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The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

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Johnson brings together a wide variety of his favorite themes in this brief book, as he follows a small band of travelers as they interact with the world around them.

"Rasselas" of the title is a prince who has led a sheltered life in the Happy Valley. Over time he becomes discontented with always being contented, and decides to escape his boredom by leaving. He is led by his guide Imlac, a court counselor and poet; accompanying them is Rasselas's sister and her maid.

Rasselas's goal is to make a "choice of life," something he has great difficulty doing once outside the confines of the Happy Valley. Repeatedly, the quartet encounters arguments and counterarguments for one way of life or another. Ultimately, they realize that it's not what they choose to do in this life that matters, as long as it doesn't impede on their after-life. That is the major conclusion they reach, in a final chapter which Johnson calls "The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded."

The book and its writing is fairly simple, and could be read by anyone in high school. Unlike a lot of Johnson's essays, the syntax is not tangled, and it is easy to get through. However, while the writing is fairly simple (Hemingway some times comes to my mind!), the themes are big. And a young reader must be patient: what sounds like a final opinion on one page frequently gets an "on the other hand" on the next.

This is important, because some of the lines which characters speak are easily taken out of context, and misintepreted. A reader who is not careful may find a line which seems to resonate, and draw the wrong conclusion. Here are two examples: at one point, Imlac (Rasselas's guide) says to Rasselas, "Human life is everywhere a condition in which there is much to be endured and little to be enjoyed." Pretty pessimistic! But in its proper context, Imlac has only cautioned Rasselas against envying the Europeans. In another instance, "The Artist" (no, not the one with the glyph!) tells Rasselas, "Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first oversome." How *wonderful* for the office bulletin board! But then (on the other hand) The Artist puts on a pair of man-made wings and takes a belly flop into a lake.

This book is chock full of aphorisims like these two, and that is part of its appeal. But they are deceptive in isolation, and should be considered as part of the book as a whole.

As a whole book, it is wonderful. Its scope is wide, because of the variety of experiences and because of the to-ing and fro-ing of the dialog. It's a great way to start with Johnson, because it has so many of his large themes, distilled into a little tale which really can fit in your coat pocket.

Rasselas was a prince of Abyssinia, doomed to spend his life in "Happy Valley," unless he is chosen to be the King. In Happy Valley Rasselas' every need is met. He is fed and cared for and protected. However, Rasselas is unhappy in Happy Valley. Eventually he finds a man of the world who has come to Happy Valley and by the rules of entry, is now unable to leave. Eventually Prince Rasselas, the poet Imlac, Princess Nekayah and her handmaid Pekuah find a way to leave Happy Valley to journey into the world.

The travelers leave with a quantity of jewels so that they might find their way made easier, as poor travelers typically find their travels harsh. They begin to visit many different kinds of people in an effort to find happiness and thus be helped in deciding their "choice of life." The group visit common people, shepherds, an astronomer, teachers, a wealthy man, and many others. However, the group encounters an unexpected problem; they are unable to find a person who is happy. Even people who appear happy often turn out to have complaints regarding their life. The apparently happy wealthy man complains that others want his wealth. The shepherds turn out to want to live somewhere else. Everyone is dissatisfied with their lot in life.

Adding to the complexity of their search is that people take advantage of the seekers. Some people scam them out of their money. The Princess and Pekuah are kidnapped by desert raiders seeking to ransom them. It seems as though the world is a harsh place compared to Happy Valley. The seekers wonder how anyone can be happy in such a harsh and unforgiving world.

Rasselas is a philosophical tale that wonders about the nature of happiness. However, be careful of your expectations because Rasselas does not provide any ready-made answers. The answers are left to the reader. My observation regarding Rasselas and his band of travelers is that those they encountered would have thought that Rasselas led a happy life because he and his group were able to travel freely where they liked, learning new things and meeting new people. Little did the seekers realize that while they were searching for happiness they were happy.

Rasselas provides an opportunity for a person of learning to contrast his life with those who seek to find something without that is truly within. For those who look, the answer is there, including the answer to where happiness lies. Rasselas was closer than he knew, but he knew not where to look. Unfortunately the learned Imlac provide no assistance and, indeed, steered Rasselas further from the truth.

Typically philosophy books are difficult to read because they tackle complex arguments in ways that are difficult to follow. In the case of Rasselas the search for the choice of life and the search for happiness are told as a parable, making the reading somewhat easier. However, Samuel Johnson wrote this story more than two centuries ago, and the writing style and vocabulary used are likely to be challenging for many. Balancing the difficulty in reading the story is that the story is not long.

