eBook The Unspeakable Gentleman ePub

In 1920 John P. Marquand a future Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the mystery adventures staring Mr. Moto, began his career with the novel, The Unspeakable Gentleman. Almost 100 years later some elements are formulaic and therefor predictable. Read as an action adventure of its day it is a thriller of the old school. This is the way they used to write them. It is family friendly and aimed at a male's sense of traditional romance and high adventure.

The unspeakable gentleman is Captain Sheldon, father to the narrator Henry. Events yet to be disclosed had caused the Captain to abandon his son and wife and leave his seaside home in disgrace. Now many years later he returns. Secret agents of the French Revolution are seeking his capture and death. A mysterious letter and a young lady are both under the protection of the captain, a self-admitted scoundrel. Having lost his reputation and his first fortune he tells his son and anyone around that he has lived on his wits and at the cost of all the values of the society that had branded him a bad man. Having nothing left that was dear to him; he has been free to live life as a wonton and dissipated man.

For all his protest we quickly see that he is a man of athletic ability and fine judgement that belies the ravages of bad living He continues to inspire the loyalty of his fellow sailors, and the trust of at least one titled French family.
His body servant, never described as a slave is a large, mostly quiet black man, Brutus. Note that anyone who speaks ill of or disrespectfully of Brutus is going to be a bad person. Good people respect him and acknowledge his value as a person. He is in a subservient role, but one born of loyalty rather than social norms. Also note that the Captain is particular that the young lady in his suit is never to be referred to except with respect. She is a Lady, capital L and never a woman. Also note that she is no wilting flower, but a thinking strong woman, capable of representing herself and seeking her own agenda.

At the risk of overreaching this book made me think of Ivanhoe, with faint traces of The Count of Monte Cristo. The Unspeable Gentleman has returns after many years to a home where he cannot expect to be warmly greeted. There are those who believe him a man without honor and those ready to kill not the fatted calf, but fellow town's men. There is a far off revolution that threatens the Captain and his followers.

The plot line is not so much one of unexpected twists as one of slow reveals. We are asked to tolerate a few too many incomplete or interrupted explanations. The motives of the uncle who raised Henry are muddled. Overall this not intended to be great literature, just a good beach read or a book to fire the imagination of a pre-teen. This is not great literature , but good entertainment.

Publication date: 1922- way too early, one would think, to have been influenced by Hollywood swashbucklers (and too early in Marquand's career to be anything but derivative). Some cliches are older than we know:

There fell a silence while he stood immovably watching us. A gust of wind blew down the chimney, and scattered a cloud of dust over the hearth. The rafters creaked. Somewhere in the stillness a door slammed. The very lack of expression in his face was stamping it on my memory, and for the first time its phlegmatic calm aroused in me a new emotion. I had hated it and wondered at it before, and now in spite of myself it was giving me a twinge of pity. For nature had intended it to be an expressive face, sensitive and quick to mirror each perception and emotion. Was it pride that had turned it into a mask, and drawn a curtain before the light that burned within, or had the light burned out and left it merely cold and unresponsive?

This potboiler is set in Boston around 1806. The narrator is young Shelton, and the unspeakable gentleman is his father, who, disgraced in business, has become a mercenary, or pirate, or something. He is back in America with a list of royalist conspirators, which Napoleon's agents would very much like to get their hands on:

"And the paper?" she whispered. "You have destroyed it?" My father shook his head.
"Then," gasped Mademoiselle, "give it to me now! At once, captain, if you please!"
"Mademoiselle no longer trusts me?" asked my father, in tones of pained surprise. "Surely not that!"
"Exactly that!" she flung back at him angrily.
He bowed smilingly in acknowledgment. "And Mademoiselle is right," he agreed. "I have read the paper. I have been tempted."
"You rogue!" she cried. "You mean—"
"I mean," he interrupted calmly, "that I have been tempted and have fallen. The document I carry has too much value, Mademoiselle. The actual signatures of the gentlemen who had been so deluded as to believe they could restore a king to France! Figure for yourself, my lady, those names properly used are a veritable gold mine, more profitable than my Chinese trade can hope to be! Surely you realize that?"

Anyone who's seen an old movie, or read a modern historical romance, sees where this is going. Young Marquand's indications that his tongue is in his cheek throughout are hard to spot, and no one would predict in 1922 that this guy would win a Pulitzer someday:

"The morning begins auspiciously, does it not, my son?" he said. "And still the day is young. Indeed, it cannot be more than eleven of the clock. The rum decanter, Brutus."

Just a good read. First Marquand book I have read. Will look for more of his books. Give it a try.

I rated this 5 star, as I believe John Marquand was one of the great writers of my era. Easy reading and entertaining.

couldn't really understand or get into it.

i suspect this is early minor Marquand but one can sense a clever mind behind clichéd genre. Already, this guy can write.

Great story by JP Marquand set in the early 1800s. The plot is set in the United States and a failed plot to kill Napoleon.