Status Updates From The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

Well, I read Lovecraft. How much more racist could this possibly be?

Giving this a re-read as I rushed through it the last time and I think by taking it slower it will be more enjoyable.

This is very good so far. I am listening to the Librivox audio book and the narrator FNH is fantastic.

Melodrama and cliff hangers at every turn and unrequited love (because a gentleman has to be a gentleman no matter what the circumstances) across the continents.

The devilish doctor continues with his dastardly deeds. Will Nayland Smith foil his fiendish plans? A good romp, but I still feel a bit uncomfortable with some of the terminology.

Devishly clever and cunning methods of murder. Are Nayland Smith and Scotland Yard up to tackling Dr Fu Manchu? The story continues. I have to admit some of the terminology is a bit uncomfortable to read, but I'll keep going.

A doctor and a detective looking into the criminal affairs of mastermind... hmmm... sounds a bit familiar, but I'll see how it goes.

149 pages in and still one of the most racist texts I've ever read.

I'm only on page 4, but this is already the most racist book I've ever read.

If you can get passed the horrid racism, this is a very entertaining yarn

Karamenah is a lot less pretty when you find it just means "a slave"

Karamaneh is a pretty name

I'm not halfway through and it's already the hero has been captured scene...you spreading it thin Sax! Also Smith & Petrie are HORRIBLE detectives. It's more like they just find out things by happenstance, which all always end the same: Fu-Manchu did it and it was complicated, but no it was actually stupidly simple

Fu-Manchu in Da house!

Now I know what a Lascar is

Now I know what a Dacoit is

Version inglesa resumida con titulo "The mystery of Dr.Fu Manchu".

What evil criminal genius doesn't disarm his prisoners?

Oh no, the white race is already in danger! Can't have that.

This is so disappointing. Petrie is an idiot, Nayland Smith is an idiot, even Fu-Manchu is an idiot. And the level of racism must have been grotesque even in 1913.

So far, this book is almost impossible to put down! Does that make me a terrible person or just mean that I have bad taste?

...I suppose I need not say that I could penetrate no further into this, Fu-Manchu's latest plot, than the drugging of Norris West with hashish? Of his having been so drugged with Indian hemp-that is, converted temporarily into a maniac-...

She threw open her cloak, and it is a literal fact that i rubbed my eyes, half believing that I dreamed. For beneath she was arrayed in gossamer silk which more indicated the perfect lines of her slim shape; wore a jeweled girdle and barbaric ornaments; was a figure fit for he walled garden of Stamboul - a figure amazing, incomprehensible, in the prosaic setting of my rooms.

Today we may seek romance and ail to find it: unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life's highway. (12)

Air travel was only 10 years old, so most people traveled by ship to reach another continent. So, by our standards, for most people, going to China really was like going to Mars. And it really isn't that long ago, only about 100 years. From this perspective, it's surprising we've come as far as we have with our prejudices or maybe just not so surprising how backward we still are.

From our perspective today, this seems ridiculous and foolish since we're so much more advanced (are we?) and we can understand the cultural differences made the Chinese people of the day seem like aliens from space, something unknown and to be feared. It's important to remember how isolated populations were back then by comparison to today.

Sometimes it's a good idea to put books like this into context while you're reading them. Insidious was first published in 1913 just a year before the beginning of World War 1. The book comes from a context of the Chinese being the "yellow menace." Petrie often approaches his subject from the perspective that the Chinese are a danger to the "white race" and sees them as barbarians, not as advanced as his race.

109

I just can't quit listening to this. Really terrific ...

Halfway through, or so I assume since I'm listening to the audio. On chapter 15. It is great fun ...