Reviews

Fantomas by Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre

Only show reviews with written explanations

llysenw's review

4.0

Excellent. I don't know why I'd never heard of this series before. It's been around since 1911 and Wikipedia has a long description of it. It's more surprising that there's been nothing in English to speak of. Even more so considering something like six volumes were released in just the first year alone.

I lost track of the body count, but not counting the 150 or so who were blown up in a sabotaged ship, I think it was around 9, many of them gruesome. Wikipedia says that, played for comedy, the basic plot was taken as a basis for the Pink Panther movies, and I can see how that happened. The last of the murders was, by far, the most twisted (and clever). It was by proxy and serves as the mechanism for (spoiler) Fantomas escaping punishment and so the basis for the sequels.

This has it all: deception, disguises, (many) red herrings, false identities, murder, burglary, love, infatuation, vanity, and all the by good guys, bad guys, and in-between guys. My only real issue, and this is totally on me, is that this is very, very French. By that I mean that all the names and places are the most French they can possibly be. Not speaking French, it is a bit difficult to read all of those names and places without knowing how to pronounce them. Again, that's on me.

This was clearly translated almost immediately by someone very British. France at the time (1911) was very class conscious but I wonder how much the translator imposed the English class system on top of this. It certainly reads like it.

Anyway, it's very good. The wordsmithing is great and of its time. It looks as if the first four or five are the most popular. I may continue with those.

gwak's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

tomleetang's review

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3.0

A sort of less ingenious Sherlock Holmes story - except poor Inspector Juve is no match for the daredevil antics of Fantomas, who commits a series of crimes that don't seem to have any link, other than their bravado and violence.

Surprisingly gorey too: "Oh, I shall never forget the shock I had when I saw my poor dear mistress lying dead at the foot of her bed, steeped in blood, and with such a horrible gash in her throat that for a moment I thought her head was severed from the trunk." Yup.

marysues's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

emilybryk's review

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4.0

Sadly, there are THIRTY-ONE Fantomas books, so I'm unlikely to read them all. Let's leave it at this: if what I learned from Lady Chatterly was that people used to have sex and enjoy it, what I learned from Fantomas was that people used to be bloodthirsty. Seriously, there are like 155+ murders in this book. And they are all awesome.