Cultural works from the past carry the attitudes of the past. Sometimes this can be jarring. Different people have different levels of tolerance for this. But you also often find nuances if you look for them.
From my childhood I remember hearing stories about Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer's Burmese mad scientist and conqueror, although the name sounds more Chinese. Manchu was most definitely a Yellow Peril villain of the sort the West has always projected. And yet the British Rohmer also regarded the character with a kind of admiration.
In most cases the mystery novels of Ellery Queen don't produce that much generational shock. The Scarlet Letters is something of an exception. Ellery and his secretary Nikki Porter find themselves in the middle of a domestic situation. The husband is a mostly failed writer Ellery has met before. The wife, a friend of Nikki's, is an heiress and theatrical producer. He's crazy jealous. She gives him some reason to be. He's followed her, assaulted men he's seen her with, and her.
Both the mystery writer hero and his secretary raise the possibility that maybe she should just leave, but relent when she asks them to help save her marriage. From a contemporary perspective he's an abuser and she should get far away from him. And yet the resulting novel is more interesting than the woman on the run melodrama that would probably get published today. There's substance to it, a dynamic.
From my childhood I remember hearing stories about Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer's Burmese mad scientist and conqueror, although the name sounds more Chinese. Manchu was most definitely a Yellow Peril villain of the sort the West has always projected. And yet the British Rohmer also regarded the character with a kind of admiration.
In most cases the mystery novels of Ellery Queen don't produce that much generational shock. The Scarlet Letters is something of an exception. Ellery and his secretary Nikki Porter find themselves in the middle of a domestic situation. The husband is a mostly failed writer Ellery has met before. The wife, a friend of Nikki's, is an heiress and theatrical producer. He's crazy jealous. She gives him some reason to be. He's followed her, assaulted men he's seen her with, and her.
Both the mystery writer hero and his secretary raise the possibility that maybe she should just leave, but relent when she asks them to help save her marriage. From a contemporary perspective he's an abuser and she should get far away from him. And yet the resulting novel is more interesting than the woman on the run melodrama that would probably get published today. There's substance to it, a dynamic.
2 comments:
fu manchu burmese? while nayland smith is originally a police commissioner in burma, i'm not so sure that that's intended to indicate that fu manchu is actually from there. pretty sure he is, indeed, chinese (particularly if the wikipedia ouija board story is true). his name alone would certainly indicate such...
regarding works of the past reflecting cultural issues of the time, i recently encountered a somewhat countervailing phenomenon: positioning stories in the past, but populating them with characters reflecting current cultural values. exhibit #1: 'the alienist', by caleb carr. a book set at the turn of the 19th/20th century in new york city, & featuring a trio of heroes (absent-minded psychiatrist, roguish journalist, plucky police woman), all of whom are far more 'modern' in their progressive social attitudes than all those around them (including their friend teddy roosevelt, the police chief). obviously, they're going to serve as a much more re-assuring presence, when it comes to making the reader feel comfortable, than someone like nayland smith (or, for that matter, harry flashman) ever will :) ...
I stand corrected. I guess my assumption was that Smith was meeting Fu Manchu on the latter's home turf. That's an interesting story about the Ouija board. It indicates that Rohmer had an eccentric decision making method, but one that worked for him. That article has some other choice tidbits, like the fact that Neil Hamilton - Commissioner Gordon to Adam West's Batman - was also an early Dr. Alistair Petrie.
I've read The Alienist. It was for a horror/weird fiction focused book club that I soon after left because all the cool people in it had moved away or otherwise stopped appearing, basically. Really it seemed more like a mystery adventure. But yeah, that core group was easier to identify with than Teddy Roosevelt, colorful and imposing as he might be.
I did enjoy Flashman. The character is appealing in his honesty. Well, honesty of a sort, at least. Like most Americans I've never read Tom Brown's Schooldays but I probably should, just to appreciate where Fraser was coming from.
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