[JULY Book Report] - What did you finish this month?
By plasmaarch20
Hey everyone—end of the month is here, so it’s time for book reports. What all did you manage to finish this month?
Reader discussion: The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
Public reader discussion about The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar in the WeRead Catalog by Maurice Leblanc.
Lupin Part 3 Official Trailer
By Garden
Netflix hasn’t released it yet, but they pointed me to a site (lupintrailer.com) where you’re supposed to go in incognito to watch the trailer. Not sure if it’ll actually work, but that’s what they said.
Book 1, Chapters 7-9 (end). The Extraordinary adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
By suclat-frozen1997
This week we finished the last chapters of the first Arsène Lupin book. We get a bit more of his backstory and then his first real clash with Sherlock Holmes too. Overall I liked it as an introduction to the Gentleman-Burglar Arsène Lupin, and the mix of different kinds of stories worked well for me. Next week we’re moving on to Arsène Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes, and I’ll post the schedule tomorrow. Chapter 7, “Madame Imbert’s Safe,” begins with Mon. Imbert getting mugged, and Arsène Lupin rescuing him before he’s even famous. The Imberts are said to have one hundred million, but Lupin already seems to doubt that. We also find out he had an accomplice who attacked Imbert so Lupin could come in as the savior. The next morning he gets invited to breakfast at their house, and after dressing poorly he’s offered a job there to earn a bit of money. The secretary job is weird since he barely has anything to do, and Imbert keeps talking about him badly to other people. After some time Lupin finally gets into the safe, but when he tells the story to his writer, it turns out he was tricked and all the bonds that were supposed to make up the millions were fake. Chapter 8, “The Black Pearl,” has Lupin showing up at a house in the middle of the night with some excuse about seeing the doctor. But in that same building lived Countess d’Andillot, who owned a very valuable black pearl. Lupin breaks into her place, and later it turns out the countess was murdered that night. Her servant, Mr. Danègre, gets arrested and ends up in front of a judge. There Lupin’s enemy Ganimard argues that Danègre had an accomplice that night and that Lupin was part of it. After Danègre is cleared because there isn’t enough evidence, he goes out to dinner and meets ex-inspector Girmaudan, who figures out that Danègre was the killer and the thief and should be imprisoned. He blackmails him into giving up the pearl, and the next day Echo de France prints a message saying the famous black pearl is now in Arsène Lupin’s hands, supposedly taken from the countess’s murderer. Chapter 9, “Sherlock Holmes arrives too late,” has a group of guests staying at Chateau Thibermesnil, including Mr. Velmont, who looks a lot like Arsène Lupin. The castle supposedly has a secret passage, but the owner Georges Devanne can’t find it, so he hires Sherlock Holmes to locate it since everyone knows Lupin is nearby and they don’t want the treasures stolen. That night Lupin steals a bunch of things from the castle through the secret passage, but he gets interrupted by one of the guests, Miss Nelly, who had helped him during his arrest on the cruise. Because of that he promises all the stolen items will be returned the next day at three. The next day Sherlock Holmes shows up after meeting Mr. Velmont on the road and talking with him, and everything has already been returned. Holmes figures out the entrance and exit of the passage, and at the exit Devanne’s carriage arrives with a package for Holmes from Lupin, which turns out to be Holmes’s own watch that was stolen while they were talking. Discussion-wise: - do you like how these stories connect with the first six? - I think LeBlanc has a pretty interesting style that can shift from story to story, like in chapters 7 and 8 where it’s very clearly told by Lupin’s narrator. Do you like that approach? - what do you think of the whole book overall? - any other thoughts? The end of chapter 9 feels like a really good setup for the next book to me. I’m excited to start it tomorrow.
Book 1, Chapters 1-3. The Extraordinary adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
By field-chance8064
Hi everyone, Here’s the first check-in for The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burgler. I’m really enjoying it so far, hope you are too! Spoilers ahead, obviously. Not reading ahead before setting the schedule, I’m actually pretty glad these first three chapters kind of formed a little set together. In Dutch I’d probably call it a “drieluik,” which feels more fitting than my English, or maybe a triptyque. Basically: Lupin gets arrested in chapter one, stays in prison in chapter two, and breaks out in chapter three. Chapter 1: The Arrest of Arsène Lupin On a trip to America, news comes by telegraph that the well-known thief Arsène Lupin is on board the ship. The other passengers, with Bernard d’Andrèzy leading them, try to track him down from just a partial description and the first letter of the alias he’s using, R... A woman’s jewelry goes missing and D’Andrèzy starts paying attention to Ms. Nelly. Inspector Ganimard is waiting when the ship arrives and manages to arrest Lupin, who turns out to have been D’Andrèzy. Ms. Nelly then throws the jewels, which were hidden in D’Andrèzy’s camera, into the water to get rid of the proof. Chapter 2: Arsène Lupin in Prison Baron Nathan Cahorn gets a letter from Arsène Lupin, who is in La Santé Prison, saying that the thief wants him to hand over some valuables or Lupin will come on 27 September and take those plus more. Cahorn tells detective Ganimard, who happens to be on holiday in town, and hires him and two men to guard everything on that day. When the theft happens, Ganimard asks Cahorn not to mention he was there, and then an official investigation starts, with Ganimard brought in as the expert on Lupin. Ganimard visits Lupin in prison, where Lupin says it was him who had been hired to guard the place the night of the theft. He also says he only got caught because he was distracted by a woman he loved, and that he won’t be at his own trial. Chapter 3: The Escape of Arsène Lupin Once the police know Lupin is planning to escape before the trial, they let it happen while secretly keeping watch so they can catch his helpers. He does escape in the prison van, but after a meal Lupin just goes back to prison anyway, since he knew he was being watched. At the trial, Ganimard is sure the accused man isn’t Lupin but a double. That double had been arrested and let go on the same day Lupin chose to return to prison on his own. When the double is released, Ganimard follows him and finally realizes it was Lupin the whole time. Lupin then explains that he made himself look like the fake through dieting and certain drug injections, and that his men had the real double arrested on purpose that day. Discussion: - What do you think of the stories so far? - Kind of a coincidence that Ganimard is at the ship’s destination and also in Baron Cahorn’s town, right? - It seemed like the arrest in chapter one maybe could’ve been avoided, but chapters two and three really felt like the kind of complicated planning I expected from Lupin. Do you agree? - Anything else.