The review from afar – No. 11Re-revised forward to these overseas reviews:As I emulate a yo-yo, I continue to rely on an old-style Kindle 3G for any non-technical reading. I tip my hat to the fine folks at Project Gutenberg: virtually every title I have or will be reading in the near future comes from them.The Hand of Fu Manchu (UK title, The Si-Fan Mysteries) is the third installment (and ends with the temporary halt) in the duel between Colonial Police Commissioner (with a Royal Roving License) Denis Nayland Smith and his friend and associate (and narrator), Dr. Petrie and the sinister mastermind Doctor Fu Manchu.For this outing, the prolific and imaginative Sax Rohmer (nee’ Arthur Henry Ward) chose to mix things up. Dr. Petrie has been sojourning in Egypt of all places and must journey back to England at Nayland Smith’s call. While the game may not have been afoot, trouble was stirring and it had a name: Doctor Fu Manchu. And behind the brilliant mind there is the Si-Fan; the organization that holds his allegiance and directs his efforts. Unlike the previous two novels, we see the organization and learn what the Doctor expects from it (and in turn is required to provide). He is to be elevated to a high status within it, but by luck or fate he loses the one thing he must have and instead it comes under the ken of our heroes.There is still plenty of acrimony between the actors as well as grudging respect, but we see Nayland Smith and Petrie beginning to gain the upper hand. Here, they are not rescued by the diminutive and beautiful Karamaneh, instead they must rescue her (and about time, too!) Just when all seems darkest for the Dark Genius, he is saved by horse-trading by our stalwart Englishmen. (Of course they are compelled into the compact by their own needs, but that doesn’t abate any of the delicious irony – Fu Manchu has been put in the position of granting them clemency more than once before.)In addition to putting his standard plots on their heads, our author had one more trick up his Oriental robe: at the end of the novel we believe that Fu Manchu has surely met his end. Like Conan Doyle before him, Rohmer had wearied of the character, the demand for more, and possibly the notoriety that it had garnered (it was even then a low-brow attitude towards the Celestials that he was preaching, after all.) So, in this novel he buried the Evil Doctor and planned to leave him there for all time.Like Sauron, even named evil has a way of re-constituting itself. In the end, Rohmer resisted the siren calls for 3 (if you count to the publication of The Return of Sherlock Holmes) or 5 (if you count to the “prequel”, The Hound of the Baskervilles) years longer that Conan Doyle managed. I haven’t yet read any of these later works, but like ACD, there are more of the post-break tales than there are of the earlier ones. They’re on my list.As before, the stories were written for serial publication, so the novel is the agglutination of these novelettes. Was the tale planned out in advance, or was it just extended as each new deadline loomed? I can’t tell. If done as a full book, it would still need to be sliced into attractive (i.e. thrilling) segments that were long enough to carry their own tune, but not so long that they took up the entire publication. If done per deadline, then there would have to be some thought (perhaps a smidge more than what Michael Moorcock has described in his pressure-writings) of the overall continuity and final outcome at each step. Without detailed notes from the author it matters very little how the story arouse. What does matter is does it fill the reader’s appetite for action, adventure, and alliteration. (Okay, that last one was just pure indulgence on my part.)But indulgent is one way of looking at these stories. Here we see an author successfully meet the needs of his readers. Does Sax Rohmer have to be the vilest, meanest racist on the planet to broadly and subtly denigrate other races and cultures? Of course not. Is he a product of his times and the misgivings of the West about the East? Yes, most certainly he is. But I also think that he knew, knew and played these threads to create the story that the buying public wanted. Were they manipulated and fed tales about the “Yellow Peril”? Definitely. Was pandering to this a dive to the sewers (you philosophers can say it is another fallacy of sweeping generalization) in the expectation of selling magazines and books? You betcha!Show me a writer that has never taken up a popular genre or theme when faced with objective proof that it sells. It’s good enough for the TV News & Sunday Papers (in the guise of “if it bleeds, it leads”), so I think that it’s good enough for popular fiction, too. Sax Rohmer raised himself up from being a music hall writer to the creator of fiction that sold and sold well. I think that deserves recognition no matter what he built his fame upon.Fu Manchu is a blackguard, a fiend, a criminal who stops at nothing and no one. But he is more than that. He has standards and scruples. They may be (*ahem*) inscrutable until voiced, but they exist. He seeks what he has been directed to and yet, at the same time, He is the archetype for brilliant, evil, fiends bent on world domination. No whack-job with a garrulous streak, he does however spin off into the occasional soliloquy. But when he did it only a few notables had done so before him: Captain Nemo, Professor Moriarty, and so on. On our side of the Pond, it was still “Before the Golden Age of Science Fiction” and Dashiell Hammett was writing, but not Raymond Chandler. To be there when these stories were first published would have been a real treat. Despite the rough edges (part of their appeal originally), these are good stories and Doctor Fu Manchu is a most wonderful adversary!Three (3.0) Solid Stars for the actual writing, but Four (4.0) Stars awarded for creating one of the Baddest of the Bad Guys of All Time.You can get this story for free from the Gutenberg Project site.
