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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
This is the Victorian precursor to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Plus there is lots of great Freudian imagery!
Haggard isn't a great writer - he completed this book in six weeks. For a genuine page turner, I would go with "The Moonstone." However, as he was one of the first folks to write a supernatural thriller set in the real world, I suppose I can cut him some slack.
Haggard isn't a great writer - he completed this book in six weeks. For a genuine page turner, I would go with "The Moonstone." However, as he was one of the first folks to write a supernatural thriller set in the real world, I suppose I can cut him some slack.
Interesting premise but much too wordy and much too slowly paced.
2.5 stars. Edited version of review published on Melbourne on my Mind.
Oy. This was kind of rough. The story took a long time to get going, partly due to the fact that the part where Leo's going through all the documents is filled with slabs of Greek and Latin and Medieval English. Much of the dialogue once they arrive in Africa is meant to take place in an antiquated form of Arabic, and is therefore written thusly: "blame me not if thou dost wear away thy little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me."
So that made it quite difficult to get into the story because it was constantly flicking between nineteenth century English (for Holly's observations) and something resembling Shakespearean English for the dialogue. As a result, my brain struggled to keep up, and I found myself unable to read more than 25-30 pages at a time before my eyes started to glaze over.
It's really hard to read this type of book in the twenty first century without constant headdesking over the Victorian ideas about women and race. Here, the Amahagger people over whom Ayesha rules are billed as uneducated, cannibalistic savages who practice animal sacrifice. It's billed as a matriarchal society, but then we're told that every decade or so, the men rise up and kill off all the older women to put them back in their place again. Ayesha rules over them because she's white and educated, but even then, a lot of her ideas are billed as "the noble savage"-esque.
In Kôr, we're given a lost African civilisation, which YAY! But Ayesha shows Holly the catacombs of Kôr's citizens, and they're all white (Their perfectly preserved 4000 year old corpses also make excellent fire starters, apparently). Obviously, the idea of a lost civilisation that was highly educated AND populated by people of colour was too much for Victorian sensibilities to handle...
Ayesha's an...interesting character. She's a woman in a position of power who's not afraid to use her beauty to convince men to do her bidding. Even Holly, who happily proclaims himself a misogynist, falls under her charms when he sees her face. But on the other hand, she's obsessed with the idea of her "lost love", despite the fact that Kallikrates chose his wife over Ayesha, and she killed him for it. It's her way or the highway - anyone who displeases her is rapidly put to death, and she considers all her subjects to effectively be primitive slaves. She uses her beauty as a weapon, and ultimately it betrays her.
Headdesking aside, the last 50-odd pages were pretty exciting stuff. Yes, it was still a little slow but FAR more thrilling than the book's early stages. On the whole, it wasn't nearly as action packed as I remembered it being, and I can't help but feel like it would have been a lot more enjoyable if the dialogue hadn't been so formal and stilted a lot of the time...
Oy. This was kind of rough. The story took a long time to get going, partly due to the fact that the part where Leo's going through all the documents is filled with slabs of Greek and Latin and Medieval English. Much of the dialogue once they arrive in Africa is meant to take place in an antiquated form of Arabic, and is therefore written thusly: "blame me not if thou dost wear away thy little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me."
So that made it quite difficult to get into the story because it was constantly flicking between nineteenth century English (for Holly's observations) and something resembling Shakespearean English for the dialogue. As a result, my brain struggled to keep up, and I found myself unable to read more than 25-30 pages at a time before my eyes started to glaze over.
It's really hard to read this type of book in the twenty first century without constant headdesking over the Victorian ideas about women and race. Here, the Amahagger people over whom Ayesha rules are billed as uneducated, cannibalistic savages who practice animal sacrifice. It's billed as a matriarchal society, but then we're told that every decade or so, the men rise up and kill off all the older women to put them back in their place again. Ayesha rules over them because she's white and educated, but even then, a lot of her ideas are billed as "the noble savage"-esque.
In Kôr, we're given a lost African civilisation, which YAY! But Ayesha shows Holly the catacombs of Kôr's citizens, and they're all white (Their perfectly preserved 4000 year old corpses also make excellent fire starters, apparently). Obviously, the idea of a lost civilisation that was highly educated AND populated by people of colour was too much for Victorian sensibilities to handle...
