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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Distinct and memorable characters, an interesting story, and an impressive knowledge of language, history, and philosophy were what drew me into this strange, weird adventure. Haggard does tend to go on and on about trivial, insignificant details at times, which contrasts with the otherwise "adventure" feel to the book.
Ayesha is a complex character, and I do love dark, weird books. This one is certainly that, and I suspect I will be coming back to it sometime in the future for a re-read.
Ayesha is a complex character, and I do love dark, weird books. This one is certainly that, and I suspect I will be coming back to it sometime in the future for a re-read.
I remember thinking how weird this book was. Which depending on your taste could be a good thing. I didn't hate it but it wasn't my thing. It wasn't boring which is always good when you are reading a book for school.
I would classify this as pulp-fantasy. Is that a real genre?
I would classify this as pulp-fantasy. Is that a real genre?
When his orphaned ward Leo comes of age, scholar Holly gives him his only inheritance, a mysterious family artifact. Perplexed and curious, they journey to Eastern Africa to encover the truth of Leo's ancestors, and there they find a dark and enigmatic lost world ruled by the terrible She.
Considering I read a lot of older books, they tend to be filled with older prejudices. I'm starting to feel even mentioning it is becoming a little redundant, as we shouldn't expect particularly nuanced depictions of women from a time when they were still considered a biblical curse on humanity, and sometimes I just try to accept it and concentrate on other, less awful factors of the book I'm reading. But bloody hell, what else can I even do with this novel?
This is the Book of Incel. Our narrator Holly is incredibly intelligent, but no woman wants him because he's ugly, something which he repeats so often he seems to be proud of it. Leo is a bit dim witted and overly trusting, but everyone wants to bed him because he's a gorgeous Adonis, and even Holly can't stop talking about how sexy his ward is to a frankly worrying degree.
And then there's She, who has lived for thousands of years through the power of twisted and diabolical magiks. She is a woman of such immense beauty she has to keep her face covered, lest any man involuntarily stain her carpet at the sight of her, and even self-proclaimed misogynist Holly finds himself close to fainting from the briefest glimpse.
She can have decent debates with Holly and intellectually they're equals, but that doesn't matter to her as she only wants the handsome Leo, because women are shallow and only care about bone structure and I'm a nice guy, damn it! And there's some tosh about Leo being a reincarnation of the only man she ever 'loved', who was also the only man who refused to sleep with her, because you must ignore women to get their affection, as every slimey pick-up artist will tell you.
Aside from being an antithesis to feminism, this whole thing is also a shrine to Orientalism, complete with cannibals, corpse desecration and the novel's tribe, the Amahagger, all worshipping She, the one white woman there.
Let's find some good points about this book, shall we?:
She as white Queen of the natives may be a clever denouncement on the 'white man's burden', as she's not a benevolent ruler. She's capricious, selfish, keeps her subjects in control through fear and does nothing to 'better their lives' like some colonist apologists claim about the scramble for Africa. There's also rather progressive views on marriage. The Amahagger tribe women pick their own husband and divource is obtained rather easily, allowing a freer love that seems to work just bloody great for Leo and Ustane, his Amahagger girlfriend. The casualness of the bond doesn't seem to affect the intensity of affection either, with Ustane fully devoted to her chosen lover,.
Despite my criticisms, this is actually a fun read, with good prose, action scenes, ludicrous ideas and She is so outrageously hammy it's difficult not to like her. If you can repress your gag reflex then there's stuff to enjoy here, but this is very, very much a product of a time I'm glad we no longer accept.
Considering I read a lot of older books, they tend to be filled with older prejudices. I'm starting to feel even mentioning it is becoming a little redundant, as we shouldn't expect particularly nuanced depictions of women from a time when they were still considered a biblical curse on humanity, and sometimes I just try to accept it and concentrate on other, less awful factors of the book I'm reading. But bloody hell, what else can I even do with this novel?
This is the Book of Incel. Our narrator Holly is incredibly intelligent, but no woman wants him because he's ugly, something which he repeats so often he seems to be proud of it. Leo is a bit dim witted and overly trusting, but everyone wants to bed him because he's a gorgeous Adonis, and even Holly can't stop talking about how sexy his ward is to a frankly worrying degree.
And then there's She, who has lived for thousands of years through the power of twisted and diabolical magiks. She is a woman of such immense beauty she has to keep her face covered, lest any man involuntarily stain her carpet at the sight of her, and even self-proclaimed misogynist Holly finds himself close to fainting from the briefest glimpse.
She can have decent debates with Holly and intellectually they're equals, but that doesn't matter to her as she only wants the handsome Leo, because women are shallow and only care about bone structure and I'm a nice guy, damn it! And there's some tosh about Leo being a reincarnation of the only man she ever 'loved', who was also the only man who refused to sleep with her, because you must ignore women to get their affection, as every slimey pick-up artist will tell you.
