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Literary Review
Iconic creation
SHUBHRA GUPTA
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There’s something about Modesty Blaise that no one else has.
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Modesty Blaise Retro Collection; Peter O’Donnell, Penguin, each book Rs. 250 or the set for Rs. 2995.
One of my fondest memories of my first visit to Shimla, back in the late 1980s, is the discovery of the kind of bookshop that gladdens the hearts of those that live to read.
Right on the Mall, it was a dusty little shop, overseen by a dusty little man, there more to pass his time pleasurably among his beloved charges, than to sell. At the back, nearly hidden on an exceedingly dusty shelf, there was a row of, oh joy, Modesty Blaise books.
Much to the despair of my brand-new spouse, who was trying to acquaint me with the town of his birth and idyllic childhood, I bore my prizes to the picturesque cottage we were staying in and settled down with the kind of anticipation familiar only to those who have been in the same boat: finding long-awaited treasure.
Absolute delight
For I had been on the lookout for Peter O’ Donnell’s novels for the longest time, having followed his comic strip featuring the marvellous Modesty in the Hindustan Times, right below Garth, also his creation.
There was something about Ms. Blaise that no one else had. She was brave, resourceful, quite capable of thumping a whole bunch of baddies single-handedly, and vanquishing the vilest villains, with the able help of sidekick Willie Garvin. But she also had a great sense of humour, an innate sense of style, and intelligence that no other comic character had.
The books turned out to be absolute delights. The first, simply called Modesty Blaise, was published in 1965, and introduced her in a spanking adventure. This combination of adrenalin-pumping scenarios, located in hot-spots all over
the world, and all kinds of kinky monsters was the hallmark of each book, all the way to The Dead Man’s Handle (1985).
Over the last couple of decades, the books I had bought took a pounding. They were pounced upon by other Modesty fans; some were borrowed by the same people, and reluctantly returned, always a little worse for the wear. A couple vanished. And my precious collection dwindled to a sad point.
So when Penguin announced that it was re-issuing the whole caboodle, including the last volume, which I hadn’t read, and which was being published in paperback for the first time, it was like a personal victory.
Having gone through them all over again (like Raymond Chandler’s, and Tolkien’s works, O’ Donnell was essential annual summer reading), in a series of colourful dust jackets, I can safely say that I had a blast, even if the last, much- awaited The Cobra Trap, brought the curtains down on my two favourite fictional pals.
For those who do not know, this is how the first caper begins. A British head spook, Sir Gerald Tarrant, contacts Modesty who lives in a luxe London penthouse, to do a job for him. Modesty, who used to be — in Tarrant’s elegant phrase — ‘in crime’, has now become respectable and law-abiding.
She spends her time carving semi-precious stones, and designing hats. But she is restless, as is Willie Garvin, also living a life of comfort and boredom (they retired rich: who says crime doesn’t pay?) as a landlord and pub-owner in the English countryside.
She jumps at it; so does he. And as they battle crazed killers and diamond-‘heisters’, the action moves from the South of France to the arch villain’s Mediterranean hidey-hole, and we get a rollicking, thrill-a-minute-tale.
Part of the delight is in the characters and in the great detailing: Garvin, the confident Cockney, who is her right hand man, is a classic second-in-command. He is a wizard with knives, thinks on his feet, and loves lovely ladies.
Other characters
Some feature in several volumes. There is the very stiff-upper-lip Tarrant who begins by using Modesty and becomes a near father figure. The droll Stephen and the blind-but-beautiful Dinah — he a ‘metallurgist’, and she a ‘water diviner’ — are active participants in the danger and the excitement that have kept us gripped all these years.
A word to newbies. Start with the first, because in a foreword, O’Donnell tells us the story of the inspiration behind his iconic creation: as a young soldier in 1942 in what was then known as Persia, he and a few of his colleagues came across a young girl, making her way across the desert. Alone but fearless.
They gave her water and food, and she went on walking, out of their sight. He never forgot her.
Years later, she became Modesty, a girl who comes from nowhere, and conquers the world.
Get all 13. Because you can.
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