The
sixth Fu Manchu book is arguably the best in the series, with the
possible exception of the novel that introduces the devil-doctor.
It’s definitely the first book in the series that doesn’t feel
like a bunch of episodic events strung together, which may be the
result of Rohmer treating his small cast of characters after the
fashion of archaic Greek drama.
New
viewpoint character Alan Sterling is certainly a huge improvement
over the dull Shan Greville from books four and five. Though
Sterling’s occupation of “roving botanist” doesn’t sound as
promising as the career of roving archeaologist Greville, Sterling’s
a much more decisive hero, managing to slay two of Fu Manchu’s
dacoit servants, albeit with a handgun. And while Greville merely
fantasizes about enacting the “Troy complex” when he first meets
Doctor Petrie’s beauteous wife Karameneh, Sterling actually does
manage to steal the titular “bride of Fu Manchu.”
Sterling’s
flower-hunting profession is key to his involvement in the story, for
he consults informally with the redoubtable Doctor Petrie,
investigating a deadly new contagion in France. The contagion is of
course the creation of Fu Manchu, and both Petrie and Denis Nayland
Smith have been drawn to France to foil the doctor’s plans for
world domination. (Petrie, incidentally, catches the disease he’s
trying to cure and spends most of the novel at death’s door, though
his prior discovery of a vaccine ends up nullifying Fu’s plans.)
Yet Sterling is the first to make indirect contact with Fu’s
fiendish plans, for in addition to menacing the world with a disease
carried by hybrid flies, the doctor’s brought his prospective bride to
France as well. Fleurette (French for “little flower”) charms
Sterling the mment he has a meet-cute with her, even though he’s
given reason to suspect that she’s the kept woman of an older
master. By the magic of authorial fiat, though, Sterling crosses
paths twice more with Fleurette, and his slaying of the second dacoit
leads Fu Manchu to abduct the botanist.
Indeed,
being a botanist is apparently the only thing that saves Sterling’s
life. Fu Manchu’s French hideout is one of the first and best of
all “supervillain lairs,” a massive underground laboratory
devoted to diverse researches, replete with exotic plants, fearsome
animals (not least a spider “as large as a grapefruit”), and a
deformed, artificially-grown humanoid called a “homunculus.”
Moroever, Fu Manchu has considerably upped his game in terms of
servants. In the previous five books, most of Fu’s servants seem to
be near-mindless assassins, and the doctor’s principle stratagem
seems to be trying to find ways to foment in the East against the
interests of the West. But Fu’s French laboratory is staffed with
the finest scientists from East and West—some of whom are
supposedly dead, and all of whom have been subjected to chemical
brainwashing. The prospective plague is of course Fu’s principle
threat, but he needs botanists like Sterling to help with his
research, not least to improve on his elixir vitae, which keeps Fu
vigorous despite his considerable age.
As
in previous books, though, the master scientist outsmarts himself,
this time by bringing Sterling into closer contact with Fleurette.
The devil-doctor is certainly aware, in his magisterial way, of
Sterling’s attempt to flirt with Fleurette, but evidently the
villain assumes that once his people subject Sterling to the
brainwashing, the young man will no longer pose any threat. But Fu’s
rebellious daughter Fah Lo Suee doesn’t want her father to give her
any siblings—particularly not a son, who would in theory supplant
her—and so she makes sure that Sterling’s brainwash-chemical is
compromised, and the botanist remains mentally free, albeit in
captivity.
Because
of this relative freedom, Sterling does unveil some of Fleurette’s
mysteries, learning that she’s half-Arab and that from childhood
she’s been schooled to become “the perfect woman” in terms of
bearing and intellect, the better to be the mother of a new son of Fu
Manchu. (Apparently Fu tried this before with the Russian mother of
Fah Lo Suee, but he blames the fruit of that union on the “taint of
a distant ancestor.” Whether it’s a paternal or maternal
ancestor, Fu does not say.) Rohmer also tosses out the idea that
Fleurette may have prophetic powers that could aid Fu Manchu in his
quest for dominion, though she’s not really seen showing any such
propensities. Indeed, Sterling is seen having more than his fair
share of precognitive episodes, though Nayland Smith attributes these
incidents—like seeing the face of Fu Manchu in a dream-reverie,
long before meeting the villain face-to-face—to some sort of
empathic connection between Sterling and Fleurette.
