Thursday, April 23, 2020

THE READING RHEUM: THE ISLAND OF FU MANCHU (1940)


For the first hundred pages or so, ISLAND OF FU MANCHU reads much like its predecessor, in that it seems a throwback to the early episodic novels. Many thirties Fu novels give the readers strong intimations of the doctor’s newest dastardly scheme, but all one gets from Nayland Smith this time out is a mention of “strange incidents in the Caribbean.” Not coincidentally, Smith’s dubious ally Lionel Barton also happens to have involved himself in the affairs of a particular Caribbean dominion, the storied island of Haiti. This may seem rather unlikely terrain for an archaeologist to be investigating, but then again, a late chapter calls Haiti “an African island in the Caribbean,” and so in a sense Haiti, with its legends of voodoo and zombies, suggests the ways in which primitive beliefs still survive in the technological twentieth century (even though Rohmer favors a quasi-scientific explanation for zombies, who are merely victims of chemical catalepsy). On the thematic level, this may have provided contemporaneous readers with an escape from the realities of armed conflict—for though ISLAND must have been written after England’s declaration of war with Germany, references to the real-life armed conflict are sporadic at best.

Once again Rohmer’s viewpoint character is the bluff reporter Bart Kerrigan, and for most of the novel, he’s by turns irate and mopey, since his beloved Ardatha has been summoned back into the service of Fu Manchu. For the first time, it’s mentioned that Ardatha belongs to an “almost extinct white race” that dwelled in Abyssinia, which makes her sound a bit like an escapee from an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. This minor theme becomes consequential in that one of Rohmer’s few positive “colored” characters, a Negro named Hassan, comes to the aid of both Ardatha and Kerrigan because of unspecified ties between his people and Ardatha’s. Because of Ardatha’s divided loyalties, Fu subjects Ardatha to the same memory-alterations he once used on Karameneh. This stratagem proves just as unsuccessful her as it did in RETURN OF DR. FU MANCHU, in that the young woman’s loss of memory doesn’t prevent her from falling in love with her young man all over again.

While the reader awaits some hint as to the devil-doctor’s specific project, he may notice a peculiar emphasis on characters whose skin-color has been altered. As a side effect of Fu’s current researches, Hassan has been bleached white, and another of the doctor’s aides, who is apparently not Asian despite his “Eastern”-sounding name of Oster, is said to be “as yellow as a lemon.” Perhaps this was Rohmer extending the metaphor of mixed heritage that appears in most of his female characrers, who are usually some mixture of Europe and the Middle East. That said, the subject of race does not seem as consequential here as it did in PRESIDENT FU MANCHU.

Smith and Kerrigan jaunt around from England to Panama and New York before they make their way to Haiti. They’re menaced by a ghostly “green hand” whose nature is not revealed until the later chapters, and for a time Ardatha is abducted by a sleazy fellow named Cabot, thus making Kerrigan even more distracted. Since Cabot is said to be allied to a faction in the Si-Fan opposed to Fu Manchu’s rule, this allows Rohmer to pick up the “Si-Fan schism” plot-thread he mentioned in DRUMS. For once Fu himself does not exterminate one of his opponents; Cabot’s reputation for sleaze leads his former mistress to kill him before he has his way with Ardatha.

Fah Lo Suee is similarly employed to illustrate the Si-Fan schism. Despite the fact that she remains in her newly brainwashed identity of Koreani, Fu tells Kerrigan that once again his daughter has allied herself with Fu’s enemies. This suggests that the brainwashing technique has no more power over deep animosity than it does over love.

To be sure, Fah Lo Suee plays only a small role here. She has no lines and does not interact with Smith as seen in DRUMS, but instead once again plays the role of “goddess on Earth.” In Haiti Smith and Kerrigan witness her assume the persona of the voodoo queen Mamaloi, while Fu himself uses a sort of “invisibility cloak” to impersonate the serpent-god Damballah.

These attempts by the Chinese doctor and his Eurasian daughter to manipulate the natives of Haiti may sound like another use of the “disaffected races” plot-thread, last seen to strong effect in MASK OF FU MANCHU. But though “Damballah” speaks at one point of “the glory of the African races” to a horde of voodoo-worshippers, there’s really no suggestion of a race-war in the offing. (Amusingly, during the voodoo ceremony Rohmer uses the effect of maddening drums far more than he did in the book with “drums” in its title.) Indeed, while the heroes are trying to dope out Fu’s interest in Barton’s researches, Rohmer becomes positively panegyrical about Haiti’s first king, that “Negro genius” Henri Christophe. In contrast to the dismal portrait of Haiti’s independence painted by Rohmer’s contemporary Dennis Wheatley, Rohmer shows no real animus toward the self-rule of Negroes in the New World. Indeed, the real-world figure of Christophe may be something of a model for the attempt of the fictional devil-doctor to gain a foothold in the midst of all the warring nations.

In the last eighty pages Fu’s project is finally clear. Instead of seeking to decimate mankind as he did in BRIDE, or to control the fate of nations through assassinations as in DRUMS, this time Fu wants recognition as a sovereign power, and he’s using Haiti for the base of his operations. I won’t detail how Fu’s ambitions tie in with Barton’s revelations about Henri Christophe—though Rohmer gives the archaeological mystery a few twists worthy of Edgar Allan Poe—but for the first time since BRIDE, Fu Manchu is back in “full supervillain mode.” Thanks to the James Bond movies, it’s become commonplace to imagine villains who set up shop inside dormant volcanoes, but Rohmer may have originated that particular trope. Once again, with Kerrigan playing unwilling witness, Rohmer shows the brilliance and magnanimity of his master schemer, showing how the volcano-base has been used to construct a small fleet of airplanes that fly via a Wellsian anti-gravity mineral—just more wonders to add alongside Fu’s arsenal of invisibility cloaks and disintegrator force-fields.

Though Kerrigan is too dull a character to be impressed by the doctor’s sagacity, Rohmer comes very close to making the reader want to see Fu succeed. Though Smith once more heads off the doctor’s plans, the final triumph seems to be in the hands of Heaven, in a manner not dissimilar to the conclusion of HAND OF FU MANCHU. The official explanation is that Fu’s diabolical energy-devices attract bolts of lightning that destroy his hidden base. But even if the thunderstorm doesn’t come from Heaven, it certainly works out to the benefit of Smith and Kerrigan, who seem outmatched from the get-go. Once again, dull leading man and dull leading lady are united, and the master villain seems to have met his demise—though his rationale remains unassailable:

“I am no more a criminal than Napoleon, no more a criminal than Caesar.”

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