Manly Pursuits [Paperback]

Ann Harries (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2000

A rich and evocative novel about fidelity and betrayal, exploitation and colonialism.

Cape Town, 1899. Cecil Rhodes, the great imperialist and diamond tycoon, believes that he has only months to live, and that the only thing that can save him is the sound of English birdsong in the South African countryside surrounding his Cape residence.

"The Colossus," as Rhodes is known throughout South Africa, recruits Francis Wills, an Oxford don and the world's leading expert in birdsong, to transport two hundred British songbirds-blackbirds, nightingales, chaffinches, robins and starlings-by sea from Southampton to the Cape Province. But the birds, confused by the change of season and hemisphere, refuse to sing. This is but the first obstacle for Wills, who finds himself irresistibly drawn to intrigue-romantic, political, and ornithological-in a country on the brink of war.

Ann Harries' splendid first novel is cast with a host of sharply drawn real-life characters, among them Oscar Wilde and Lewis Carroll who are friends of Wills' in England, and Rudyard and Mrs. Kipling, intimates of Rhodes in his imperialist oasis.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Historical fiction enthusiasts will enjoy this narrative of South Africa during an era of imminent war between the British and Boers. First novelist Harries's story, while occasionally obscure for those unfamiliar with this period, evolves in a series of disconnected vignettes and reminiscences revolving around ornithologist Francis Wills of Oxford, whom Cecil Rhodes has invited to Africa. Believing that Wills's English songbirds will save his life, Rhodes is dismayed when the birds (whose schedule has been upset by geographical and seasonal changes) are mute. While waiting for the birds to recover, Wills recalls previous interludes with many "big names" of the Victorian eraAOscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), John Ruskin, and Rhodes himselfAwhile plot undercurrents and intrigues swirl around cultural issues, military aspirations, politics, sex, and imperialism. This bastion of Victorian civilization is obscured by too many secrets and too much darkness; lives are destroyed while hidden agendas flourish. Recommended.AEllen R. Cohen, Rockville, MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

"A powerfully imagined historical novel."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (March 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340730
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340739
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,260,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A dreary book, November 1, 2008

By 

Brown-eyed NJ Girl - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manly Pursuits (Paperback)

If you don't know the history of South Africa, this book will baffle you. Great to have Google to figure out what the heck she is talking about most of the time. But that isn't the book's worst fault. It is essentially a pseudo novel of manners. Even the best novel of manners (i.e., Henry James) is dreadful. You know - entire chapters about the lifting of an eyebrow. It dulls an exciting, intriguing series of historical events. Nearly all the text is innuendo about the sexual proclivities of the characters or about meaningless trivia such as the instruments in the home of the mother of a minor character. Yes, I got it - the Afrikaaners were full of unrestrained life and could make music, playing on home-made clay flutes, for instance, while the repressed Victorian Englishmen, like the British birds transported to the Cape, could never sing and were destined to die. Still, there are just all these loose threads and endless detail about characters that are not woven together for nearly three hundred pages, and then only loosely and lifelessly. What could have been a suspenseful plot had no more spark than anything else in the story. The central character, stepping wildly out of character for no apparent reason, tries a daring theft to try to stop the Boer War - but this entire episode has no more oomph that the loss of a baby tooth by the little Afrikaaner girl. I mean, the man did a truly dreadful thing in his youth, an abhorrent act of animal cruelty that results in his father's death, and it is just mentioned lightly in a sentence or two and then dropped. As though something like that might not be pivotal in the character's life or psyche. Just bizarre. I actually went back twice to re-read it, to be sure that's what it said, as I couldn't imagine something of such enormity treated as a snippet of text.

It is fine to fictionalize history, but there are superfluous appearances of Rudyard Kipling and his family, Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde, and so on.

All in all, a dreary book.

14 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice place, shame about the text, August 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Manly Pursuits (Hardcover)

Having lived in both Cape Town and Oxford I looked forward to getting lost in this book. Maybe I was just missing the point, or maybe I expected too much, but instead of beguiling it just annoyed. On the positive side, the use of different times and spaces concurrently worked well, but the introduction of so many famous faces from the past... Just flashing familiar faces and building on their stereotypes does not make it an interesting historical novel. I will admit that I may be being too hard on this book, it has after all been given great reviews, but of the three people I know who've read it, each being from Oxford and/or Cape Town, no-one has found that it warrents its reviews.