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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
This book blew me away! I couldn't put it down from start to finish. It was part adventure, part anthropology less and part psychological thriller.
It had been many years since I read this - sometime back in the early '70s at a guess, and my memories of it have also been colored by the Hammer movie that I've watched several times in the interim. The movie is still watchable, but I fear the book hasn't aged well at all. Where it still stands up is in the imaginative sequences - the lost cities, the immense caverns, the pillar of fire and she-who-must-be-obeyed herself, all of which show Haggard to be capable of stirring the blood, which he also does admirably during the early shipwreck scene.
But it falls down badly on some dreadfully casual racism, the inherently worthy but dull protagonists and some shocking plodding exposition, especially early on. Allan Quartermain lifted several of Haggard's other works above all of this, but in the case of She the old warrior is sorely missed.
But it falls down badly on some dreadfully casual racism, the inherently worthy but dull protagonists and some shocking plodding exposition, especially early on. Allan Quartermain lifted several of Haggard's other works above all of this, but in the case of She the old warrior is sorely missed.
I assigned this for class again this semester, but for undergraduates. They seemed to find it fascinating and saw all of the interesting connections one can make to other cultural texts of the late nineteenth century. Reading it again was, for me, a good experience. I had taught the book for a couple graduate seminars a few years ago and, alongside the research I was doing, found it getting stale. It didn't feel this way returning to it, and made me feel a bit better about the book chapter on it that I'm trying to write.
Also, this edition by Andrew Stauffer is really great--students will find the illustrations from the initial publication in the _Graphic_ of interest.
Also, this edition by Andrew Stauffer is really great--students will find the illustrations from the initial publication in the _Graphic_ of interest.
An excellent work of fin de siècle gothic fiction. I highly recommend reading this. I won't spoil the details of the book, but this book is definitely a great read. I read it for a class, but I would read it again on my own. Try it!
.....few words.
2.5 but I’m rating down.
This story is so racist it’s like nonsensical. These white ppl are crazy and power hungry.
2.5 but I’m rating down.
This story is so racist it’s like nonsensical. These white ppl are crazy and power hungry.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
She (1886) by H. Rider Haggard concerns the journey undertaken by Horace Holly, a Cambridge University professor, and his young ward Leo to find the mysterious woman who killed one of Leo's ancestors. When Holly agrees to take on the guardianship of Leo Vincey, Holly's friend gives the professor a locked iron box and instructions that the box may not be opened until Leo turns 25. In the meantime Leo is to be trained in various ancient languages and generally prepared for what awaits him when the box is opened.
As soon as Leo comes of age, he is presented with the box and he finds within materials that tell and support a story about his ancestors in a time long before Christ. It tells how two lovers, a man and his wife, were relentlessly pursued and the man killed rather than become the husband of a mysterious woman. The wife escaped and had a child. The wife left materials and her testimony as proof of the horrible treatment and tasked her descendants with returning to Africa and exacting revenge for her husband's death. Also included is the notes from a more recent ancestor who said he tried to follow the instructions, found the right place and people, but failed to carry out the directive for revenge.
Holly says the materials either reflect a myth or the deranged imaginings of the recent ancestor, but Leo insists that he is going to follow the instructions whether Holly goes with him or not. The professor agrees to join him and they--along with their servant Job--travel to east Africa by boat. Their boat is wrecked and the only other survivor is their Arab captain. They are soon captured by a violent race of people who are ruled by a powerful white queen who has demanded that these strangers be brought to her. This queen, referred to as Hiya or She-who-must-be obeyed (shortened to just "She" throughout the book), is rumored to be thousands of years old.
photo source
The men suffer through many deadly adventures on their way to She's home and it is only her protection that saves them from Amahagger people (who are revealed as cannibals). But living under her protection may not be as safe as it appears and Holly soon suspects that She will not let them go easily--especially Leo, who she believes to be the reincarnation of her great love. They must overcome one last trial if they are ever to see England again and there is reason to suspect that they might fail.
Haggard wrote his novels during the height of the British Empire. Victorian and Empirical viewpoints are heavily represented from the depiction of the native folk of Africa to representation of a powerful woman. Although, She (or Ayesha--her real name) appears to be quite intelligent and crafty, her primary power over the men is in the wiles of her sex. She uses her great beauty to ensnare both Holly and Leo--making it near impossible for them to resist her. It is interesting, however, that Holly retains his reasoning powers even though quite enthralled by She's beauty and, in fact, holds quite detailed debates with her on many subjects. She even concedes that She might need to think over many of his views--though She absolutely will not give up the idea that Leo must belong to her.
