Thursday, September 10, 2009

Review: "Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist"


"Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist" is one of those novels that you think just can't exist. It's hardly known outside of a very small coterie of hardcore fans of French, obscure, bizarro, and horror fiction. Even those who've heard of it have trouble believing in it.

The title character is an irredeemable criminal who murders people by enema. And that might be the least strange thing about it.

There's also the psychiatrists, most notably the veil-wearing and poodle-carrying Dr. Termite, who uses therapeutic speech to hypnotize people into doing his bidding.

There's the police force, which consists of a few men dedicated to- well, eating strange French cuisine and having affairs with prostitutes. Some crimes are actually so disturbing that they consider it ungentlemanly to investigate them.

There's the zombies. An occult group called "The Lunar 13" is able to recapture the souls of some dead (men, whose corpses haven't been too badly mangled in whatever incident caused their death) and reanimated the corpses through a combination of Latin chanting and menstrual fluid.

There's the spirits. A giant human with a partial bird-head called Notta Thot is summoned by The Lunar 13 to do their bidding. He is able to discarnate himself, and lives half in the human dimension and half in a place called "Otherwhere."

There's "The Main Office," apparently a national police force, one of the members of which, Inspector Lefévre, has been charged with capturing Arsole, at any price.

There is the social commentary and satire of city life at the turn of the 20th century. It's a brutal world where the haves live worry-free, while the have-nots scrounge for every morsel they can find, even if it's just waste.

My own first brush with the novel was purely subliminal, as I've already mentioned on this blog. My discovery of Edward Gorey's drawing of a veil-wearing, poodle-carrying man wearing a large fur coat, first published in Life magazine many years ago. That image of Dr. Termite haunted me. It wasn't until years after seeing that image that I realized that Dr. Termite was one of the main characters in "Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist."

Of course, I had to read the book. Unfortunately, it was not in print even in its native France. Largely forgotten, unfortunately obscure.

Now, however, it's been translated by someone called Ricky Sprague. His introduction details the reasons for the book's obscurity, and the unfortunate circumstances that befell the book after its publication. There's also some self-serving bits about his own relationship to the book.

Please. He's the translator. Who cares about how he came to discover the book? We want information on Arsole, and on his creators, Marcel Maurice and Pierre.

(In fairness to Sprague, it appears there is very little information available on these two men.)

The book begins with Arsole claiming yet another victim, and leaving him lying in a "chunky pool of his own intestinal effluvia." The victim, it turns out, is a thief called Jacques Purg, who was searching for something called "The Coer de Merde" diamond.

(By the way, "Coer de Merde" is not a misprint. In the original French publication, which I have been able to see for myself, it is spelled "Coer," not "Coeur." The joke is that it's Latin, not French, and refers not to a heart, but to force or coercion. Sprague's translation could have made this more clear- especially late in the novel when the "Coer de Merde" is discovered. Notes might have been helpful on this point, and on the fact that Sprague translated the printer's errors from the original novel. The effect is as close as the modern English reader can get to reading the original work, but why not explicitly tell us this? Is Sprague just trying to be modest?)

We learn that the Coer de Merde might or might not have been owned by someone named Mme Possédant. She, too, has been murdered by enema, and her body is discovered by her own daughter, Germaine. The sight of her dead mother sends her into shock, and, unable to speak, she is sent by her uncle Guillaume to live in a mental hospital called The Wierd Institute.

The Wierd Institute is currently run by its interim director, Dr. Bouchard, who is awaiting a permanent director, who has been appointed by The Association. The previous director, Dr. Blanc, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and Dr. Bouchard is jealous of the fact that another doctor has been appointed to take his place.

The day of Germaine's interment in the hospital, a conductor called Chaput also comes to stay. He will be living on the mental hospital's penthouse level, which is actually run as a luxury hotel. He's there to rest, and to attempt to write music, but he offers to tutor Germaine during her stay.

Meanwhile, the policeman investigating the crimes against Jacques and Mme Possédant has discovered that his own partner is yet a third victim of Arsole. Inspector Vargasse finds his partner's body beside Jacques's. Although he's certain that Arsole is the man responsible, very few other members of the force believe him. They think Arsole is a myth.

They continue to believe he's a myth even after a man from the Main Office, Inspector Lefévre, enters the picture. He has been tracking Arsole's movements for years, and believes that these latest crimes have been committed by him. So he and Vargasse canvas the city (which is called simply "The City"), looking for clues.

Inspector Vargasse's wife, Esmerald, is a member of the aforementioned Lunar 13, along with Dr. Bouchard, a vampire, and several others. They spend their time reanimating corpses, engaging in cult sex, and calling upon the whimsical spirit Notta Thot, who is forced to do their bidding.

The new head of The Wierd Institute arrives under a mysterious cloud. Guillaume Possédant is an importer, and his boat has just returned from a long and perilous voyage, on which all the food ran out and crewmembers were forced to eat one anothers' body parts. Dr. Termite, who was apparently a passenger on the boat, seems completely unaffected. The same can be said for his poodle, Perdita, who is his constant companion.

All of this is merely the set-up. The dense novel is full of bizarre twists and turns that keep the reader guessing as to where it's all headed (all of the threads connect quite satisfactorily in one explosive climax), and just who all of these people really are. One of them is Arsole Fantüme. Some of them are lying about their true motives. All of them have secrets.

For instance, what is "Ultra Veal," and what is its signifigance? We know it's a dish that is so succulent that someone might be willing to murder for it, but who, and why? What happened to Dr. Blanc? What is the Coer de Merde? What is the signifigance of Esmerald Vargasse's menstrual cycles? All of these questions and more are addressed in what is strange and arresting read.

As for Arsole's crimes, they are as gruesome and wanton as you'd expect. One victim is made to be part of a grotesque art installation, another's body is "booby trapped" with acid, another is chopped into pieces and used to enemate yet another victim- and they escalate even from there. The absurdity of the crimes becomes almost farcical- indeed there is a great deal of black humor in the novel as well.

The English translation can be purchased from amazon here, and is highly recommended.