When I was 11 or 12, I remember turning the wire rack at the dimestore, the one containing all the paperbacks that they carried, and finding one that fascinated me. A man in a long Mandarian gown with a long mustache and fingernails that must have been 6 inches long. I don't remember the exact cover, but I do remember its impact on me. I plunked down my 35 cents (can you imagine that!!!) and took home my first exposure to Sax Rohmer and Dr. Fu-Manchu. As soon as I finished one, I went back to the store to buy another.It's not that the books are that great. Rohmer is the typical crank-em-out author of genre fiction in the early 20th century. The main characters are obviously based on Sherlock Holmes and Watson. And the fact that they are fighting an indescribebly evil Chinese doctor is obviously a sign of the fear of the Yellow Peril.....But, they're FUN!!! Secret Oriental societies, opium dens in London, the evil doctor himself (who always appears in the books, unlike Professor Moriarity), escapes from sure death - man, oh man. Who wouldn't want to read these?Fu-Manchu is coming back to life now in the series published by Titan Books of England. This is the first to be issued.If you enjoy turn of the 20th century "sensational" fiction, pick these up. I'm having a wonderful time reliving that fascination from my childhood.....
Do You like book The Hand Of Fu-Manchu (2012)?
I really enjoyed this one! I find the writing on par with Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales and even tops them when it comes to the action sequences. I know Fu Manchu had his day for many a decade but the books certainly don't enjoy the same level of success as the Holmes stories do today. I'm guessing it is the racial element that had held the books back because the writing is absolutely top notch. An excellent read. If you stumble upon a copy of this, or any of the other, Fu Manchu books, pick it up. You won't be sorry. Great stuff!
—Andrew Salmon
I'm not sure this was the best one to read first.. it's actually the 3rd of the series, but was the first one in the Sax Rohmer reader the library had. I have to say, it really didn't enjoy it. It read very much like a pale copy of Sherlock Holmes to me. Nayland Smith has far less personality and, in fact, doesn't really have any defining characteristics throughout the novel. Dr. Petrie, the Narrator/sidekick, was pretty much completely incompetent... getting kidnapped TWICE by the bad guys, falling asleep on the job, and spending the rest of the time pining over the girl he was hoping to rescue.Worst of all, Fu Manchu himself is really more of an idea than a character. We're constantly TOLD how he's an evil mastermind, but we're not SHOWN it. He spends the entire book tried to kill Smith, narrowly failing, then running away... that happened, I think, 4 times, then the novel ended. Very disappointing.
—Joe Santoro
I have this in an early Methuen edition where it is titled 'THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES'. Sadly, the original dust-jacket has not survived. It's an enjoyable romp, although at times my Asiatic hackles are raised. The ending suffers from too fortunate a coincidence - our heroes retreat to a friend's distant manor to rest, and the Si-Fan's secret lair turns out to have been below this manor all along. Some attempt is made to explain this as part of Fu-Manchu's diabolical planning, but it's an excessive touch.
—Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
