Sherlock Holmes was my entry point into the murder mystery genre, then kids-friendly-sans-murder mysteries such as Enid Blyton’s “The Famous Five”, Robert Arthur Jr.’s “Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators”, and Stefan Wolf/Rolf Kalmuczak‘s “TTKG”. Afterwards, there were some names, some were new, obscure, and some even haven’t got their well-deserved international recognition.
One of them is Frank Tallis’ “The Liebermann Papers”. Now, perhaps saying that this work is obscure would be an insult. The man has a Wikipedia page, so he should have some kind of recognitions at the very least (yes, I’m shallow like that.) At the same time, the books never really took off in Indonesia. I rarely seen, if ever, The Liebermann Papers series back when I was still living in Indonesia. I only ever got two books from the series: “A Death in Vienna” and “Vienna Blood”. Both are translated to Indonesian and I got them years and years ago.
So imagine my surprise seeing this on BBCPlayer.
Double that with “THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO BOOKS?!” Yes, I just found out there are more than two books about Max Liebermann and Oskar Rheinhardt.
Anyway. Another series that I’m looking forward to! Might be another hole for me to dig as I’m (mindlessly) spending money to buy the books at Kinokuniya.
I was on a blogwalk when I saw James’ post: August 2025 in Photos and you can rest assured that I’m berating myself for not thinking about it and got myself in my usual what-should-I-blog limbo.
Last month, we had an early morning rainbow — and more rainbow sightings for the next couple of days, both in the morning and in the afternoon. Lucky!
We also enjoyed a splendid strawberry harvest from Malaysia’s very own Cameron Highlands‘ farms. I’m so impressed with the quality of the harvests as they are getting better and better.
I just realized I haven’t taken a lot of pictures lately. I’m not a selfie person, so you can be sure that you might see my face less and less, but looking back, I kinda regret not taking a lot of pictures. As we all know, August and September are The Months of Splendid Sunsets.
Yesterday, I just finished reading “Arsène Lupin: Gentleman Burglar” by Maurice Leblanc. Lupin is one of the powerhouse names in the world’s literature, although I was quite confused seeing that there are not a lot of online discussions about the stories considering how famous he is. Even when it did, the only discussion place I could find is the Reddit’s channel /ayearoflupin. That said, there are ample mentions of its Netflix adaptation, a series with the same name, even shorter: “LUPIN”
As much as I would love to yap about this series (you have to watch it!), this post would be about the classic stories, the ones that inspired the Netflix series.
At first, I thought the story would be the usual Agatha Christie-ish: One book for one story, so I got pleasantly surprised when I found out the book is more similar to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous “Sherlock Holmes”: One book, comprised of short stories! While I enjoy reading detective stories, I admit that this type of arrangement of having short stories in one book is one of my favorites, too, since I don’t have to hold my focus for far too long and can easily hold my pace (yes, looking at you, Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”.)
Since this work is such a classic, I don’t think I have a lot of comments to share, other than Arsène Lupin has been such an icon that inspired so many characters, even in anime and manga.
What I love about “Arsène Lupin: Gentleman Burglar” is how we also see this gentleman thief got caught, jailed, even fooled. I didn’t expect this because I had already grown accustomed to the main protagonist of the story always having the upper hand and consistently getting away unscathed. Perhaps this is the charm of classic works, as we also see the characters as human, as us. Just like Sherlock Holmes said, “I have been beaten four times — three times by men, and once by a woman.” I love how we also see the main character on their low points, and sometimes I caught myself thinking, “Lupin, you are being careless, my friend.” Another side of Lupin that I love is how sassy he is. The sarcasm is dripping, a jab to the riche nouveau, or those with money easily fooled with glitz and glam.
Arsène Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving, however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: “Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine.“
I also found it amusing seeing Sherlock Holmes — yes, that Holmes — appeared in one of the stories (“Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late”). Unfortunately, Conan Doyle’s lawyers asked Leblanc not to proceed with the character, which made Leblanc create a similar-ish detective character with the name “Herlock Sholmes”. Monsieur Leblanc, sir, the Gen Zs would call you “cringe”.
The only gripe I have about this book is my lack of knowledge and understanding of French and its history. I know I must have missed some important context on the story, which made me unable to appreciate the work on a deeper level. I got annoyed at myself when I saw someone on the subreddit channel mention Lupin’s disdain for the French class differences. The comment also made me realize that Lupin usually robbed from the rich and powerful, a bit of Robin Hood, if you will. That said, I’m not sure if we have a book about Lupin — and I wish we did — so I would allocate some time for myself to scour the Internet, looking for discussions and comments about our gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin.
Apparently, it was only for eight weeks. Well, eight or ten, I’m not sure.
That said, it was back on Monday, almost two weeks ago, when the doctor scanned me, and as she put down the scanner stick, she looked at me with such a look — a look that somehow my gut was already telling me that yes, I knew it, too — and with a really low voice, almost a whisper, said, “I’m so sorry.”
I could understand her sorrow, and at the same time, I knew. With my previous pregnancies, even when the pregnancy was as young as 5 weeks old, I could always sense that something was there, something alive, with a heartbeat. With this little one, for some reason, I could sense they left with a faint good-bye as my body decided not to continue the process.
In Islam, it is believed that the souls of children who have passed away are taken care of in the High Heavens by Prophet Ibrahim AS (Abraham) and his wife, Siti Hajar. I’m not sure if this little one is there, but I would love to think that way. Perhaps they are there, perhaps they are not.
My eldest, Wira, has been fascinated by the technology from the 80s and the 90s since years ago. I’m not sure how it was started, but I remember it was one fine afternoon during the global lockdown when he asked, “can we trade our TV?”
I looked at our flat-screen LCD TV, perched proudly on the living room, serving only football matches and cycling race. I’m more of a handheld gadget girl as I prefer my streaming services there.
“With…?”
“You know that big TV, from the olden days?”
My son called my childhood as “olden days”. Okay, we need to accept the reality, right? I mean, it’s much more preferable compared to when he was younger than this and asked me, “did you live alongside the dinosaurs, mum?”
“What… TV?”
“You know, that type of classic TV.“
“Are you referring to CRT TV? Cathode Ray Tube TV? THAT type of TV?”
“Yep. Can we? 😀”
“Boi, there are reasons why we have flat TV today.”
(Also, to answer the question: No.)
A couple of months ago, he got himself a CD player. He saved up his pocket money, and he got a CD player, shipped from China. It was quite surprising to see the price, though. I thought the price would be cheaper because the technology can be considered outdated, but I guess it’s about scarcity, hence the price.
I did ask him what’s wrong with streaming services and his phone, and he said that, “the vibe is different. There is something cool about listening to an album and you know exactly what you will listen to next. Especially when the artist specifically composed the song to “connect” with the next song. Also, we have been robbed of album art.”
That, I must agree. I miss seeing album art, artist’s comments, and printed lyrics.
Today, Wira showed me his new Discman. Well, Discman is the brand name for Sony Discman, hahah. His is Panasonic, so, mobile CD player, I guess?
Quick blurbs
Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.
Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.
the blogger
Nindya. Kapkap. she/her. Indonesian in Malaysia. Millennial. Lo-fi. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Murder mystery genre.
