Customer Reviews

She: A History of Adventure (Modern Library Classics)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Oh, thou-who-hast-not-read-this-book, you know not what you're missing! H. Rider Haggard's "She" is one of the best adventure novels of all, and it is one that inspired some of the best adventure stories of all, like, say, the Indiana Jones series.

A mysterious iron box that cannot be opened for twenty years... a 2,000-year-old quest for revenge... a lost civilization in the depths of Africa... and a mysterious queen called "She."

The story covers a vast landscape that will delight your imagination, and the main characters are distinct and likeable, sturdy partners in this most thrilling of adventures.

The story is so exciting and full of action, it's tempting to write it off as pure pulp fiction, hacked out with little intellgence or deeper meaning. You can read the book this way and still come away having a good time. But, if you're looking for that rare adventure novel with a meaningful subtext, "She" delivers on this level, too. I won't give too much away, but I think it's one of the greatest books ever written that demonstrates the total control desires have over man. Arthur Schopenhauer would approve.

Sigmund Freud called it a book "full of hidden meaning." C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien read it and loved it. Give this one a try, and you, too, might become forever fascinated with "She."

Books don't usually show up on your kitchen counter uninvited but this one did with a note tucked inside saying all in the family must read this. One by one we all read "She" reserving judgement until everyone had finished. Chomping at the bit those who had read it could barely wait for the moment when it could be discussed openly. When the last reader closed the book and placed it on the living room table the comments flew.
"I thought I'd hate it...the writing was so Victorian"

"How did Haggard come up with those wild scenarios"
"I hated her and loved her at the same time"
"Right and wrong became muddled"
"Everything was covered, adventure, excitement, romance, death, religion and morality"
"I continued to turn the pages hardly believing that he could come up with another bizarre scene"
Do we recommend it??? A great big giant YES!!!

... of referring to his wife, covertly, as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

I had every reason to dislike this -- dated, predictable, wordy. But I found it to be a compelling read, one that I'm passing on to friends who might not have bothered to try it.

As when reading of Holmes or Father Brown -- I found myself yearning for times during which I didn't live, nostalgic for things I've never known.

Recommended; the Modern Library Classics is a fairly nifty little edition of it.

It is not, however, recommended that you begin to refer to your wife as She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed. Mine didn't care for it at all.

_She: A History of Adventure_ by Victorian novelist H. Rider Haggard is a tale of adventure and suspense set in the dark continent of Africa which reveals the archetypal nature of the female. H. Rider Haggard was obviously influenced by spiritualism in his younger days, and his belief in reincarnation is revealed in this novel. The novel shows an obsession with death as well as with the feminine principle revealed in the queen, Ayesha (referred to as "She-who-must-be-obeyed" or simply "She" or "Hiya" by the natives). The novel has been called imperialist because it shows the travels of several British adventurers in the dark continent of Africa.

This novel begins when L. Horace Holly receives a visitor in his home in Cambridge. Mr. Holly is told that his visitor Mr. Vincey is to die and that he must take care of his son Leo Vincey and protect the family secrets. Mr. Vincey provides Mr. Holly with a manuscript and a chest containing a sherd with words written on it from the long dead Amenartas. Once Leo has reached twenty-five years of age, the box is opened and it reveals the sherd. This contains writing that leads Mr. Holly, Leo, and his caretaker Job to travel to the dark continent.

While sailing towards Africa the group encounters a squall which wrecks their ship and they are forced to sail onwards on a smaller boat with only one Arab, Mahomed, to guide them. Once they have landed they encounter a rock in the shape of a human head. There they meet the Amahaggar, the dark cannibalistic tribe, who live in the city of Kor. The Amahaggar inform the group that She-who-must-be-obeyed awaits them. They also meet Billali, who becomes a second "father" to Mr. Holly, and Ustane, the African girl who falls in love with Leo.

This begins their adventure as they travel to meet She-who-must-be-obeyed. It turns out that She is a queen who has lived for thousands of years. She sees in Leo the reincarnation of her lost lover Kallikrates. She sees in Ustane the reincarnation of the Egyptian who she believes stole her love, Amenartas. Along the way, they encounter many dark secrets and discover the many corpses which litter the caverns in which She resides. As part of a special festival these mummies are set afire. The story plays out the long forgotten tale of Ayesha and her lover along with Amenartas who is to capture her lover's heart.

H. Rider Haggard was obviously influenced by spiritualism and the dead play an important role in this novel. His belief in reincarnation is seen in many places throughout. This story was popular with many including Freud and Jung, who saw in it the archetype of the feminine, as well as Tolkien and C. S. Lewis who incorporated elements of it into their own stories.

"The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines" includes a fiery scene in a subterranean chamber. "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" requires our hero to make a leap of faith from a rocky pinnacle above a seemingly bottomless chasm. "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" features Sean Connery as Allan Quatermain leading an uneasy alliance of unusual heroes to foil a fiendish plot. J.R.R. Tolkien has Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gange pass through dark passages inhabited by a devouring creature by the name of "She." Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" glimpses a mysterious and powerful queen dwelling on the Dark Continent, Each of these fantastic scenes excites the viewer's or reader's senses, stirs the adrenalin, and captivates the imagination, yet none is original. Each may owe its inspiration to Haggard's amazing novel SHE: A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE.

