{"id":4733,"date":"2017-02-01T04:34:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T12:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=4733"},"modified":"2018-02-22T11:04:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T19:04:44","slug":"the-insidious-dr-fu-manchu-by-sax-rohmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/the-insidious-dr-fu-manchu-by-sax-rohmer","title":{"rendered":"The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"TheThe Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu<\/em><\/a>\u00a0has all the weaknesses of the typical pulp stories of its era. It perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes, it relies too much on melodrama, and it overuses hyperbole. And yet, with all that, it still manages to entertain.<\/p>\n

The two protagonists, Petrie and Nayland Smith, are out to save the world from the evil genius Dr. Fu-Manchu. Try as they might to stop him, Fu-Manchu always stays one step ahead, moving from one shady hideout to the next, unleashing horrible dangers upon helpless victims. Fortunately, the two heroes have the help of the alluring Karamaneh, woman of mystery.<\/p>\n

Fans of the old pulp magazines like Doc Savage<\/em>, The Shadow<\/em> or Weird Tales<\/em> will find much to enjoy in The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu<\/em>. Readers with more modern tastes may find it offensive and hard to stomach.<\/p>\n

As for me, despite its flaws, I loved its energy, its exotic flavor, and the way Rohmer brings the evil Fu-Manchu to life.<\/p>\n

I read this book as part of several reading challenges this year, the main one being the Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge<\/a>. Earlier this year I read\u00a0The Mystery of the Yellow Room<\/em> by Gaston Leroux which had an introduction by Otto Penzler. That led me to The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu<\/em>, which also has an introduction by Penzler. The Open Road Kindle edition has a clock on its cover, which is the clue to my next mystery,\u00a04:50 from Paddington,\u00a0<\/em>which also has a timepiece on its cover.<\/p>\n

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu<\/em><\/a> by Sax Rohmer
\nFirst edition<\/em> London: Methuen Publishing, 1913
\nKindle edition<\/em> Open Road, 2014
\nPrint length: 148 pages<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu\u00a0has all the weaknesses of the typical pulp stories of its era. It perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes, it relies too much on melodrama, and it overuses hyperbole. And yet, with all that, it still manages to entertain. The two protagonists, Petrie and Nayland Smith, are out to save the world from the evil genius Dr....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Book review: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1057,5],"tags":[36,842,907,908,186,906],"class_list":["post-4733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-books","tag-book-recommendations","tag-book-reviews","tag-china","tag-dr-fu-manchu","tag-mysteries","tag-sax-rohmer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/fu-manchu-banner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOucj-1el","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4733"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4743,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions\/4743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}