
The Scarlet Pimpernel is a classic tale of intrigue and romance set during the French Revolution. The story follows the daring adventures of the mysterious Englishman known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, who rescues condemned individuals from the guillotine, while being pursued by a ruthless French agent. The novel is filled with espionage, suspense, and drama, all revolving around the elusive hero and his noble cause. Written in a theatrical style with outrageous intrigue, the book captures the essence of heroism and selfless acts in a time of turmoil and revolution.
The narrative unfolds through the lens of various characters, providing insights into their inner lives and motivations. The plot twists and reversals keep the reader engaged, although some find them predictable due to the book's influence on genre fiction since its publication. Despite the simplistic view of historic events and the florid writing style, The Scarlet Pimpernel remains a captivating read that offers a satisfying tale of good versus evil, heroism, and true love.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of violence during the French Revolution, including references to executions and political unrest.
Has Romance?
The romance between Marguerite and Percy is heavily featured, serving as a core part of the narrative.
From The Publisher:
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED
BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
A chronology of the author's life and work
A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
Detailed explanatory notes
Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
Ratings (30)
Incredible (3) | |
Loved It (13) | |
Liked It (6) | |
It Was OK (5) | |
Did Not Like (3) |
Reader Stats (54):
Read It (31) | |
Want To Read (15) | |
Not Interested (8) |
1 comment(s)
Marguerite felt herself entangled in one of those webs, from which she could hope for no escape.
I am now in that awkward place of being unimaginably bored by one of my friend’s favorite books…
The Scarlet Pimpernel is, unfortunately, a 2-star read for me. I love adventure fiction and angsty romance, but this was a slog. It took me over two weeks to finish, and that says a lot given the length.
One of the biggest barriers to my enjoyment was the prose. Stephen King has famously claimed “the road to hell is paved with adjectives,” and this is honestly the only time I’ve ever been distracted by (or even noticed) the sheer number of unnecessary adjectives. From
these daring and impudent Englishmen to
the mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel to
this meddlesome Englishman, this accursed Scarlet Pimpernel, it feels like Orczy is trying to pad out her page count by saying basically nothing with as many words as possible. There are definitely some moments with legitimately good writing (see some of my favorite passages below), usually describing a specific setting, but I generally found the style to be either annoying or bland.
It doesn’t help that, la! the demmed dialect is so distracting… I know some readers will enjoy the flavor of exclamations like “Zooks!” and “Odd’s fish!”, but to me it was like nails on chalkboard. It doesn’t help that Orczy randomly plops in sentences that are incredibly formal, like
Lord Fancourt had perforce to go. Her style just didn’t agree with me.
Going beyond stylistic preferences, I just didn’t find the writing to be very deep. The story is incredibly angsty and melodramatic, and it’s generally quite surface level. There are a few scenes between Marguerite and Percy that gave some insight into their characters and had a real emotional weight, but most of the time I had a hard time caring about them.
However, I didn’t hate it the entire time. I do find the idea of Marguerite and Percy’s relationship troubles to be compelling, and there were a few scenes where I really felt for both of them. Marguerite herself has some moments of wit and cleverness, like contriving to snatch the paper before it’s burned, that I wish I’d seen more of (she is, unfortunately, generally relegated to watching the action from the sidelines, either because she’s hiding or a captive). There are also some funny and exciting moments by the Scarlet Pimpernel himself, like tricking Chauvelin into sniffing pepper instead of snuff.
(I was already aware of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity because so many of the book blurbs on Goodreads spoil it—
why???—so it’s possible that I would have enjoyed the book more had that remained a mystery. Possible, but not likely, given the other problems I had with the book, and given that the final “twist”
that the Jew was Percy
was so unsubtle that the “reveal” felt like an insult to my intelligence.)
Overall,
The Scarlet Pimpernel feels like a novel that, with more time and editing, could have been great. Unfortunately, it isn’t there. I am no longer surprised that there is no Penguin Classic edition, and I think
this incredibly cheesy and over-the-top Signet cover does a great job of capturing the spirit of the book. I will not be reading on in the series.
Some favorite passages:
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation’s glory and his own vanity. During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.
