Summerbook #12: Beau Geste

 Beau Geste, by P. C. Wren

Whoof, this was an exciting one!  If you're not familiar, as I was not, Beau Geste* was a smash hit back in the 1920s, was promptly made into a big-budget film (and a lot of radio plays, more films, and a TV show), and is just the sort of book everybody read back in the day, like Ben-Hur or Lorna Doone.  If you grew up (as I did) reading old Peanuts collections from the library, you'll remember Snoopy being a Legionnaire at Fort Zinderneuf.  

Three brothers, orphans, grow up at Brandon Abbas under the care of their lovely aunt, Lady Brandon.  Michael, the oldest, is the leader and known as Beau.  His younger twin, Digby, follows, and John, the youngest, is the narrator.  Along with playmates and cousins, they love to look at Aunt Patricia's prize jewel, the huge sapphire known as the Blue Water; and one evening it's stolen.  No one could have done it but the seven people in the room, and Michael decides to take the blame upon himself and run away to join the French Foreign Legion, the most romantic course of action possible.  Digby, unwilling to desert his brother, follows, and then John feels he cannot let the other two take the blame and profit himself.  So they all wind up in French Africa, being Legionaries.

Most of the novel is adventures in the Legion and elsewhere, with the big scene a battle at the last outpost, Fort Zinderneuf.  It's very exciting stuff, and over all hangs the mystery of what became of the Blue Water.  It reminded me of the Moonstone (which gets a shout-out) -- this massive novel of adventure and mystery that uses British ideas about North Africa and Arabs to produce much of the action.  Of course much of that hasn't aged too well, but it's still quite a yarn.

I'm glad I picked this up!  Exciting stuff, and I remembered how miserable you have to be to join the French Foreign Legion...you still can if you wish to, but you have to get yourself to France first.

*In my head I was pronouncing Geste with a hard G, but soon realized that it's supposed to be a soft G, so the name is pronounced as Jest.  Since Geste means action, you can see that the name puns and meanings are going to proliferate.  In the story, the boys' schoolfellows call them Beau, Little, and Very Small, but John is known as Feeble when he's in trouble.