Aside from being an antithesis to feminism, this whole thing is also a shrine to Orientalism, complete with cannibals, corpse desecration and the novel's tribe, the Amahagger, all worshipping She, the one white woman there.
Let's find some good points about this book, shall we?:
She as white Queen of the natives may be a clever denouncement on the 'white man's burden', as she's not a benevolent ruler. She's capricious, selfish, keeps her subjects in control through fear and does nothing to 'better their lives' like some colonist apologists claim about the scramble for Africa. There's also rather progressive views on marriage. The Amahagger tribe women pick their own husband and divource is obtained rather easily, allowing a freer love that seems to work just bloody great for Leo and Ustane, his Amahagger girlfriend. The casualness of the bond doesn't seem to affect the intensity of affection either, with Ustane fully devoted to her chosen lover,
Spoiler
and it's ultimately 'sanctity of marriage' raised Leo who forgets his darling five seconds after She declares she wants himDespite my criticisms, this is actually a fun read, with good prose, action scenes, ludicrous ideas and She is so outrageously hammy it's difficult not to like her. If you can repress your gag reflex then there's stuff to enjoy here, but this is very, very much a product of a time I'm glad we no longer accept.
Blah, now that was a chore. Never have a finished a book I hated so much.
The beauty of "She" is completely unnatural. Mens are just hypnotized by his beauty. Even her lover Leo couldn’t tolerate a kiss of her. The story was awesome though.
I read this book twice when I was at school, and thought it the best book by [a:H. Rider Haggard|4633123|H. Rider Haggard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1298296700p2/4633123.jpg] that I had read. Reading it again as an adult I could remember little but the horrible end of the eponymous "She", but as I read through it I wondered how it was that I remembered it with such fondness, because there were long passages of religious and quasi-philosophical reflection that must surely have been boring to a child. The actual adventure is mainly in the last 50 pages or so.
Part of the appeal, for me at least, lies in the setting, the meta-story, as it were, which involves a historical mystery. Horace Holly, a Cambridge don, is asked by a dying friend to be guardian of his young son, Leo Vincey, and is given a box to be opened in Leo's 25th birthday. The box contains the story of Leo's descent from an ancient Egyprian priest, and a love triangle that results in his death at the hands of a mysterious woman living somewhere in central Africa.
As a result Holly and Leo Vincey travel to central Africa in the hope of solving the historical mystery, using clues scrawled on an ancient potsherd in ancient Greek. I suppose that it was enjoying such stories as a child that gave me a taste for history and historical research, so that I still enjoy solving the puzzles one encounters in family history and other historical research, where each mystery solved leads to a fresh mystery that seems to defy solution. And I suppose that is why I still enjoyed this book several decades later.
And such stories of ancient mysteries leading to modern adventures still seem to appeal to later tastes, as the series of Indiana Jones films produced about a century later shows.
Part of the appeal, for me at least, lies in the setting, the meta-story, as it were, which involves a historical mystery. Horace Holly, a Cambridge don, is asked by a dying friend to be guardian of his young son, Leo Vincey, and is given a box to be opened in Leo's 25th birthday. The box contains the story of Leo's descent from an ancient Egyprian priest, and a love triangle that results in his death at the hands of a mysterious woman living somewhere in central Africa.
As a result Holly and Leo Vincey travel to central Africa in the hope of solving the historical mystery, using clues scrawled on an ancient potsherd in ancient Greek. I suppose that it was enjoying such stories as a child that gave me a taste for history and historical research, so that I still enjoy solving the puzzles one encounters in family history and other historical research, where each mystery solved leads to a fresh mystery that seems to defy solution. And I suppose that is why I still enjoyed this book several decades later.
And such stories of ancient mysteries leading to modern adventures still seem to appeal to later tastes, as the series of Indiana Jones films produced about a century later shows.
I generally don't like adventure novels, and I generally don't like Victorian novels, so I'm surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did (which wasn't too much, but I did have fun with it). She is very much a product of its time (in the bad sense), and a trashy one, too, but nevertheless it was a fun read, and Ayesha is a memorable character. That said, there's not much to praise in this book aside from personal enjoyment. Haggard is not good with extended dialogue, and the cliche of 'I swear I can't describe this thing but here I go anyway!' (which I actually don't hate as much as some other reviewers, as I think it can be effective when used skillfully and with restraint) is worn threadbare by the midway point of the novel, and it doesn't stop there.
I did enjoy the way Haggard draws concepts from various types of esoteric spirituality, and especially the novel's (maybe unintended?) Gothic treatment of Sehnsucht. It seemed kind of unique to me in its historical context, but I won't pretend to be well-read in literature from this period.
I did enjoy the way Haggard draws concepts from various types of esoteric spirituality, and especially the novel's (maybe unintended?) Gothic treatment of Sehnsucht. It seemed kind of unique to me in its historical context, but I won't pretend to be well-read in literature from this period.