Arsene Lupin

Rating:
Summary: A great Mystery!
Review: Arsene Lupin, for those of you who don't know him, is a Gentleman Burgler. He robs from only the extremely wealthy, and usually, the most corrupt people who deserve it. His methods are playfull, and he will often send a letter to the police, the victims, and newspapers before he committs a crime to give them forwarning, which in turn makes his robberies even more daring and unique. Lupin has it all!
This book deals with a tale about a Duke who is just returning from an Antartica Adventure only to find that his best friends house is about to be robbed by Lupin (and has in the past). Once the ball gets rolling, every new fact and clue twists the plot and changes the motives. How does Lupin do it? You'll Just have to find out.
This is a great series by Maurice Leblanc. I would recomend reading "Homelock Shears vs Arsene Lupin" and "The Crystal Stopper" before this, just to get to know Lupin better.

Rating:
Summary: absolutely hilarious!
Review: Having read both Chinese and English versions of this book, I'd first establish that the English translation has a much better woven plot and greater tension between the characters. No doubt, we all know that Arsene Lupin is one extremely charming gentleman burglar, with a soft spot for women (esp. beautiful women). What made this reading so enjoyable (perhaps it's because I'm overtly sentimental and like romantic novels) is partly because of the romantic 'subplot' involving Sonia and Arsene Lupin.

Of course, I personally think that this is not really typical of Maurice Leblanc himself to write such a mushy lovey-dovey subplot and I wonder if Edgar Jepson co-wrote this book with him, or only after Leblanc had passed away. (Then again, it doesn't matter, since I did like the mushy bits anyway. They were absolutely hilarious!) Other Lupin books that I've read were certainly more capable of creating essential suspense, for e.g. The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (N.B. This book might have been revised and edited from Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. I'm not too sure, because this was written by the mystery writing team, Boileau-Narcejac.)

I do agree that the pace of the novel is a little slow, but perhaps it feels slow because it requires length to be able to reveal the full implications of certain details which is necessary to create suspense and tension. Characters might have been made to look diabolically extreme, in that Arsene Lupin always seems to be the good guy, and poor Guerchard takes on the baddie's role. However, one has to read the other Lupin works to understand how intelligent our dear Lupin is, and certainly much cleverer than the average detective.

I did thoroughly enjoy this book, but I have to give it only 4 out of 5 stars because I found it rather fairy-tale like, not quite characteristic of other Leblanc works which I truly adore and would rank them above Dolye's Sherlock Holmes.

Rating:
Summary: The greatest character ever.
Review: I began to read the books by Maurice Leblanc when I was a teenager, and since them I read them all. Since I'm blessed with the gift of forgetting plots, stories, characters and such, I could read those books featuring Arsene Lupin as many times as I wanted, and I always enjoyed them as if I was reading them for the first time.

Leblanc was able to create the most spectacular character of all time. Better than Sherlock Holmes, better than Hercule Poirot, Auguste Dupin, better than anything I have ever read till today (I'm 25 now).

Lupin is, to say little, complex. He is capable of loving and hating with the same passion. He can hate a friend and he can love an enemy with all his heart. Leblanc thought him as a Robin Hood of his time. Possessing a fine eye for art, books, women and deciphering secrets, Lupin has lived many lifes as different people, each one better than the other. In his bboks, Leblanc created the plots using parts of french history, including treasures, landscape, hidden tunnels, immortal characters, wars, etc.

This collection of short stories is just an introduction to the wonderful world of Arsene Lupin and to his world. There are many books featuring Lupin, and in my opinion the best are, in order:

813; The hollow needle; Crystal Stopper; Teeth of the tiger; The Comtesse de Cagliostro; The eight strokes of the clock; The Eunerville Secret. All these books are wonderful adventures, and should be re-edited in english as soon as possible.

Grade 9.5/10

Rating:
Summary: The books at inspired the anime classic, Lupin the Third...
Review: I first found out about the Lupin stories from the anime, Rupan Sansei (Lupin the third). After obtaining one of the books from my local library I can see how they inspired Monkey Punch's manga.

Arsene Lupin is a dashing character indeed. Though a burglar, he is a gentlemen with great cunning and a suave personality. I laughed at how he outsmarts Inspector Ganimard in the stories (in a way it reminds of of Lupin III and Inspector Zenigata). Lupin is a gentlemen and master of diguise with many aliases and appearances. He could be an architect, a begger, a fisherman, etc. Some people have even dubbed Arsene Lupin the 'Sherlock Holmes' of thieves.

If you love Lupin the Third or detective stories you are in for a treat. I highly recommend the Arsene Lupin series for both.

Rating:
Summary: very thin, very weak, very slow
Review: This is the first (and only) Arsene Lupin novel I've read, and to say I was disappointed is to put it mildly. I feel sure that there must be a better first installment to read than this one, because this one was very poor.

The pace of this book is so slow it could almost be called glacial. There are virtually no interesting developments or surprises, as one might expect from something that is billed as a sort of French take on Sherlock Holmes.

The characterizations are simple minded and cartoonish. Lupin is suave, generous and good-hearted and his opposite number, Guerchard is cold, vindictive and embittered.

There is some nice portrayal of extremities of emotion at the climax of the book, but not nearly enough to redeem or justify having slogged through it up to that point.

It will be a long time before I can bring myself to read another entry in this series.