Readers of the original Rohmer books are probably few in number these days, but the Marvel comic book MASTER OF KUNG FU gave a modicum of literary immortality to Smith's romantic life with Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of his Oriental adversary. There's no intimation that Fu has any offspring at all in the first book, but after Petrie's initial encounter with Karameneh, Smith, though he's never met the woman, speculates on her origins.
She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. I am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will, except-- in a certain instance.
In my review I expanded on this conceit:
The idea that [Karameneh] may be Fu's daughter is never seriously entertained, given that there's no resemblance between the two characters. Yet Karameneh's constant interference with the plans of her master bears some similarity to standard tropes in which a lovelorn damsel aids her romantic swain against her overly domineering father.
The Smith quote proves only one thing: that Rohmer had at least considered the possibility that his Asian evildoer might have progeny. It's impossible to know whether or not Rohmer had considered giving Fu a daughter at the time he wrote RETURN, and it seems unlikely that he'd decided at that point to make Smith and that daughter lovers in some future story. But since Smith was of more than marriageable age, Rohmer may have wanted to account for his single status, and thus he chose to do simply by suggesting some failed love affair in the past. Oddly, Smith's love-life comes up on the novel's third page, in conversation between Petrie and a minor character, but not until a few chapters later does Smith himself hold forth on the subject. This quasi-confession comes about because Petrie meets Karameneh, still doing Fu's will but brainwashed to forget her former allies. Petrie lets her escape custody, and Smith becomes irate with his physician-friend:
A woman made a fool of me once, but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so! But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie-- for that might mean a yellow emperor of the world, and you know it!
While a lot of Rohmer's prose proves pedestrian, this passage shows that he could embody poetic conceits when sufficiently inspired to do so. Granted, it's a little odd to witness Smith mixing nautical metaphors with Eve's betrayal of the First Man, particularly since both ideas seem to come out of nowhere. Since neither man has yet figured out that Karameneh has been brainwashed, Smith leaps to the conclusion that she's simply faithless, and that she's betrayed Petrie and the cause of England because of her loyalty to the man who wants to become the world's "yellow emperor." Both of Rohmer's novels repeatedly associate Fu Manchu with Satan, but here he's being further associated with the tempting serpent who persuades Eve to betray Adam, though with no reference to Eve having been deceived through the serpent's manipulation of her good intentions.
It's also possible to read Smith's fulmination as motivated by envy: a woman made a fool of him, and therefore on some level he's somewhat satisfied, in a "misery loves company" manner, to see his boon companion betrayed the same way. Naturally this psychological point isn't explored any further, since Rohmer is writing fast-paced adventure, not serious drama. The third novel, however, will include more references to Smith's failed romance, and though the novel does introduce Fu's daughter for the first time, albeit without naming her, there are slight indications that the two of them might have some history.
No comments:
Post a Comment