Modesty Blaise

I have never read or even heard of her, but lots of people in India are talking about her, here is Urvashi Butalia's take on her family tree in Tehelka.

A Blaise of Glory

The recent reprint of the Modesty Blaise series has Urvashi Butalia on a quest for the spunky heroine’s literary family tree

I’m an inveterate reader of thrillers. I put one down and start another. I read them surreptitiously, consumed with guilt about the other ‘more serious’ things I should be doing. Imagine my delight when Penguin India reprinted the entire Modesty Blaise set — 13 shining, spanking, uv-laminated, metallic-spined volumes about my favourite — well almost favourite — heroine!

Who’s Modesty Blaise, you might well ask. A waif, a stray who grew up rough, fought pitched street battles, learnt karate, shooting, meditation and yoga from the greatest masters, including one called Sivaji in, of all places, the Thar. Traversed India, China, the Arab world, Hong Kong — interestingly, never the US. Ran a crime syndicate called The Network; built up a loyal cadre, and then retired at the glorious age of 28, to lead a life of leisure with a penthouse in London, a villa in Tangiers, a house in France and so on. Except that it didn’t quite turn out that way. Modesty met British civil servant, Sir Gerald Tarrant, and somehow became drawn into ‘capers’ — dangerous escapades during which she and her companion Willie Garvin tackle criminals of the worst kind, usually in defence of the good guys.

What James Bond is to spy stories, Modesty Blaise is to intelligent thrillers — the key word here being ‘intelligent’. Modesty is beautiful, long-legged, full-breasted, tight-bottomed: sexy in a matter-of-fact way. She uses both her well-honed body and her sharp mind to succeed in difficult situations. She’s not above trickery, for where an enemy is manifestly stronger or more skilled, she will outsmart her way out of a sticky situation.

Many of Modesty’s ancestresses come from the 1930s and the golden age of radio that gave listeners in Europe and America sleuthing women like Phyl Coe (named after show sponsor Philco Radio Tubes, and changed after a year to a man, Phil Coe). Like Phyl, Kitty Keene, Jane Sherlock and a host of others were possessed of fluttering eyelashes and a sharp intelligence but little physical prowess. Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Xena and the Powerpuff Girls followed — high-octane heroines combining intelligence and brute strength. Then, with Batwoman and Black Canary, we get an underworld savvy and toughness, combined with that rare thing: tenderness.

Many of fiction’s early women crime-fighters were straightforwardly heterosexual, often singletons or widows bringing up families. As the times changed, so did our sleuthing ladies’ careers: they became investigators, policewomen, medical examiners, lawyers, business owners — vi Warshawski, Sharon MaCone, Kinsey Millhone — even a university professor, with Kate Fansler. Somewhere along the line, lives changed, the environment transformed, and sexuality made its entrance. Then, particularly after the 80s, came a long line of lesbian detectives, trailing the wake of a strong feminist movement.

Modesty started life as a strip cartoon, created by Peter O’Donnell. She was based on a woman O’Donnell, encountered in Iran during World War ii, who used to provide advance warning of the German troops. Soon Modesty became a storybook character who acquired a fan following of considerable dimensions. Like all ‘good gals’, when she turned her back on crime, she needed a partner. But the partner O’Donnell created for her was different: Willie Garvin, a rough diamond with formidable combat skills, a trusted lieutenant, but not — never — a lover.

Today, Modesty has been succeeded by many others, including Botswana’s Precious Ramotswe, who solves crime purely through intelligence and sympathy, and who is decidedly plump, heavy and — yes — black. Were Modesty and Precious to meet up one day at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, I suspect they’d immediately get into animated conversation, perhaps about themselves and their predecessors: strong, modern women who live tough lives, can hold their own in the dirty, hard world of men, who love ferociously, live dangerously, and many of whom — in the days before aids — had lots of sexual partners. Modesty is all of these things, but she’s also a happy, contented woman. She doesn’t live in constant dread like Scarpetta now does. Or dissatisfaction like Kinsey often does. She takes men to bed when she wants, lets them go when she wants, and they remain her friends, accepting that where sex — and pretty much everything else — is concerned, it’s Modesty who calls the shots.

It doesn’t take much to guess that I’m a Modesty Blaise fan. Indeed so faithful a fan have I been that I could not, as an early reader, bring myself to read the last book in which O’Donnell kills off his indomitable heroine and her partner. Now, two decades older and wiser, I have come to understand that all writers need to find a way to give closure to their characters. Except that I can’t remember if James Bond ever died. Did he? And what will happen to Kinsey Millhone when her creator, Sue Grafton, reaches the letter Z?

Another question continues to dog me. How do we account for the amazing success of Bond and the middling, or less-than-middling, success of someone like Modesty? She has everything Bond has and is also intelligent, generous — one might even say nice!

Maybe it’ll be Lara Croft — big-eyed, sexy, athletic and inter-galactic — who’ll ensure widespread success for the female crime fighter. She’ll build on the success of her fore-mothers, a long line that includes Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, Modesty, Kinsey, Kay and Precious.