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brucefarrar's review
3.0
Johnson’s Bildungsroman is the tale of a bored young Ethiopian prince imprisoned in a “happy valley,” an artificial Eden reserved for progeny of the emperor and their servants and companions.
Yet Prince Rasselas is bored. He longs for a purpose in life. When told that he is being spared the miseries of the outside world, he yearns to experience them. When he meets Imlac, a poet and world traveler, he begs him to help him escape and be his guide to the outside world so that he can see how others live, and decide on a choice of life. Reluctantly Imlac agrees, and with Rasselas’s sister Nekayah and a small group of attendants they discover a path over the surrounding mountains and out into the world.
They travel north following the course of the Nile to the great metropolis of Cairo. There they meet the active young and the disillusioned old. Rasselas meets a successful man whose happiness is ruined by the death of his daughter, encounters hermits, monks, scholars, and a delusional astronomer. He and his sister try the pastoral life, debate the pros and cons of domesticity and marriage, visit the rich and the great, and explore the pyramids.
During their time inside a pyramid, a band of marauding Arabs kidnap Nekayah’s lady-in-waiting, and favorite Pekuah, and hold her for ransom. When the ransom is paid Pekuah reveals that she had been well treated and reports on life in the castle of the rogue with genteel manners. She finds life among the womenfolk to be lacking in good conversation.
But Rasselas and Nekayah are unable to discover any of these outsiders that have found true happiness, or a way of life that they want to adopt as their own. So having experienced all the outside world has to offer, they decide to return home.
With the precision of language characteristic of the lexicographer, Johnson returns—this time in prose—to the theme of his earlier poem The Vanity of Human Wishes to make the point that happiness is not to be found in earthly existence.
The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with the necessities of life, and all delights and superfluities were added at the annual visit which the emperor paid his children, when the iron gate was opened to the sound of music; and, during eight days, everyone that desired resided in the valley was required to propose whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attentions and lessen the tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately granted. (page 15)
Yet Prince Rasselas is bored. He longs for a purpose in life. When told that he is being spared the miseries of the outside world, he yearns to experience them. When he meets Imlac, a poet and world traveler, he begs him to help him escape and be his guide to the outside world so that he can see how others live, and decide on a choice of life. Reluctantly Imlac agrees, and with Rasselas’s sister Nekayah and a small group of attendants they discover a path over the surrounding mountains and out into the world.
They travel north following the course of the Nile to the great metropolis of Cairo. There they meet the active young and the disillusioned old. Rasselas meets a successful man whose happiness is ruined by the death of his daughter, encounters hermits, monks, scholars, and a delusional astronomer. He and his sister try the pastoral life, debate the pros and cons of domesticity and marriage, visit the rich and the great, and explore the pyramids.
But Rasselas and Nekayah are unable to discover any of these outsiders that have found true happiness, or a way of life that they want to adopt as their own. So having experienced all the outside world has to offer, they decide to return home.
With the precision of language characteristic of the lexicographer, Johnson returns—this time in prose—to the theme of his earlier poem The Vanity of Human Wishes to make the point that happiness is not to be found in earthly existence.
lnatal's review
4.0
Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
An intriguing, contemporary take on Samuel Johnson's classic tale of an African prince in search of happiness.
A star cast is led by Ashley Zhangazha as Rasselas, Jeff Rawle as Samuel Johnson and Lucian Msamati - the RSC's first black Iago - as the poet Imlac. Singer and actor Cynthia Erivo makes her BBC radio drama debut as Princess Nekayah.
Recorded on location at Dr Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square, in the City of London - the very place where over 260 years ago, Johnson compiled his famous dictionary and then in January 1759, wrote his instant bestseller 'Rasselas' in a week, to pay for his mother's funeral.
Acclaimed 18th century philosophy fuels a contemporary desert road trip in this inventive and playful adaptation by Jonathan Holloway. Period and modern collide in a satirical fantasy as Rasselas and his companions follow their quest for happiness and purpose to Cairo, where they encounter Arab Spring revolutionaries.
Jonathan Holloway's drama also incorporates a compelling glimpse of Johnson himself - the lonely, 50-year-old celebrity and writer, in debt, in poor health, and missing his young Jamaican manservant, Francis Barber, who had run away to sea. Born a slave, Barber was freed at Johnson's insistence and treated kindly by him.
Johnson had struggled through many years of poverty before moving to Gough Square and becoming a highly respected writer. 'Rasselas', his singular, progressive rumination on human happiness, is his only novel and his most popular work.
Sound design: David Chilton
Produced and directed by Amber Barnfather.
From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
An intriguing, contemporary take on Samuel Johnson's classic tale of an African prince in search of happiness.
A star cast is led by Ashley Zhangazha as Rasselas, Jeff Rawle as Samuel Johnson and Lucian Msamati - the RSC's first black Iago - as the poet Imlac. Singer and actor Cynthia Erivo makes her BBC radio drama debut as Princess Nekayah.
Recorded on location at Dr Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square, in the City of London - the very place where over 260 years ago, Johnson compiled his famous dictionary and then in January 1759, wrote his instant bestseller 'Rasselas' in a week, to pay for his mother's funeral.
Acclaimed 18th century philosophy fuels a contemporary desert road trip in this inventive and playful adaptation by Jonathan Holloway. Period and modern collide in a satirical fantasy as Rasselas and his companions follow their quest for happiness and purpose to Cairo, where they encounter Arab Spring revolutionaries.
Jonathan Holloway's drama also incorporates a compelling glimpse of Johnson himself - the lonely, 50-year-old celebrity and writer, in debt, in poor health, and missing his young Jamaican manservant, Francis Barber, who had run away to sea. Born a slave, Barber was freed at Johnson's insistence and treated kindly by him.
Johnson had struggled through many years of poverty before moving to Gough Square and becoming a highly respected writer. 'Rasselas', his singular, progressive rumination on human happiness, is his only novel and his most popular work.
Sound design: David Chilton
Produced and directed by Amber Barnfather.
lnprad's review
2.0
" 'Lady,' answered he, 'let the gay and the vigorous expect pleasure in their excursions, it is enough that age can obtain ease. To me the world has lost its novelty: I look round, and see what I remember to have seen in happier days. I rest against a tree, and consider that in the same shade I once disputed upon the annual overflow of the Nile with a friend who is now silent in the grave. I cast my eyes upwards, fix them on the moon, and think with pain on the vicissitudes of life. I have ceased to take much delight in physical truth; for what have I to do with those things which I am soon to leave?' " (408)
purpleflame's review
1.0
In my opinion, there is just too much nothing going on in this book; the story is not very interesting and it doesn't have much action.
Definiteley not a book I recommend. I have recently decided never to not recommend a book ever again because, quite frankly, what I may dislike might be a book you would thoroughly enjoy and viceversa.
affabletoaster's review
3.0
I was telling a friend how much I did NOT enjoy the Johnson & Boswell course I had to take during my final year of university, and he felt compelled to defend Dr Johnson's honour. A couple days later he dropped by to give me Rasselas.
While I doubt I would have enjoyed the read as much as I did without associating it with the kindness of my friend, his enthusiasm is not entirely wasted on Dr Johnson's little novel. It was written in a week because the good doctor was low on funds, and it shows, but it's something of a more virtuous Candide, and not to be dismissed.
While I doubt I would have enjoyed the read as much as I did without associating it with the kindness of my friend, his enthusiasm is not entirely wasted on Dr Johnson's little novel. It was written in a week because the good doctor was low on funds, and it shows, but it's something of a more virtuous Candide, and not to be dismissed.
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