An interesting Victorian adventure novel that runs just a tad long on the front end. While it was necessary to give the background for the adventure to come, Haggard had a tendency to over-explain and we definitely didn't need long passages in Latin (or Arabic or whichever version happened to be under examination amongst the materials in the box). A synopses of the ancestor's story would have sufficed.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
As soon as Leo comes of age, he is presented with the box and he finds within materials that tell and support a story about his ancestors in a time long before Christ. It tells how two lovers, a man and his wife, were relentlessly pursued and the man killed rather than become the husband of a mysterious woman. The wife escaped and had a child. The wife left materials and her testimony as proof of the horrible treatment and tasked her descendants with returning to Africa and exacting revenge for her husband's death. Also included is the notes from a more recent ancestor who said he tried to follow the instructions, found the right place and people, but failed to carry out the directive for revenge.
Holly says the materials either reflect a myth or the deranged imaginings of the recent ancestor, but Leo insists that he is going to follow the instructions whether Holly goes with him or not. The professor agrees to join him and they--along with their servant Job--travel to east Africa by boat. Their boat is wrecked and the only other survivor is their Arab captain. They are soon captured by a violent race of people who are ruled by a powerful white queen who has demanded that these strangers be brought to her. This queen, referred to as Hiya or She-who-must-be obeyed (shortened to just "She" throughout the book), is rumored to be thousands of years old.
photo source
The men suffer through many deadly adventures on their way to She's home and it is only her protection that saves them from Amahagger people (who are revealed as cannibals). But living under her protection may not be as safe as it appears and Holly soon suspects that She will not let them go easily--especially Leo, who she believes to be the reincarnation of her great love. They must overcome one last trial if they are ever to see England again and there is reason to suspect that they might fail.
Haggard wrote his novels during the height of the British Empire. Victorian and Empirical viewpoints are heavily represented from the depiction of the native folk of Africa to representation of a powerful woman. Although, She (or Ayesha--her real name) appears to be quite intelligent and crafty, her primary power over the men is in the wiles of her sex. She uses her great beauty to ensnare both Holly and Leo--making it near impossible for them to resist her. It is interesting, however, that Holly retains his reasoning powers even though quite enthralled by She's beauty and, in fact, holds quite detailed debates with her on many subjects. She even concedes that She might need to think over many of his views--though She absolutely will not give up the idea that Leo must belong to her.
An interesting Victorian adventure novel that runs just a tad long on the front end. While it was necessary to give the background for the adventure to come, Haggard had a tendency to over-explain and we definitely didn't need long passages in Latin (or Arabic or whichever version happened to be under examination amongst the materials in the box). A synopses of the ancestor's story would have sufficed.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
In the process of reading through random Victorian Gothic/scifi/horror novels, I ran across my first novel that I would classify as popcorn genre fiction of the 19th century. Wildly popular in its day, this story featured two intrepid heroes venturing into the African jungle in search of a mythical persona known only as “She.” An ancient shard of pottery (described throughout the novel as a “sherd” for someone inscrutable reason) describing the location of the mysterious kingdom of “She” was passed down through generations to one of our heroes, one Leo Vincey, and he and his adopted guardian decide to risk it all and go in search of wealth, adventure, and maybe eternal life.
Having only read up until now the more well-known intellectual progeny of the 19th century, I found this book surprisingly easy to read. I was expecting a dense prose style similar to Dracula or Jane Eyre, but the pages of this novel flew by just as modern genre fiction does. However, I also discovered why the former books stood the test of time while this popular-in-its-day book fell into obscurity. The prose is readable, but unquotable, and thematically it is very weak. It has very little of interest to say about Africa, and most of it has the racist overtones that all books of this time period relating to colonized countries did. It deals with popular topics of the day, such as mysterious treasures hiding in the jungle, savage natives with barbaric customs, innate English superiority, and the perverse and unconquerable nature of women, all of which are fairly uninteresting to modern audiences. The racism and misogyny make some parts of this novel very difficult to read, although to Haggard’s credit, it is not nearly as bad as some other novels in similar settings (*ahem* Tarzan) and I think at least part of the time he was exaggerating for comic effect. He describes cultural differences with some tolerance and seems contemptuous of a character who is afraid of someone based only on race. However, the power of being a white educated Englishman shines through as Holly and Vincey are the only two characters accorded respect from the queen of the natives, Ayesha and they generally wander through this foreign country as if they are invincible due to their origin.
