THE READING RHEUM: YELLOW PERIL (1978)

Given that this year I finished re-reading and reviewing all of Sax Rohmer’s “Fu Manchu” stories, I decided I might as well also address this light-hearted Rohmer-pastiche/satire.

All that I know of author Richard Jaacoma is that he reportedly worked for “Screw” Magazine. Possibly this experience led him to the notion of rewriting the pulpish but sexually restrained Oriental adventures of Rohmer into what the Berkley paperback cover-copy calls “a porno-fairytale-occult-thriller!” There are indeed assorted scenes of pornographic encounters or of sexual rituals allegedly based on the disciplines of Tantrism. Yet it would not be impossible to write out all the sex-scenes and still have a reasonably coherent pulp-adventure, so the pornography seems of secondary interest.

In the late 1930s, central character Sir John Weymouth-Smythe works for the British diplomatic service in Bangkok. However, he’s actually an agent for his government, and unlike the more noble lawmen in the Rohmer novels, Smythe regularly undertakes missions to assassinate anyone who might threaten British interests in the region. Jaacoma, however, is not that interested in the seamy side of early imperialism, though he does have Smythe and other characters justify their actions in terms of service to “the White Race.” Despite his desire to keep the “Yellow Race” in its place, Smythe is in love with Beth-Li, the half-Asian daughter of his Bangkok superior Laight. Yet their love seems not meant to be. The insidious Doctor Chou en Shu, master of a murderous band of dacoits, shows up in the diplomatic offices, conducting a bizarre sexual ritual in which Beth-Li and both of her parents willingly participate. Smythe interrupts the ritual, but Chou en Shu escapes with Beth-Li. Later, for reasons that are never really explained, Smythe is hoaxed into believing that the evil doctor has killed Beth-Li. This does motivate Smythe to follow Chou to the ends of the earth in quest of vengeance—though it does seem that the kidnapping alone would’ve accomplished the same thing.

Smythe is forced by his superiors to make common cause with other agents of a “white power” in order to track down Chou—and they just happen to be extremely perverted and vicious agents of the Third Reich. To his credit, Smythe doesn’t find the Nazis to his liking, even though to the last he remains ignorant—like many real persons in The Day—as to the nature of Germany’s “final solution.” Smythe’s mission is further complicated by learning that what the Germans want from the Chinese doctor is a mystical talisman, the Spear of Destiny. (Jaacoma even provides citations from non-fiction author Trevor Ravenscroft to buttress the story of the talisman.) Significantly, Jaacoma’s book appeared in its first edition three years before Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK made it to theaters, though the basic idea of opposed groups chasing after super-weapons extends back to serials of the 1930s decade. To his chagrin, the chauvinistic Smythe learns that Chou en Shu is more or less fighting on the side of the angels, attempting to prevent the deadly powers of the Spear from bringing about planetary destruction. (There are also a couple of references to the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, though I tend to think Jaacoma just threw these in as window-dressing.)

Although Sax Rohmer sometimes strained credibility by having his Asian supercriminal utilize comic-booky devices like disintegrator rays, Jaacoma has even less restraint than the creator of Fu Manchu. YELLOW PERIL contains such delirious scenes as the German agents slaughtering a horde of dacoits with the help of a band of killer yetis, and Chou en Shu and Hitler fighting for possession of the Spear in a struggle showing that both are possessed by eldritch entities. But this is not a complaint: the pulps—to which Rohmer’s works are thematically related—were great because of their unbridled extravagance.

Now, given that Jaacoma borrows from Rohmer such character-names as “Sir Denis” and “Weymouth” (a minor support-character in early Fu Manchu books), it would not be hard to view YELLOW PERIL as an invidious satire of the Rohmer books. I cannot be sure that this was not Jaacomas’s intent, for without question he means his readers to sneer when his characters prate about the fate of the “White Race.” Rohmer was not a doctrinaire racist, but he can be fairly accused of having played to the chauvinism of his readers with the trope I’ve called the “brown or yellow killer hiding under every bed.” Jaacoma guides his readers to realize that Smythe’s casual bigotry is only skin-deep, and much of the novel shows how he transcends those attitudes to some extent. In the Fu Manchu books the starring villain shows admiration for the dogged efforts of his opponent Sir Denis Nayland Smith, and here Chou en Shu shows an almost fatherly affection for Smythe despite the agent’s desire to kill him. Some Oedipal issues are suggested by the fact that (a) Chou en Shu has sex with Beth-Li not long after Smythe does, and (b) in the end Smythe feels moved to address Chou as “father”—though purely in a symbolic sense, since Smythe’s real father was a distant man who died long ago. I don’t think Jaacoma gives any of his characters any of the psychological depth one can find in the best pulp-ficiton characters; neither Smythe nor his Oriental opponent are as resonant as Nayland Smith and Fu Mamchu. However, because Jaacoma does critique the sociocultural attitudes of 1930s racial attitudes, and because he attempts to show some of the grey areas in the black-and-white worldview of the pulps, I do give YELLOW PERIL a rating of high mythicity, despite its assorted flaws.