Considered by many to be a classic, here is a book that anyone who has styled himself a philosopher or just a seeker after truth should read.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia was a disheartening story about a prince who leaves the "happy valley" to pursue the choice of life. The princess and the prince, as well as the princess's favorite and their guide, enquire with all types of people in different positions to assist them in making their choice of life. I focused more on the philosophy than the story, and this, in the end, did nothing more than reassure me on the downfalls of human nature and society. It was enjoyable to read such a melancholy message expressed in an artistic and imaginative way, as I do not think that anything else would have lifted my spirits more than to know that although the downfalls illustrated in the book permeate our existence, people still retain creativity enough to express them in a pleasant way. This book is well written and the message is entertaining. It is a story that compliments the reader, as it can entertain with both its story and its opinions.

Dr. Johnson's "The History of Rasselas Prince of Abissinia" offers a philosophical journey for our modern era--a search for the secret of what choice of life to make.

I highly recommend the Oxford World's Classic edition, edited by J.P. Hardy. The introductory material is quite helpful, and the extensive footnotes, further explaining the text, are a valuable gateway to many of Dr. Johnson's writings in Rambler and Adventurer, writings where he further pursued topics raised in this book.

Rasselas lives in a garden paradise--his every need is provided for by his father, the King, who has sent his four children to live in Happy Valley, a beautiful valley, a Garden of Eden, from which there is no known escape, until they are called to rule through the line of succession.

After years of having his every wish fulfilled, Rasselas grows dissatisfied--there is no challenge or deep satisfaction in merely waiting for others to die so he can be King. Rasselas wants more. He doesn't know life beyond the mountain. The Prince recruits his teacher, his sister, and her companion. Rasselas sets his goal to leave Happy Valley, and then he discovers his means of escape.

He plans to travel the world; to seek out the wise and the learned; to study humanity. Along the way Rasselas and his friends enquire and learn about the human condition: misfortune, desire, corruption, curiosity, loneliness, insanity and the loss of reason. They also consider other questions when making a choice of life: the business of a man of letters; the importance of novelty in a life well-lived; the greatness of a nation as measured by the completeness of her poets; the importance of a desire of knowledge; that the old is valuable because: "what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood."

Their travels take them to Cairo, and they visit a number of places, including the pyramids, and meet many people on their journey, giving them an opportunity to talk to others who have made their choice of life. They meet the married and the single man; what about the choice of a married life? They meet the recluse; what about the choice of a life of seclusion? They visit the great pyramids of Egypt, and learn about the folly of man. They spend time with the astronomer; a man who has spent his life studying the stars. He has lived the life of the hedgehog, learning deeply about star knowledge. How does he feel about his choice of life versus the man who learns about self knowledge?

Dr. Johnson wrote: "The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope." He also understood that "hope was necessary in every condition," but warns us as he begins his tale: "Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and persue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abissinia."

I recommend you travel with Rasselas and his friends; enjoy their journey, their hopes, and their search for the choice of life.

When Samuel Johnson published his THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA in 1759, his reading audience did not know quite what to make of it. It was brief, rambling, and read more like a tract on philosophy than a work of fiction. In fact, all three were valid conclusions. Its brevity is a given. Its rambling style is more of a comment on the author's mode of expression than on its content. And as for its unclear classification of genre, the reader of today is just as puzzled as the reader of Johnson's day.

For, Sam Johnson, as one of the leading figures of an age that prided itself on the harmonius and logical interaction between man and nature, it was inconceivable of him to indulge in any excess of the emotions. He did not deny their existence, but he definitely thought they should be subsumed into a rational linkage of heart to head. Given this, it is reasonable to assume that as far as RASSELAS is concerned, Johnson meant for his readers to value the implicit theme over the rambling plot. This theme he had earlier hinted at in his poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes." This poem dealt with pride as the great obstacle to human happiness. For RASSELAS, an equivalent obstacle lay in man's not knowing that the source of human happiness is always right there in front of his nose. Thus, any attempt to find happiness in the external world guaranteed the failure of that attempt.

The plot involved Rasselas, a prince of Abyssinia, who left the comfortable cocoon of his castle with three companions to find the happiness that they thought they lacked at home. As they travel they find strangers who are truly miserable. They also find those who are only too willing to rob them. The ending involves Rasselas' returning to his country in a manner that reminds me of THE WIZARD OF OZ, in which Judy Garland tells Auntie Em, "There's no place like home!" In THE ENGLISH NOVEL, Walter Allen notes that this book is "an expression of a stoicism that would be the deepest pessimism were it not for its author's almost despairing Christianity." I disagree. In Rasselas's return to his country, he has learned that in his duty to his subjects, he has found the same source of happiness as has Voltaire's Candide: the need to work one's own garden.