Halfway through, Haggard drops the racism and switches over to musing about eternity and how men can be easily enslaved to beautiful women. Our heroes meet the queen of this new country and promptly fall in love with her while also being afraid of her. They quickly notice several odd things about her and soon learn that she has discovered the secret to eternal life and is actually two thousand years old. She catches up with Holly in a hilarious scene that looks like a high school reunion with Ayesha asking things like, “So how did Rome turn out?” and Holly bewilderedly answering. This aspect of the novel is probably the most interesting, with Ayesha painted as a complex, powerful character with unorthodox religious beliefs (unusual for the time period) and a disregard for human life that is chilling. Haggard’s portrayal of eternity and its effect on the human psyche I found to be compelling, though perhaps his insistence that love is the only thing holding this woman together is a little maudlin. At one point, Ayesha casually mentions how she has tried to breed humans throughout the years to achieve certain aims (deaf mutes, giants, etc), but that often they didn’t survive very long and that eventually she lost interest. Small glimpses like this give Ayesha and her world a feeling of authenticity that will keep you going just to learn more about her. It's just too bad that her costars are simple blocks of wood that moon after her and then shrug up their shoulders at her moral complexities to say “Aren’t all women evil, though?” In the end, this novel will fly into your mind and out again as a pleasant distraction while leaving none of the impact of atmosphere or theme as some of the more robust novels of the day. It makes me wonder how people 150 years in the future will look at the bestselling novels of our day.
On the subject of framing devices: Like most fiction of the 19th century, this novel comes equipped with a framing device. I am very glad this requirement got dropped by the wayside as novels evolved; I do not need justification for how this story got into my hands in order to support the illusion of realism; just create an interesting story! Haggard included a nested framing device similar to Frankenstein in which the editor is looking at a manuscript of adventure given to him by our MC, Holly, who wrote it all down after escaping with his life, which aside from spoiling the survival of Holly, does nothing at all for the story. However, this may have been near the end of this convention’s life, because Haggard doesn’t even return to the framing device to end the novel. The editor supposedly reviewing this manuscript does not return to give a postscript and Holly is allowed to finish it off with his own thoughts.
Having only read up until now the more well-known intellectual progeny of the 19th century, I found this book surprisingly easy to read. I was expecting a dense prose style similar to Dracula or Jane Eyre, but the pages of this novel flew by just as modern genre fiction does. However, I also discovered why the former books stood the test of time while this popular-in-its-day book fell into obscurity. The prose is readable, but unquotable, and thematically it is very weak. It has very little of interest to say about Africa, and most of it has the racist overtones that all books of this time period relating to colonized countries did. It deals with popular topics of the day, such as mysterious treasures hiding in the jungle, savage natives with barbaric customs, innate English superiority, and the perverse and unconquerable nature of women, all of which are fairly uninteresting to modern audiences. The racism and misogyny make some parts of this novel very difficult to read, although to Haggard’s credit, it is not nearly as bad as some other novels in similar settings (*ahem* Tarzan) and I think at least part of the time he was exaggerating for comic effect. He describes cultural differences with some tolerance and seems contemptuous of a character who is afraid of someone based only on race. However, the power of being a white educated Englishman shines through as Holly and Vincey are the only two characters accorded respect from the queen of the natives, Ayesha and they generally wander through this foreign country as if they are invincible due to their origin.
Halfway through, Haggard drops the racism and switches over to musing about eternity and how men can be easily enslaved to beautiful women. Our heroes meet the queen of this new country and promptly fall in love with her while also being afraid of her. They quickly notice several odd things about her and soon learn that she has discovered the secret to eternal life and is actually two thousand years old. She catches up with Holly in a hilarious scene that looks like a high school reunion with Ayesha asking things like, “So how did Rome turn out?” and Holly bewilderedly answering. This aspect of the novel is probably the most interesting, with Ayesha painted as a complex, powerful character with unorthodox religious beliefs (unusual for the time period) and a disregard for human life that is chilling. Haggard’s portrayal of eternity and its effect on the human psyche I found to be compelling, though perhaps his insistence that love is the only thing holding this woman together is a little maudlin. At one point, Ayesha casually mentions how she has tried to breed humans throughout the years to achieve certain aims (deaf mutes, giants, etc), but that often they didn’t survive very long and that eventually she lost interest. Small glimpses like this give Ayesha and her world a feeling of authenticity that will keep you going just to learn more about her. It's just too bad that her costars are simple blocks of wood that moon after her and then shrug up their shoulders at her moral complexities to say “Aren’t all women evil, though?” In the end, this novel will fly into your mind and out again as a pleasant distraction while leaving none of the impact of atmosphere or theme as some of the more robust novels of the day. It makes me wonder how people 150 years in the future will look at the bestselling novels of our day.
On the subject of framing devices: Like most fiction of the 19th century, this novel comes equipped with a framing device. I am very glad this requirement got dropped by the wayside as novels evolved; I do not need justification for how this story got into my hands in order to support the illusion of realism; just create an interesting story! Haggard included a nested framing device similar to Frankenstein in which the editor is looking at a manuscript of adventure given to him by our MC, Holly, who wrote it all down after escaping with his life, which aside from spoiling the survival of Holly, does nothing at all for the story. However, this may have been near the end of this convention’s life, because Haggard doesn’t even return to the framing device to end the novel. The editor supposedly reviewing this manuscript does not return to give a postscript and Holly is allowed to finish it off with his own thoughts.
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No