Braddy Reads The Scarlet Pimpernel

About... geez, it must have been about 12 years ago, my parents took me and my siblings to see a production of the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel. From the beginning, I loved it - the music was stirring, the costuming engaging, and OH how I laughed at all the prancing foppery.

It's an excellent show, one I've seen at least four times since then. However, as much as I enjoyed the musical, I've had no exposure to the source material (or, for that matter, any of the movie adaptations). So, when I found myself in need of a book to read, I picked up this one, which has been sitting on my shelf for probably about two years.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (seriously? Who names their kid "Baroness"?) tells the story of Marguerite St. Just, a French woman who marries incompetent oaf Sir Percy Blakeny and thus escapes the horrors of the French Revolution. She is compelled by a former acquaintance, a French spy named Chavelin, to seek out the identity of a man who has helped former aristocrats escape the judgment of the Revolution, a man who is only known by the name The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I'm not spoiling much when I give away the big surprise: The Pimpernel is actually Sir Percy, and his clueless foppishness is actually a clever ruse meant to divert suspicion. The Pimpernel's identity is pretty much common pop-culture knowledge by this point. In fact, the musical uses Percy's decision to take on the Pimpernel identity as its starting point. Thus the big reveal of the Pimpernel's identity, which comes about halfway through the novel, doesn't carry a lot of surprise anymore.

I enjoyed the book well-enough - it reads much like a simpler version of A Tale of Two Cities, only with more disguises - but I found myself questioning repeatedly the decisions made by Wildhorn and Knighton when they adapted the story to the stage. The novel tells the story completely from Marguerite's point of view, which I thought a much more interesting choice (though one that would be difficult to pull off in a stage setting.

Oh, and I'd be completely remiss if I did not mention that The Scarlet Pimpernel is essentially the ur-Batman.

As a novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel hasn't aged particularly well. It feels unnecessarily padded in certain parts, as if the writer were getting paid by the word. However, as a story, The Scarlet Pimpernel holds up fairly well. Marguerite's tension, her difficult decisions, feel significant. Hers is a story well-worth investing time in.