'The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia' was a disheartening story about a prince who leaves the "happy valley" to pursue the choice of life. The princess and the prince, as well as the princess's favorite and their guide, enquire with all types of people in different positions to assist them in making their choice of life. I focused more on the philosophy than the story, and this, in the end, did nothing more than reassure me on the downfalls of human nature and society. It was enjoyable to read such a melancholy message expressed in an artistic and imaginative way, as I do not think that anything else would have lifted my spirits more than to know that although the downfalls illustrated in the book permeate our existence, people still retain creativity enough to express them in a pleasant way. This book is well written and the message is entertaining. It is a story that compliments the reader, as it can entertain with both its story and its opinions.

Modern America is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence, after all. Supposedly, the pursuit of happiness is one of our "inalienable rights."

The brilliance of Samuel Johnson is that he understood that those who seek happiness are the very ones who will never find it. This book is all about Rasselas and his friends as they try to figure out which "choice of life" will lead to happiness.

The conclusion of the book is that no choice of life will truly make you happy in this world. Happiness only comes after death when we meet up with our Maker.

The key is to simply accept life as it comes. Do not try to find happiness. If you stop searching for happiness, you will be shocked suddenly when you realize that something like happiness has snuck into your life by the back door. How did that get there?

This profound and wise insight is written with the usual Johnsonian artistic and literary brilliance. A must read for modern people who think happiness is something you can buy.

Like almost everything else from Samuel Johnson, RASSELAS concerns the complete un-attainablility of human happiness - the Vanity of Human Wishes - in particular through what he considered to be the vainest of all human quests for it: commune with nature. His entire life was spent saying very little else.

Johnson was almost blind. He crawled home from school in Lichfield on all fours, for fear of bumping into things. When his teacher tried to help, he assaulted her. He was still throwing tantrums - picking fights - much later in life, whenever his eyesight was mentioned. There are several recorded instances of it. Where philosophical observations on nature are concerned, this is the crippled viewpoint you're expected to share. He would not have people noticing nature, still less talking about it - 'A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.' He wanted everyone to be as visually challenged as he was. He'd 'grow warm' if you had the chance to mention it to his face. He'd 'roar', he'd 'thunder'. he'd 'puff himself up with passion seeking for a vent.' (Boswell's words.) He would not be "Blinking Sam", he said. He refused to be what he was.

The result was a lifetime's contempt for 'angelick nature' and for the the pastoral tradition in western literature which declared any undue affection for it. (The pastoral movement lasted for almost two thousand years.) In RASSELAS, Imlac (i.e Johnson) goes into Arabia where he sees 'a nation at once pastoral and warlike.' They 'carried on, through all ages, an hereditary war with all mankind, though they neither covet nor envy their possessions.' You may or may not have noticed, independent of anything from Samuel Johnson, that renunciation of worldly goods does not imply warlike intentions against all mankind. It might be argued that the exact urban antithesis espoused by Johnson often does.

In Cairo, wherever Rasselas went, 'he met gaiety and kindness, and heard the song of joy.' For Cairo is, of course, a city, and that's what you get in cities. (I believe it's now called Muzak.) In the gay assemblies of city life, 'there appeared such spriteliness of air, and volatility of fancy, as might have suited beings of an higher order.' Trouble is, when the party was over, these beings of an higher order had to return home to cope with their own company - 'the tyranny of reflection.' Johnson always had problems with his own company, not entirely without reason, though he was always ready to psycho-analyse those who didn't. He believed in ghosts, 'shadowy beings', second sight. He believed in Hell. Solitude is terrifying to the nervous wreck so he lambasted solitude. His alternative was 'angelick friendship,' a fiercely competitive model of the urban male's tavern-talk which was his idea of 'external diversion.' (Indoors, of course.) He craved the 'extasies of protestation and quarrels', 'talking for victory', conquest. He wanted to charge threepence for not turning up.

'Pastoral simplicity,' by way of contrast - in RASSELAS as in every other commemorated little corner of Johnson's life - was strictly for 'savages,' a favourite word of his, and of Boswell. 'Low life.' The Princess of Abyssinia pronounces the peasants of Happy Valley 'envious savages.' Like all of Johnson's fictional females - female Samuel Johnsons (of which there are many in his essays) - 'she should not soon be desirous of seeing any more specimens of rustick happiness.' These imaginary women all return eagerly to the city life they left, to the song of joy and the ecstasies of male protestations - quarrelling for them, if not over them. Real females, infuriatingly, eagerly returned to the country each summer.

