Bonjour, mes amis! Autrefois, pendant cet hiver passé en fait, j'ai donné un cours de français où on lisait un roman ensemble: Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Cambrioleur.
Did you catch that? Si oui - très bien, je vous félicite. Sinon - well, don't worry about it. 😉
Translation: Hello, my friends. Awhile back, during this past winter actually, I taught a French class where we read a novel together: Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Burglar.
As both of you know, I am a French teacher. I teach college/grad level content for an international (though non-accredited) institution, mainly for people who simply love to learn. It's a great gig and I love my job. We have three annual "school year" sessions that meet weekly and, during the Winter Session, I like to either read a novel or watch a TV series together, discussing various chapters/episodes each week in class. At the request of a regular student of mine, we read this novel together - and it was a lot of fun!
For those of you not familiar with the character, Arsène Lupin is the star of his own series of short stories by Maurice Leblanc. Set during the turn of the 20th century, Lupin is a criminal mastermind, a charming, rakish thief who makes his way around the world (usually Europe, but he comes to the US at least one time), mainly stealing jewels and baubles and money off of the wealthier classes. Sometimes he is bested, but he always works his way out of it with his wit and a crew of faithful followers. A master of disguise with a laundry list of aliases, Lupin has no shortage of tricks up his sleeve to change his appearance and identity, as he often does.
Maurice Leblanc penned his stories slightly after -and also contemporaneously with- the publication of stories starring another turn-of-the-century mastermind: Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In fact, Arsène Lupin crosses paths with a one "Herlock Sholmès" on occasion. They are rather each other's opposites (one being a thief, the other a detective), but share a great deal in common (brilliant minds, a love for puzzles, bleeding narcissism). Of course, as the creator of Arsène Lupin, author Maurice Leblanc favors his own brainchild and Lupin bests "Herlock".
While the stories certainly have a similar feel to those of Sherlock Holmes, the anti-hero reigns supreme here. Some stories are humorous, others less so. Lupin is definitely not a "good person", but he does have redeeming qualities and a backstory that elicits empathy from the reader. He rather calls to mind the image of Hercule Flambeau from the BBC series Father Brown. (From my understanding, the character of Flambeau is portrayed rather differently on the series from his original version in the G.K. Chesterton books of the same title. Lupin reminds me somewhat of a younger version of the TV portrayal of Flambeau.)
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| Hercule Flambeau, Father Brown on BBC |
The edition we read together in class was a dual-language one, featuring the original French text alongside its American-English translation. We quickly learned that the translation was not spot on, much to our annoyance. Still, for readers of a second language, having quick-access reference to translations can be useful as it does not disrupt the flow of reading as much as having to seek a dictionary translation would.
