Book Review: The Mysteries of Paris (1842) by Eugene Sue

There should be a literary dating site to match up readers seeking a long-term reading commitment with novels that suit their preferences. A website like eHarmony or Lavalife that lets you know if your tastes and interests are suitable for a serious relationship with door stoppers such as War and Peace, Remembrance of Things Past, or the collected works of James Patterson. The Mysteries of Paris is over 1,300 pages of melodrama, sentimentality, granite-jawed heroism, pathos, unrepentant villainy, and strident social commentary. Like many 19th century novels it began life as a newspaper serial, running in 150 installments in a Paris newspaper. According to the novel's introduction, Mysteries was probably the biggest bestseller of all time, and it inspired a score of copycat versions set in other cities and countries, and also influenced the writing of Les Miserables and The Count of Monte Cristo. This is what made me read it. I'm a sucker for a novel with a dating profile that reveals it's influenced a host of other writers.

There are a battalion of characters in the novel, but the two that count are Rodolphe and Songbird. The former is a wealthy German count who likes to skulk around Paris posing as a labourer in order to right wrongs and punish evildoers, while the latter is a teenage prostitute with the soul of saint. The story begins with Rodolphe rescuing Songbird (also called Fleur de Mairie) from her life on the streets. It turns out that the two have a connection both are unaware of, but before that is revealed, Rodolphe and Songbird have to battle against the plots and schemes of characters with names such as the Owl, Red-Arm, She-Wolf, the Schoolmaster, and the Gimp. If this sounds like a cabal of Batman villains, the comparison is a valid one. Rodolphe may be the first superhero. He's wealthy, he's unbeatable in a fight, he goes about in disguise, and he fights bad guys just for the hell of it. Now who does that sound like? And there's no denying that the writing and characterization isn't much more sophisticated than what's found in most comic books.

I probably shouldn't have invested the time required to read all 1,300+ pages of The Mysteries of Paris, but the plotting was hard to resist. Eugene Sue wasn't a master of prose, but he did an amazing job of weaving multiple plots and sub-plots together without losing the thread. And he can't be faulted on the bad guy front. Nineteenth century literature's villains are usually far more memorable than the heroes and heroines, and this novel is no exception. The novel's most powerful scene is actually shared by three of its villains, the Owl, the Schoolmaster, and the Gimp, as one of the three is slowly murdered in a pitch black cellar. Sue also creates a couple of comic relief characters that Charles Dickens would have approved of. Of course the downside to many novels of this era is that the heroes and heroines are, well, so noble and pure and sweet (with extra whipped cream on top), that they fully engage the reader's gag reflex every time they step on the scene. All is not lost, however; Sue brings to his novel a fiery anger at the way the poor are treated by the state and capitalism, although he doesn't use words like "state" or "capitalism." Where Dickens often merely pitied the poor in his novels and begged for more charity for them, Sue turns parts of his novel into agitprop for structural changes in society to benefit the working classes. It's not a call to arms or The Communist Manifesto, but it's a bracing change from Sue's contemporaries. Also, it's a damn sight better than Les Miserables, which now seems like the work of a plagiarist.

Book Review: Moonfleet (1898) by J. Meade Falkner

"Ripping yarn" is a mostly English literary term used to describe a story that's packed with action, cliffhangers, adventure and sturdy heroism. Moonfleet represents the gold standard in this genre.  Set in the English coastal village of  Moonfleet in 1757, the plucky lad at the centre of the story (ripping yarns require a minimum of one plucky lad) is John Trenchard, a teenage orphan who falls in with smugglers and the search for a diamond once owned by a notorious smuggler named Blackbeard, whose ghost supposedly haunts the town's churchyard. After John makes a hair-raising visit to a crypt under the church, the action and tension never let up in a story that ends up spanning decades. Cliffhanger follows cliffhanger (literally, in one case), and the novel ends up feeling like a slimmer, more entertaining version of Les Miserables.

The striking thing about Moonfleet is that it works so well as a thriller. Thrillers seem like a relatively modern genre, but Moonfleet certainly manages to tick most of the thriller boxes. Each challenge the hero is faced with is overcome with difficulty, and no sooner has he jumped out of the frying pan then he's into the fire. And the story is filled with a variety of thrills: a clifftop chase, disasters at sea, betrayals, and the 18th century equivalent of a big heist. The trials and tribulations of John and his companion Elzevir seem to be strongly influenced by Jean Valjean's ordeal in Les Miserables, or Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo. But this isn't just a pastiche; Moonfleet has a distinct style and a great sense of place.

What's also amazing about the book is that it's only been filmed once, in 1955, and based on the plot description on IMDB the filmmakers made major changes to the story. Moonfleet is ridiculously entertaining, and the only minor mark against it is that sometimes the dialogue is excessively archaic. Falkner wrote two other novels, one of which was The Lost Stradivarius, an odd story about a man seemingly possessed by a violin, although the sub-text seems to be a veiled warning about the evils of homosexuality.