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BS: Author H Rider Haggard (I)
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 25 Jan 08 - 02:36 PM From the end of chapter 16: The Mungana shook his head and began to enter the canal. Jeekie, whose teeth were chattering, hung back, but Alan pushed him from behind, so sharply that he stumbled and made a splash. Then Alan followed, and as the cold, black water rose to his chest, looked again at Big Bonsa. It seemed to him that the thing had turned round and was staring at them. Surely a few seconds ago its snout pointed the other way. No, that must be fancy. He was swimming now, they were all swimming, Alan and Jeekie holding their pistols and little stock of cartridges above their heads to keep them dry. The gold head of Big Bonsa appeared to be lifting itself up in the water, as a reptile might, in order to get a better view of these proceedings, but doubtless it was the ripples that they caused which gave it this appearance. Only why did the ripples make it come towards them, quite gently, like an investigating fish? It was about ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan's head. Oh Heavens! a sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight upon his back. Down went Alan, down and down! CHAPTER XVII THE END OF THE MUNGANA The moonlight above vanished. Alan was alone in the depths with this devil, or whatever it might be. He could feel hands and feet gripping and treading on him, but they did not seem to be human, for there were too many of them. Also they were very cold. He gave himself up for dead and thought of Barbara. Then something flashed into his mind. In his hand he still held the revolver. He pressed it upwards against the thing that was smothering him, and pulled the trigger. Again he pulled it, and again, for it was a self-cocking weapon, and even there deep down in the water he heard the thud of the explosion of the damp-proof copper cartridges. His lungs were bursting, his senses reeled, only enough of them remained to tell him that he was free of that strangling grip and floating upwards. His head rose above the surface, and through the mouth of his mask he drew in the sweet air with quick gasps. Down below him in the clear water he saw the yellow head of Big Bonsa rocking and quivering like a great reflected mon, saw too that it was beginning to rise. Yet he could not swim away from it, the fetish seemed to have hypnotized him. He heard Jeekie calling to him from the shallow water near the further bank, but still he floated there like a log and stared down at Big Bonsa wallowing beneath. Jeekie plunged back into the canal and with a few strong strokes reached him, gripped him by the arm and began to tow him to the shore. Before they came there Big Bonsa rose like a huge fish and tried to follow them, but could not, or so it seemed. At any rate it only whirled round and round upon the surface, while from it poured a white fluid that turned the black water to the hue of milk. Then it began to scream, making a thin and dreadful sound more like that of an infant in pain than anything they had ever heard, a very sickening sound that Alan never could forget. He staggered to the bank and stood staring at it where it bled, rolled and shrieked, but because of the milky foam could make nothing out in that light. See Thread II (click) |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 24 Jan 08 - 10:34 PM In "Yellow God"-- So what IS Big Bonsa? He screams, he bleeds white blood. A large tunicate, some kind of mollusk? What bleeds white blood, lives in fresh water in Africa, and uses or forms a golden shell as described in "Yellow God"? ~S~ |
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Subject: ADD: SORAIS' SONG From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 07 - 07:33 AM From Alan Qutermain ch15. ~S~
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 29 Dec 07 - 02:58 AM Exactly Graham - it was a fun thing. These people were pre Freud. it was a past where they thought differently, felt different and did things very differently. I think perhaps they saw this stuff as pre-sexual. An aspect of childhood. There was a great popularity for photographs of scantily clad Africans. You can't help imagining, the Victorians thought sentimentally that these 'savages' didn't have the same measure of sexual maturity as themselves - being naked and unashamed, like children. Thus another load of sexually charged feelings crept under the wire. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Grab Date: 28 Dec 07 - 07:49 PM WLD, that's not wierd sexually. Until this century, you'd have to be in a *seriously* rich family to get a bed to yourself as a kid, so two kids sleeping next to each other to stay warm would be normal. Now not noticing that the kid you're snuggling up to is actually a girl - that's not just wierd, that's plain careless. ;-) Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Little Robyn Date: 27 Dec 07 - 10:02 PM Weelittledrummer said: Its part of the whole adolecscent male experience. Wait a minute, I went to an all girls school! In NZ and Oz, if your name is spelt with a Y, it usually means you are female. Only boys spell their name Robin. Robyn |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Art Thieme Date: 27 Dec 07 - 09:51 PM And now we know why Winona Rider is looking so Haggard tyhese days... Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Dec 07 - 09:26 PM what indeed... I'm sure we all empathise with your dilemma on having been born a Scottish person. It can't have been easy for you. However, I had a cousin who had dental hygiene problems. But it is worth noting, he went on to become an executive officer in the civil service. Don't give up on things, just because you find youself wearing a kilt in the wind tunnel that is life, The way is open for you. Whilst you see your assets as trifling and insignicant, there may be many who would like to seize upom your trifles. Make them wait! |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: GUEST,SLR for RLS Date: 27 Dec 07 - 11:11 AM Not only wis nane o' thaim a "bonnie" eneugh fechter, nane o' thaim as far as Ah kin see his bin Scotch; a Cockney and an Aussie, forbye! An' whit's wi' thon Irish cultchie pleyin' at Rob Roy McGreegurrrr? |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Dec 07 - 04:29 AM Well I think the whole homo-erotic thing that that genre taps into is a great part of the magic. Its part of the whole adolecscent male experience, that we can never quite fess up to, later in life. Haggard, Stevenson , Baden Powell - they all understood it implicitly. They didn't need Freud to dot the i's and cross the t's. Kidnapped is on TV today. Once more Alan Breck Stewart and Davy Balfour traipse over Rannoch Moor - squabbling, huddling together in the heather, and making up firmer friends than ever. The older man guiding the younger to attain his birthright of manhood and a place in society. And when you think about it? What is always wrong with every screen Alan Breck Stewart...? They are never good looking enough - they never have quite enough feminine beauty to live up to the gold buttons and lace. Michael Caine certainly didn't. The one today has a face like a dog's bum. