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edb14 's review for:
She: A History of Adventure
by H. Rider Haggard
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.