Doctor Syn: A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh by Russell Thorndike is a book that is the original source for the great Disney production which attracted me to the character The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh so many decades ago. The actual true source of the Disney feature was an adaptation of the original by the author Richard Buchanan under the title Christopher Syn. I'll have more on the movie adaptations tomorrow.
What we have in this 1915 novel is a character which is rather unlike the open and rather friendly Disney character who operates with cleverness and zeal to care for the poor people of Romney Marsh by using authority as a parson and his charisma as a bandit called The Scarecrow to protect them from oppression. The Doctor Syn of this story is a wild and spooky character who is respected by his flock but also somewhat frightened by him as he is wont to do wild things which beggar description.
When British soldier appear on the scene to rein in smuggling in the area it brings about a crisis as they bring along a strange man who can identify a presumably dead pirate named Clegg, a pirate who was famously hanged some years before. Syn, we discover has some connection to Clegg and while the mystery isn't all that deep, the discovery of the truth unfolds leisurely though out the tale.
There are some great characters in the story such as Mipps, stout-hearted and charming coffin maker who has more than a few secrets. Imogene, a barmaid who herself might have connections to the old pirate Clegg. And much of the tale is told from the perspective of Jerry Jerk, a young boy who loathes his schoolmaster Rash and daydreams of becoming a hangman so he can have the teacher dangling from the end of his rope. Young master Jerk is a Huckleberry Finn type of boy who is filled with raucous thoughts of violence but is armed with a no-nonsense attitude which makes him a sturdy ally for many.
On many levels this is a weird and violent yarn with secrets which lurk behind the think wooden walls of the small village which is often haunted by spooks who ride across the marsh in the dark of night. There's a neat creepiness to the story, but also a zany misdirection as it never seems to go where you imagine it should as attention is paid first to one character then another.
This is the first and also the last of the Syn novels. Many prequels were written some years later beginning in 1935 (twenty years after the original) by Thorndike. They are:
Doctor Syn on the High Seas (1935)
Doctor Syn Returns (1935)
Further Adventures of Doctor Syn (1936)
Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn (1938)
Amazing Quest of Doctor Syn (1939)
Shadow of Doctor Syn (1944)
Some time I need to get hold of them and check them out, if the writing is anywhere nearly as good as it is in this one. But I fear they are not.
NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post.
Rip Off
So does Doctor Syn of the novel dress up like any sort of spook, scarecrow or otherwise? I notice that both the 1937 movie DOCTOR SYN and Hammer's 1962 remake CAPTAIN CLEGG don't show the parson dress up in costume, though both allude to his smugglers doing so. If he doesn't don a costume, then he's not quite in the same league as other costumed swashbucklers like the four-years-later Zorro.
ReplyDeleteHe does dress up in phantom gear of a sort and as the "Scarecrow" lead his men on a grey horse. It's only referenced a few times. Nothing like that in the early movies. More tomorrow.
DeleteI remember reading Dr. Synn on the High Seas in an old paperback. There's the moment of transformation where he snaps and breaks into shrieking laughter that is pretty chilling, almost like the beginnings of the Joker.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! That scene gives the character a strangeness none of the adaptations to film touch. He reverts to a cruel, nigh mad buccaneer in off moments.
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