By MARCEL ALLAIN (Antipodes; 1917/1927/2017)
Were it not part of a series, THE REVENGE OF FANTOMAS would be a surreal tour de force. In actuality, however, the novel was just business as usual for France’s irrepressible Marcel Allain (1885-1969).
It was Allain who, together with his partner Pierre Souvestre (1874-1914), created Fantomas, the so-called “Lord of Terror” and originator of criminal schemes so bizarre and ingenious they defy conventional (or even unconventional) logic. THE REVENGE OF FANTOMAS, a reprint of the 1927 translation by Alfred Allinson (with 2017 alterations “to reflect modern spelling and usage”), was the 36th Fantomas book. By that point Souvestre had long since passed on and Allain had stopped trying to make sense of his narratives; the surrealists hugely revered the Fantomas books, and they must have especially liked this one.
Properly summarizing the nutball narrative without sounding like a lunatic is impossible, as things get wacky on page one and continue in that vein for the remainder of the book. Fantomas, it seems, was arrested at the end of the previous volume, and this one starts with him being let free. The culprits: the crusading journalist Jerome Fandor, who together with his partner, the intrepid Inspector Juve, is one of the Lord of Terror’s major antagonists, and Fantomas’ kind-hearted daughter Helene, with whom Fandor is none-too-secretly in love. Helene who actually arrested in her father’s place, in an attempt at preventing him from carrying out an especially destructive bit of mischief—assuming his guise and convincing Fandor not to pursue Fantomas were, it seems, the only ways to stop the mayhem.
Also afoot is Fantomas’ bride Lady Beltham, who instructs Juve to arrest Fandor in order to keep him from unwittingly setting Fantomas’ evil plans in motion. Thus Fandor and Jude go their separate ways to apprehend Fantomas, in a series of events that include being shut up in more than one coffin-like enclosure, the discovery of a heretofore unknown underwater hide-out, Fantomas literally vanishing into thin air at one point, and a wild climax set aboard a transatlantic schooner. Needless to add, Fandor and Juve are eventually reunited and, as with nearly all the Fantomas books, the tale ends with a cliffhanger that sets up the succeeding volume.
It’s all so insanely labyrinthine and complex that Juve and Fandor are prone to lengthy internal monologues in which they acknowledge the outrageousness of the narrative and ponder their best course of action—which invariably turns out to be the least likely choice.