Even now it was beating against the leaded windows, and tumbling down the chimney, making the cheerful wood fire sizzle in the hearth.
A beautiful starlit night had followed on the day of incessant rain: a cool, balmy, late summer’s night, essentially English in its suggestion of moisture and scent of wet earth and dripping leaves.
But the minutes ticked on with that dull monotony which they invariably seem to assume when our very nerves ache with their incessant ticking.
When Chauvelin reached the supper-room it was quite deserted. It had that woebegone, forsaken, tawdry appearance, which reminds one so much of a ball-dress, the morning after. Half-empty glasses littered the table, unfolded napkins lay about, the chairs—turned towards one another in groups of twos and threes—seemed like the seats of ghosts, in close conversation with one another. There were sets of two chairs—very close to one another—in the far corners of the room, which spoke of recent whispered flirtations, over cold game-pie and champagne; there were sets of three and four chairs, that recalled pleasant, animated discussions over the latest scandals; there were chairs straight up in a row that still looked starchy, critical, acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a few isolated, single chairs, close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most recherché dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville’s cellars. It was a ghostlike replica, in fact, of that fashionable gathering upstairs; a ghost that haunts every house where balls and good suppers are given; a picture drawn with white chalk on grey cardboard, dull and colourless, now that the bright silk dresses and gorgeously embroidered coats were no longer there to fill in the foreground, and now that the candles flickered sleepily in their sockets.
Lady Blakeney never stepped from any house into her coach, without an escort of fluttering human moths around the dazzling light of her beauty.
And as she felt her husband’s strong arm beside her, she also felt how much more he would dislike and despise her, if he knew of this night’s work. Thus human beings judge of one another, superficially, casually, throwing contempt on one another, with but little reason, and no charity. She despised her husband for his inanities and vulgar, unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would despise her still worse, because she had not been strong enough to do right for right’s sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates of her conscience.
Great secular trees lent cool shadows to the grounds, and now, on this warm early autumn night, the leaves slightly turned to russets and gold, the old garden looked singularly poetic and peaceful in the moonlight.
Nature seemed exquisitely at peace, in comparison with the tumultuous emotions she had gone through: she could faintly hear the ripple of the river and the occasional soft and ghostlike fall of a dead leaf from a tree.
I was tricked into doing this thing, by men who knew how to play upon my love for an only brother, and my desire for revenge. Was it unnatural?”
His pride and her beauty had been in direct conflict, and his pride had remained the conqueror.
Only between these two hearts there lay a strong, impassable barrier, built up of pride on both sides, which neither of them cared to be the first to demolish.
The long train of her gold-embroidered gown swept the dead leaves off the steps, making a faint harmonious sh—sh—sh as she glided up, with one hand resting on the balustrade, the rosy light of dawn making an aureole of gold round her hair, and causing the rubies on her head and arms to sparkle.
A woman’s heart is such a complex problem—the owner thereof is often most incompetent to find the solution of this puzzle.
The sound of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony, to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.
He laughed, as Dante has told us that the devils laugh at sight of the torture of the damned.
He took a pinch of snuff. Only he, who has ever by accident sniffed vigorously a dose of pepper, can have the faintest conception of the hopeless condition in which such a sniff would reduce any human being.
The air was keen and full of brine; after that enforced period of inactivity, inside the evil-smelling, squalid inn, Marguerite would have enjoyed the sweet scent of this autumnal night, and the distant melancholy rumble of the waves; she would have revelled in the calm and stillness of this lonely spot, a calm, broken only at intervals by the strident and mournful cry of some distant gull, and by the creaking of the wheels, some way down the road: she would have loved the cool atmosphere, the peaceful immensity of Nature, in this lonely part of the coast: but her heart was too full of cruel foreboding, of a great ache and longing for a being who had become infinitely dear to her.
But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792: there were no fairies and hobgoblins about.
About the Author:
Baroness Emmuska Orczy-artist, playwright, and author-was born in Tarnaörs, Hungary, in 1865. Although all her manuscripts were written in English, she did not learn the language until she and her parents, Baron Felix and Countess Emma Orczy, moved to London…
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