It seems as though H. Rider Haggard not only created a thrilling tale of adventure bordering on the supernatural but also sowed many seeds that later blossomed into additional captivating tales by authors and film writers who followed him.

Considering nothing more than its plot, the novel SHE offers the reader an intriguing, suspenseful, galloping, action-filled story enhanced by a goodly measure of shadowy and mysterious characters--as well as a strong but human hero, Holly; a courageous but fallible quasi-hero, Leo; and a loyal but destructible servant, Job. The non-stop action and the mystery of what may befall our protagonists around the next bend of the river or the next summit of the mountain or the next turning of the tunnel make the novel a true "page turner" from cover to cover. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying this story at the plot level alone, for it provides an enjoyable, entertaining read, but there is far more to this book than just its plot, for it is filled with symbolism and allegory that can add to the reader's enjoyment.

In her introduction to SHE, Margaret Atwood, an excellent author in her own right, points out a number of possible symbolic interpretations of some of the names that appear in the work. The Amahaggar tribe of followers of She suggests the word "hag" and "also conflates the Latin root for 'love' with the name of Abraham's banished wilderness-dwelling concubine, Hagar...." The name of the ancient, ruined city of Kor brings to mind the French word "coeur," or heart, as well as "corpse." Holly is a particularly interesting character, physically ugly but strong and resolute. In heraldry, holly is said to symbolize truth, and Holly seems to remain the most truth-seeking character in the story. His character is constantly seeking the truth of eternity, of the meaning of life (and its cognate, death), and of whether man should attempt to control Nature.

Obviously, one can also analyze the story from standpoint of Freudian psychology and can surmise what he wishes about whether or not Haggard is expressing a deep internal conflict concerning male/female relationships. If one takes the protagonist Holly as the author's avatar, it is only a short leap to say that the writer is expressing the hopelessness, longing, and emotional pain of loving an unattainable woman, although it strikes me that is too simplistic an interpretation.

In brief, the novel SHE offers the reader an engrossing story line as well as the opportunity to interpret the characters, settings and actions as symbols with deeper, more universal meanings, not to mention the opportunity to see the source that has inspired quite a number of subsequent books and movies. I should venture to say that anyone who enjoys a fast-moving adventure with a touch of the supernatural or at least of the inexplicable will find SHE a very entertaining read. I have only one quibble with the text and that is that I wish the dialog, which is ostensibly a translation of Arabic and Greek with now and then a touch of Latin, had less "thou" and "thee" in it. Haggard's desire to make even the translated dialog sound antique results instead in a measure of artificiality. However, even with that criticism, I enjoyed the book and heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys The Lord of the Rings, the Indiana Jones stories, and books or movies of such genre.

It is a wonderful adventure, written in a very clear and straightforward manner with all the beautiful description the passages entails. It keeps your interest throughtout the book and it lead me to its sequel. It has opened, once more for me, the interest to read books written about this time (1890's) as I find them lighthearted, and exciting in addittion to how beautiful and well written they are.

So many of the great Victorian fin-de-siecle romances have been rediscovered in the last few years, but this is the first new edition of one of the finest, H. Rider Haggard's SHE, in all that time. And SHE is really one of the best: compulsively readable, it lingers in the imagination long after you're done--you see why it has attracted critical commentary or adaptations from everyone to Jung to Freud to Elizabeth Bowen to C. S. Lewis. It seems to rework into all the most infamous fin-de-siecle obsessions (the New Woman, decadence, male bonding, imperialism) into something wholly new and original. Haggard was not the best writer in the world, but nonetheless somehow he managed to produce a novel as fascinating and rich as even such other fine fin-de-siecle works as DRACULA and THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU.

While studying at Cambridge, Ludwig Horace Holly receives a very strange visit from a long-time friend. In failing health, this friend gives Holly charge of his 5 year-old son Leo, and a mysterious chest, which he is charged not to open until the boy's twenty-fifth birthday. Twenty years later, the boy has grown to handsome manhood, and the chest is opened to reveal a family history stretching back some 23 centuries to ancient Egypt. Interestingly, included is the family's attempts to get revenge on an immortal white women who rules a tribe in Africa.

The young man, Leo, becomes fascinated with the tale, and draws Holly onto an adventure to Africa. Passing through danger upon danger, the companions finally find themselves in the hands of "She-who-must-be-obeyed".

While the story is dated and somewhat laughable by modern standards, it is very well written and more riveting than the above introduction may suggest. If nothing else, this book is an excellent example of Nineteenth Century fantasy literature.

I came across this book as a teenage girl, probably around the mid-70's. This ranks as one of my favorite books, along with only a few others. It made an impression and I have thought back to the book again and again, for many different reasons throughout the years. Being ageless as a woman was such a striking thought. Now that I've just turned 50, feeling nowhere near that age in terms of looks or outlook, I have been trying to hunt down a copy. I think it will be my Christmas present. I don't hang on to many material things, but this book will be with me the rest of my life. I hope to live a long one - most women in my family live on into their 90's - keeping their wit and smarts and beauty alive.

I did not know what to expect from the title. The story was quite original which is always refreshing. An active imagination is definetly required to sustain this book. Some of its elements border on the fantastic which may not suit everyone. However I enjoyed it very much.