thoughts. All she thinks about is the fact that she loves the hero, and oh, how she betrayed him — but she loves him so much! More and more every passing minute! And to think she has betrayed him! Him whom she loves so much! — and so on and so forth. Surely, she does show courage (or is it merely recklessness?) when she follows the love of her life straight to France, where it wasn’t safe for her, but then, other than following the soldiers she does absolutely nothing to actually help. This is one of the missing parts I complained about in the beginning — the fact that we, the readers, are not actually shown the rescue operation — which happens to be the most interesting part of the book, as the Pimpernel has pledged his honor to rescue some French aristocrat, and he does not know that the area is surrounded with soldiers. The pages that should deal with that are dedicated to Marguerite’s thoughts, and as she follows the soldiers she can only see what they see — which is naturally nothing, else the rescue would not have taken place. We only find out about what happened near the very end, in a few sentences, as the brave rescuer explains to Marguerite how he accomplished the feat. But I would have liked to see it myself, to hold my breath and keep my fingers crossed all throughout :(

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a very romantic, dashing hero: a noble, mysterious man who risks his life in order to save others’. He also possesses an insurmountable pride, that sometimes gets the best of him, an intensity of feeling of the kind one sees only in books1, a presence of mind that never betrays him and a rather superhuman physical strength. Oh, and of course he’s good looking too. And a good actor with a gift for accents, which is how he manages to fool the French police for so long. There isn’t anything this guy can’t do, which is why after a point he stops being an actual person, becoming a sort of parody instead. A male Mary Sue, if you wish. And to think that, for all his perfection, we didn’t get to see him being a hero. I imagine the book would have been so much interesting had it been told from his POV. *sigh*

As a bit of trivia, the villain, the French agent that spares no efforts in his hunt for the Scarlet Pimpernel is actually a real-life character, although the author is said to have stretched history around him quite a bit.

Relationships: Ah, yet another one of those parts I found sorely lacking. As the book opens, Marguerite St. Just has been Lady Blakeney for about a year. She despises her husband, which she finds dull and incapable of passion. This despite the fact that his intense passion for her was the very reason she married him in the first place (in short, he was very much in love with her, but she had some secret and he judged her for it, and she was too proud to explain her reasoning to him, so apparently he stopped loving her, just like that). I would have liked to see their courtship, to see them as a couple, as when the book opens they are very much apart.

And then one evening all of a sudden Marguerite talks to her husband (had they never talked before?). And his behavior gives away the fact that he still loves her, and all of a sudden Marguerite realizes that, wait, she loves him too! Despite the fact that up until then she barely looked at him, and that she mocked him on every occasion. Despite the fact that a bit earlier we’re told how she married him because she thought that he loved her so much she could grow to love him in return. And now she realizes she had loved him all this while? This would have been easier to believe if I had seen her ever caring for him before — in a scene before their marriage, perhaps — but as it were it seemed somewhat of a stretch.

Thoughts on the ending: I was particularly amused by one of the last few sentences:

But it is on record that at the brilliant wedding of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Bart., with Mlle. Suzanne de Tournay de Basserive, a function at which H. R. H. the Prince of Wales and all the ELITE of fashionable society were present, the most beautiful woman there was unquestionably Lady Blakeney, whilst the clothes of [The Scarlet Pimpernel] were the talk of the JEUNESSE DOREE of London for many days.

The Scarlet Pimpernel has many manly qualities, probably all of them. He has a soft spot however, and that is his love for expensive clothes. As such, a truly happy ending for him could not have existed without everyone’s admiring his clothes, right? :)

Other than that everything’s pretty textbook stuff, the good and the brave are rewarded, the evil plans are foiled. I don’t think anyone expected otherwise. :)

Recommend it to? People interested in the classics, I guess. It has a 4.05 rating on Goodreads, so the vast majority of people seems to have liked it.