bookheaven | The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was surprised to see how modern this felt. I've seen multiple movies without knowing which book they were drawing from (as this is a series) . I might have gone higher on the rating except for two things, the time period related misogyny (granted at the time of publication in 1905 this would have been a feminist text as this is Marguerite Blakeney's tale much more than the titular pimpernel) and I could have lived with the 'cleverist woman in France/England turning into a 'child' when needed. I was thinking hey we're doing pretty well on time period related racism (mostly because it's all White aristocrats) and then in the end starting with a chapter called The Jew it slams headlong into anti-semitism. More on that later.

So it's 1792 and Madame Guillotine is taking heads off left and right. Anyone with money is primed to be headless and anyone even thinking about disobeying the Republic can go too (including NOT catching the Scarlet Pimpernel). So SP has become a bogeyman to the Republic. He's been sneaking French Aristos out to England to safety.

Marguerite is now living in England in safety with her husband Percy while her brother is still in France. Armand and Marguerite were in favor of the Republic (as they were not aristos) until it started going too far. Armand is helping SP out and Marguerite has a bit of a guilty conscience because she accidentally betrayed a friend's father leading to his death. She tries to make the best of it having armor in the form of friendship with the Prince of Wales.

She and Percy have fallen out over this however and the man who adored her has gone ice cold just weeks after their marriage when this comes to light. Naturally with Armand in France helping out the SP and Chauvelin, one of the higher ups who can't wait to guillotine the people he feels deserves it, leverages Marguerite, use her position to sniff out the SP or her brother's head rolls.

She complies until she realizes who SP is and now she's trapped so she goes to France to save both SP and Armand and....goes from this level of brave to a total twit in time to get captured and needs SP to rescue her too. Eye roll (it had been doing SO well too for a 120 year old book until then).

And I'm back to the anti-semitism and it is BAD. Literally SP's entire plan to get out of the trap Chauvelin has laid depends on the fact that all the French hate Jews and he's going to use that against him (ouch). Sure enough our villain Chauvelin is totally an anti-semite and we get all the worst negative stereotypes about Jews (especially how greasy and gross they appear and how they can't resist a bargain).

So I enjoyed this up until the last handful of chapters when the heroine goes stupid and all of France hates Jews. Sigh.

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