Review:The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard/David Stuart Davies
This review of the book "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard", by Arthur Conan Doyle was written by David Stuart Davies and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 2, No. 2) in autumn 1991.
Review
- The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
- by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Edited and Introduced by Owen Dudley Edwards
- Canongate, Edinburgh, 1991; 188pp; £4.95
Reviewed by David Stuart Davies
It was in ACD (Vol. 1, No. 3) that I was bemoaning the fact that none of ACD's works, apart from the Holmes and Challenger stories, was currently in print in Britain. I doubt if it was in response to my whinging that Canongate Press grasped the nettle but, nevertheless, they have this year produced a handsome paperback edition of The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. Canongate, it seems, have a penchant for preserving and promoting the work of Scotland's literati — their fairly comprehensive list of Stevenson's works gives proof of this — but the Exploits is their sole Conan Doyle venture, although there are reports that The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard is to follow next year.
The Exploits is the first collection of Gerard's farcical, horrific and fascinating tales. One of the surprising joys in reviewing these familiar stories is the revelation that I didn't know them half as well as I thought I did. They came to me fresh and invigorating. One really can sense Conan Doyle's creative hound off the leash here, unrestrained by the fairly rigid formula of the Holmes stories the presentation of a puzzle, the investigation, the solution and sniffing and rambling its way over more imaginative pastures. Ramble, some of the stories do, but always entertainingly so and to some purpose: usually to present yet another half-blind, half-courageous and half-stupid exploit of Etienne Gerard. (Indeed, his mathematics are as good as mine).
Conan Doyle deliciously reveals Gerard's inadequacies (and his strengths) through the character's own narrative which is peppered with telling modest immodesties. Like Sherlock Holmes he is not one who ranked modesty among the virtues:
- 'I am an excellent soldier. I do not say this because I am prejudiced in my own favour, but because I really am so.'
Perhaps it is Napoleon, in The Medal of Brigadier Gerard who sums up this character accurately:
- '... I believe that if he has the thickest head he has also the stoutest heart in my army.'
There can be no doubt that Gerard is brave and it is through his courageous acts that Conan Doyle is able to mix the comedy with a strong element of violent action — action of the kind that would be the envy of many a modern writer. The villains have a particular vivid quality. In How the Brigadier Held the King I found in the brigand with the penchant for composing awful verse, a wild mixture of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger and Scottish poet William MacGonnegal. The fate that this fellow has in store for Gerard is a real eye-waterer. However, Gerard's eyes do not water, they hardly blink. Faced with this cruel death he turns to the brigand with that endearing and foolish bravado begging 'that you will not commemorate my death in verse.'
The volume is edited and introduced by Owen Dudley Edwards, who sets the tales in the context of their creation, asserting that 'in Brigadier Gerard we meet the true rival of Sherlock Holmes.' Mr Edwards draws together threads of various sources and influences (conscious or otherwise) regarding this vivid character. He points out that ACD himself acknowledges in his Preface to The Exploits, as well as in a fulsome reference in Through the Magic Door, that amongst the various soldiers who related their experiences of the Napoleonic campaigns, it is Marbot who takes pride of place the fountain from which I have drawn the adventures of Etienne Gerard.' ACD calls him: '... The human, the gallant, the inimitable Marbot.' ODE maintains that in the use of the word 'inimitable', Conan Doyle clearly indicates that his creation is not merely a copy. And certainly there are indications that other models were used. With his usual aplomb, Mr Edwards reveals further disparate influences on Gerard's genesis, including Thackeray's Major Gahagan. But, like Shakespeare with Holinshed, Doyle played fast and loose with his source material to come up with his own potent concoction. In doing so, he created a character who was unique. It is succinctly observed:
- What Conan Doyle had produced was a hero who moved between highly divided classes, and who reflected the attitudes of each.
The point is made that in these stories Conan Doyle not only provided rich entertainment, but also an accurate historical perspective real insight which 'the cold print of scientific history' cannot supply. However, despite this fascinating scholarship, which further deepens our knowledge of the Conan Doyle oeuvres, it is the tales themselves that are the real attraction of this book. To sum up: buy it!
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
