Customer Reviews

The Devil Doctor

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"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

This is the second volume in Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu series, and the first full novel; it may also be found alternatively titled as "The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu." (The first volume, if you wish to start at the beginning, is a collection of short stories, and can be found either titled "The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu" or "The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu"). Most of this review will apply to Rohmer's Fu Manchu series generally - skip to the last paragraph for comments on this particular volume.

These books are *wildly* racist, not just by modern standards, but even by standards contemporary to when it was written. The protagonist, "Nayland Smith," isn't just an Aryan, he has a name only one letter removed from Wayland Smith of Old Norse legend; every single villain in the entire series has a "racial cast", "mixed blood," etc.; Jewish characters aren't just money-grubbing villains, they literally shrug their shoulders "racially," whatever that means; so on, so forth. Later books in the series take this to an extreme; one entire book focuses on the protagonist's protection of a clear analogue of the contemporary Father Coughlin (an American radio preacher known for his antisemitism and defense of Hitler and Mussolini in the 30's),and this trend approaches the absurd when a later volume, published in 1939, finds Fu Manchu essentially trying to assassinate a Hitler analogue in order to prevent European war, while the protagonists attempt to stop him and save the dictator.

That said, if you're a fan of early twentieth century pulp fiction, you probably need to read these books despite that. Dr. Fu Manchu is an iconic character, referenced and alluded to throughout 20th century fiction, and a host of villains from James Bond's Dr. No to Ming the Merciless on down all draw inspiration from this source. The general environment of adventurism, mystical artifacts, bizarre murders, etc., has been hugely influential in its own right -- the Indiana Jones franchise, especially, owes a great deal to the Fu Manchu novels (although Lucas and Spielberg had the good sense to make sure Nazis were the *villains*).

The plots are standard pulp tropes, and the reader finds Fu Manchu committing murders via an assortment of (very definitely non-white) cats'-paws and bizarre eastern animals, meanwhile befuddling our protagonists in various ways with assorted exotic Eastern drugs. Usually there's a beautiful and mysterious Eastern woman beguiling and/or assisting our heroes in various ways, etc. Fu Manchu himself is always far more intelligent than the protagonists, and they only prevail through luck, the sometime assistance of the aforementioned Eastern beauty, the "inscrutability" of the Doctor's motives, or by playing on the Doctor's "strange oriental honor." Conversely, when the author manages to write the Doctor into a corner, he just gets out of it via unexplained mysterious powers (essentially "a wizard did it").

The overall effect of the Doctor's repeated demonstrations of intelligence, honor, capability, etc., combined with the protagonists' ineptitude and wild racism, is somewhat unique in my reading experience: over the course of the series the Doctor becomes more and more and more sympathetic and respectable, and the protagonists less and less so, to the point that I think a modern reader can legitimately view the Doctor as the "hero" in the later books (especially the aforesaid one involving the Hitler analogue).

This particular volume isn't my favorite in the series; the events in it are fairly repetitive and predictable, without the wildly over-the-top silliness of the later books in the series; my favorite moment probably comes when the Doctor taunts the protagonists for yet again falling into the exact same trap they've fallen into twice before. Still, it's an interesting read, both as a cultural artifact of 1920's racism and as a building block of 20th century pulp fiction, and worth reading as part of the overall series.

This book also goes by the title of The Return of Fu-Manchu and I believe is the 2nd in the series.

I really enjoy Rohmer's work. He knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat and I would say he is one of the best English suspense/mystery writers of all time.

Yes, this book is a bit racist, but keep in mind it was also written a long time ago in a much different time in England. If you liked the original Fu-Manchu novel then you'll like this one as well.