The savages eventually direct the little group of Rasselasian travellers to a hermit's cell - 'hermit hoar in solemn cell.' More solitude and rustic simplicity!

There was a hermit on Cannock Chase in the 18th-century - very close to Lichfield - but Samuel Johnson never met him. He never met a hermit in his life, except as an imaginary extension of his own fears and inadequacies. But the hermit in Happy Valley carries all the assured authenticity of Doctor Johnson's vast experience and wisdom. This hermit had spent 15 years in solitude but, as a product of his author's contempt for it, he did not recommend it. The novelty soon wore away and he turned to the study of natural history - 'plants and minerals.' That inquiry also grew 'tasteless and irksome,' as you'd expect, so the hermit decides to go back to Cairo, 'on which, as he approached it, he gazed with rapture,' as you'd expect. You might have some difficulty finding evidence of a bona fide naturalist, even a modern twitcher, who ever discovers his inquiries to be tasteless and irksome. But Johnson's hermit 'found no opportunities for relaxation or diversion.' He failed to 'secure himself from vice by retiring from the exercise of virtue,' clearly an exclusive prerogative of the city, of the virtuous life to which he returns with rapture. In the city, he can be suitably directed by 'the counsel and conversation of the good.' He should never have left it in the first place - he should have stayed in town to be talked at by the Good Doctor Johnsons of this world. The life of the solitary man, says Johnson, 'will be certainly miserable but not certainly devout,' one of the grand ruling principles of human existence. Ask yourself about the certainty of misery for the man who chooses solitude. Ask yourself why it should be devout.

The Prince of Abyssinia went often to an assembly of learned men in Cairo. It was there that he met the philosopher, clearly meant to be Rousseau, who had the kind of ponderous English put into his mouth by Johnson which ostensibly caricatures Rousseau but in fact very effectively parodies Johnson. 'The prince soon learned that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he heard him longer.' (For Rousseau, of course, enjoyed nature, implicitly solitude!) The worst of Rousseau's prose is no more prolix than Johnson's, the best is a good deal less turgid.

Johnson reviled solitude as a rejection of pleasure - the pleasure of crowds. He remained a hypochondriac to the last! When the princess loses her favourite servant, she declares her intention to retire from the world. Imlac (Johnson) advises against it - 'commit yourself again to the current of the world,' he says. 'Learn to diffuse yourself in general conversation.' The world, of course, is urban. Rasselas also resolves to retire from the world - un-diffused - so Imlac tells him about the mad astronomer, afflicted with a terrible disease: 'the dangerous prevalence of the imagination.' This turns out to be a sort of 18th-century version of Walter Mittyism, attendant upon 'silent speculation.' It speaks eloquently of Johnson's own mental state if of nothing else. 'He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not.' Delusive illusions of illusory delusions in others - it blighted his whole life. It became more wilful with age, roughly the kind of insult by 'amour propre' which offended Jean Jacques Rousseau. Samuel Johnson's very obvious infirmities were used as grounds for accusing the healthy. The 'false opinions' he complained about, the 'despotick fantasies' were in his own head. He was not much good at logic.

'Perfect human felicity is completely unattainable,' as if we didn't know! Johnson could never come to terms with it. But the people who have achieved at least some acceptable compromise where human felicity is concerned - much better men than Samuel Johnson - have done it, very often, through some form or other of commune with nature. The much vaunted modern "relevance" of RASSELAS is for modern devotees of anti-nature, zeitgeist for the maverick millions. The humour, such as it is ('Come my lad and drink some beer') is just another sad, contemptuous justification for his own paranoia.

In the UK a BBC radio programme called Open Book has just nominated RASSELAS as one of its ten Neglected Classics. Advocate: Howard Jacobson. Howard Jacobson hates nature, Anglo-Saxon nature. He prefers streets. So do his fictional females - female Howard Jacobsons. His career as iterary advocate was launched on it: COMING FROM BEHIND. What the ____ did country walks have to do with Sefton Goldberg? You've seen a jay? So ______ what? That sort of thing. It's not hard to see why RASSELAS appeals.

RASSELAS was ostensibly written in one week, to pay for the funeral of Johnson's mother. In fact, it was begun before he heard of the death of his mother, from whom he'd been estranged for the last twenty years of her life. The book should have been neglected as she was, many years ago. Unfortunately, it never has been.


[This review was written by BWE and passed on to me to post here. Amazon.co.uk refused to have it on their site!]