Ayesha's an...interesting character. She's a woman in a position of power who's not afraid to use her beauty to convince men to do her bidding. Even Holly, who happily proclaims himself a misogynist, falls under her charms when he sees her face. But on the other hand, she's obsessed with the idea of her "lost love", despite the fact that Kallikrates chose his wife over Ayesha, and she killed him for it. It's her way or the highway - anyone who displeases her is rapidly put to death, and she considers all her subjects to effectively be primitive slaves. She uses her beauty as a weapon, and ultimately it betrays her.
Headdesking aside, the last 50-odd pages were pretty exciting stuff. Yes, it was still a little slow but FAR more thrilling than the book's early stages. On the whole, it wasn't nearly as action packed as I remembered it being, and I can't help but feel like it would have been a lot more enjoyable if the dialogue hadn't been so formal and stilted a lot of the time...
Well... it's hard to rate. Because there is so much I dislike in this book. "Oh, an animal, KILL IT!!!" to "I'm a mighty Englishman me!" to "Jews are mean, moneyhungry wolves and deserve to be pogrommed" and all the rest of that stuff. The Leo/Ustane instalove. The constant telling that she's evil, while showing her as anything but evil. There was only once case where she was "evil", and even that is totally understandable - which even Henry acknowledges in the book.
I suppose we are to pity poor Henry, being born in Victoria's England. What else could he have been?
The story itself is not bad.
She is amazing. I love her.
I suppose we are to pity poor Henry, being born in Victoria's England. What else could he have been?
The story itself is not bad.
She is amazing. I love her.
A cracking Indiana Jones-sort of a romp, meeting cannibals, terrors and the original She-who-must-be-obeyed along the way.
A flawless and stunning adventure that grips the reader from the outset. She combines the spirit of adventure as well as deep philosophical thought; the very nature and meaning of life is questioned within these pages. My favourite quote from the novel reads:
‘But one day a sunrise will come when we shall be among those who are lost, and then others will watch these glorious rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty, and dream of death in the full glow of arising life! For this is the lot of man’
She makes my shelf as one of my favourite novels read to date.
‘But one day a sunrise will come when we shall be among those who are lost, and then others will watch these glorious rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty, and dream of death in the full glow of arising life! For this is the lot of man’
She makes my shelf as one of my favourite novels read to date.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was surprisingly riveted by this book, given its age. I guess classics are classics for a reason, but I was surprised that She appealed so much to my current sensibilities. It is not hard to see why this book was the talk of the town (the town being London) at the time of its publication. There are plenty of vivid, memorable moments: the depiction of mortal combat between a lion and a crocodile, the terrifying "hot-pot" scene, and every rousing scene with the titular "She". All left a lasting impression of wide-eyed adventure and terror.
Unlike in Haggard's previous [b:King Solomon's Mines|23814|King Solomon's Mines (Allan Quatermain, #1)|H. Rider Haggard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418964233s/23814.jpg|575986], the main characters took little time to reach their intended lost-land destination, leaving a lot of room for the heart of the story. And similar to that other book, I found modern concerns of racism moderately well-managed; one character had a well-defined aversion to other races (not to mention to women) as a specific character trait, but overall the characters met African people with respect and equality. Of course, there is this problem of the magical white woman (properly, the character was approximately ancient Arabic) reigning eternally over this African region, so it is not quite a racially enlightened novel. I will fall back to my assessment of King Solomon's Mines and describe it as "not as racist as it could have been", for whatever that may be worth.
Unlike in Haggard's previous [b:King Solomon's Mines|23814|King Solomon's Mines (Allan Quatermain, #1)|H. Rider Haggard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418964233s/23814.jpg|575986], the main characters took little time to reach their intended lost-land destination, leaving a lot of room for the heart of the story. And similar to that other book, I found modern concerns of racism moderately well-managed; one character had a well-defined aversion to other races (not to mention to women) as a specific character trait, but overall the characters met African people with respect and equality. Of course, there is this problem of the magical white woman (properly, the character was approximately ancient Arabic) reigning eternally over this African region, so it is not quite a racially enlightened novel. I will fall back to my assessment of King Solomon's Mines and describe it as "not as racist as it could have been", for whatever that may be worth.
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No