Since that time, I've gone on to read the fifth novel in the series, A ROYAL PRISONER, and more recently the sixth and seventh, THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS (UK title: A LIMB OF SATAN) and SLIPPERY AS SIN - which, for many years, was the last of the Souvestre/Allain translations, though twenty-five further titles remained to be translated.
 |
| Italian edition cover. |
 |
| Italian edition cover. |
 |
| Italian edition cover. |
Alas, for a reader familiar with Souvestre/Allain's dense, paid by-the-word prose style, it is all too easily seen that this English translation is less a faithful translation than another paraphrasing of the original text. There are a great many paragraphs here consisting of single, declarative sentences - and these men never wrote a single sentence paragraph unless it was to exclaim "Standing before them was none other than... Fantomas!" I checked the book against a copy of the original French edition and found the translation ran 133 pages shorter and the text was also much airier on the page, so it might well represent a shortage of 150 pages or more. While not as insultingly severe a condensation as A ROYAL PRISONER, the translated prose feels less than genuine, and sometimes glosses over incidents that have happened in the interim; one can't help imagining that these asides were originally colorfully described and presented with characterization and dialogue.
Ultimately, SLIPPERY AS SIN is a moderate disappointment, more focused on private deceptions and intimate betrayals than public crimes, but there are enough gaps in the tale it recreates that one cannot help but wonder how much of its disappointment is due to the original or a too hasty transliteration. It's a peculiar criticism to address to a translation of a book that was, itself, generated inside a single month.
I will continue with my notes on the two Black Coat Press volumes when the time comes.
(c) 2018 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.