It’s
not clear why the doctor, who’s willing to brainwash almost
everyone in his service, does not do the same to Fleurette, so that
she would feel for him such adulation that love with another man
ought to be impossible. As it is, Fleurette only feels immense
respect for Fu, her substitute father-figure, though Rohmer provides
no scenes of character-interaction between Fu and his intended.
Whatever the doctor’s reasons for not covering his bets, Sterling
succeeds in winning Fleurette from her master. Surprisinigly, while
Fu Manchu is willing to consign thousands to plague-death in order to
reshape the world, he isn’t willing to contravene the power of
love, either by killing Sterling or by belatedly brainwashing
Fleurette. (He does take out some of his frustration on the
traitorous Fah Lo Suee, expressing his contempt for Western chivalry
as he personally flogs his daughter—which action may speak volumes
about why she’s so often a thorn in his side.)
Nayland
Smith belatedly enters the novel to lead police forces on the
compound, but though the police rescue Sterling, Fu escapes with both
Fleurette and Doctor Petrie (whose death the mastermind fakes, with
the long game of making Petrie into another slave). The pursuit does
lead to Fu Manchu being captured by French police, though, as in the
first novel, the mastermind uses his skills of illusionism to escape
and menace the world once more. Both Petrie and Fleurette are
liberated, but by then Sterling has learned a further secret from
Nayland Smith: that Fleurette is actually the long-lost daughter of
Petrie and Karameneh.
It’s
at this point that Sax Rohmer does seem to borrowing a bit from the
Atreus Saga. Eighteen years ago, the Petries believed that their
infant daughter had perished of illness. In truth, the medical
mastery of Fu Manchu placed the child in a cataleptic state, and then
allowed one of his agents to raise the girl to maturity, always with
the plan that Fleurette would become Fu’s bride later.
I’ve
mentioned in my review of INSIDIOUS DR FU MANCHU that Rohmer first
characterizes Karameneh as someone who might be Fu’s “servant,
daughter, or lover,” though only the first appellation proves
literally true. Petrie manages to enact his own “Troy complex” by
stealing the heart of Karameneh, and though in the second book Fu
Manchu retaliates by trying to eradicate Karameneh’s memory of
Petrie, love restores the former slave’s memory. Indeed, Fu’s
first “rebel daughter” repays him in kind: he messes with her
mind, and she shoots him in the head. After the introduction of the
villain’s genuine daughter, she proves alternately obedient and
rebellious to her father’s will. Fleurette is the first female
character who has the potential to be “servant, daughter and lover”
to Fu Manchu, and though she’s not as willful as either Karameneh
or Fah Lo Suee, Rohmer does give her more wit and personality than
most of his femmes fatales. Surprisingly, no one in the novel makes
any comment at all upon Fu’s motives for choosing to steal the
child of the Petries. The logical supposition of most similar
thrillers would be that he did so for base revenge. However, over the
years Rohmer built up the image of Fu Manchu as a magnanimous foe, so
mere vengeance would have seemed out-of-character, even though the
act of child-stealing has the same emotional impact on its victims.
The author may have wanted this magnanimity in order to explain why
the villain does not (for example) ever attempt Karameneh’s life
for her act of rebellion. (He does kidnap Karameneh in the third
book, but once he’s used her as a chess-piece against Petrie, he
never bothers her again.) The next book repeats this pattern, as Book
Seven shows Fu kidnapping Fleurette, not for vengeance but to use her
as a pawn in his unending chess-game.
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