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Little Robyn Date: 27 Dec 07 - 03:42 AM Try Nada the Lily. I enjoyed it at 13-14. Robyn |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: RangerSteve Date: 26 Dec 07 - 06:38 PM As for recommendations, I agree with the above, KSM and She. Eric Brighteyes is another I'd strongly recommend, along with Alan Quatermain. Ayesha, or the Return of She didn't strike me as a necessary sequel, but it was okay. Heart of the World is just KSM transported to Mexico. Alan's Daughter didn't excite me and I never finished it. That's the extent of my Haggard reading. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: dick greenhaus Date: 26 Dec 07 - 06:11 PM Authorities differ. LAPSUS CALAMI. Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse; When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass? When mankind shall be delivered Prom the clash of magazines,, And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens; When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute beside a muzzled bore; When the Rudyards cease from kipling, And the Haggards ride no more? James Kenneth Stephen, (1859-1892,) Published: October 21,1899 © The New York Times |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Murray MacLeod Date: 26 Dec 07 - 03:32 PM Prester John was indeed another favourite from that era, but I don't remember any homo-erotic passages. the one thing I do remember from the book is that the narrator, as a boy, used to walk home in the dark, with a lantern, fully lit, which he used to conceal under his coat, never letting a glimpse of light eacape to illuminate his path. for some reason, that struck a hugely sympathetic chord with me, I could totally relate to that kid ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 26 Dec 07 - 11:33 AM KSM does kind of get into the story more quickly than many of the others. On a lot of them, the GOOD part is just getting roling after a LOT of background, when it peaks and ends. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Liz the Squeak Date: 26 Dec 07 - 08:56 AM Didn't Blackadder have a 'roistering good time' with Bob, not George? Mind you... George did know how to take a hot crumpet from behind without blubbing.... I started with 'King Solomon's Mines' and progressed to 'She'. I must say I did find him very sympathetic to the African culture and Quartermain does make it clear in many places how he feels about the hunters whom he takes out on game shoots. KSM gave a little glimpse into the customs and traditions (whether real or fictional) of another people that has stayed with me since first I read the books. He gave the impression that he had respect for them and wanted to know more about them, rather than saying 'that's pretty' before blasting them to bits. If I had to recommend a Haggard book to anyone, I'd say start with the most popular, KSM and work your way down the 'also by this author' list. If you aren't gripped and encouraged by the writing style, then the story alone will keep you in the book til you finish it. LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: fat B****rd Date: 26 Dec 07 - 08:39 AM Thanks for reminding me about Classics Illustrated, Big Al. I had dozens of them in cluding King Solomon's Mines. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Dec 07 - 08:10 AM well I don't suppose Buchan actually says 'I don't half get turned on by the thought of big naked zulus waving their enormous spears' - but in your own words -'In today's revisionist thinking it might be said that it's a thinly cloaked gay thing'. All those 'adventure stories for boys' lot were all a bit weird sexually - think of The Black Arrow where the hero spends the night in the forest sleeping with a girl, he thinks is a boy. Its all a bit like Blackadder having a roistering good time with 'George'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 25 Dec 07 - 10:20 PM another one with homo erotic passages That's nice, but my point was that the ones I referenced were NOT homo-erotic. Not erotic at all, in fact. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 25 Dec 07 - 06:18 PM The adventure story of that era I like, is Prester John by John Buchan. another one with homo erotic passages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 25 Dec 07 - 01:36 AM SHE was too mentioned! I started with "Benita" at audiobooksforfree.com. Found accidentally because I liked the narrator's version of other books, wanted the same voice for beddytime stories, found Haggard! It's a standalone. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: TRUBRIT Date: 24 Dec 07 - 10:42 PM No one has mentioned 'She ' - I loved that book - and those stone steps worn to almost nothing by her feet alone always impressed me..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: robomatic Date: 24 Dec 07 - 09:19 PM Is there a preferred 'starter' book or set of books for one who has no previous experience with Haggard? |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 24 Dec 07 - 09:04 AM ... a very retro slip cover.... I forget where I saw it now, when I was looking up some Haggard things online, but there was whole page of the covers-- what a riot. A precursor to comic book covers for sure! It reminded me of the decade-centric view I'd had of many early-TV favorites-- to encounter them years later as the earlier oldtime radio shows upon which the TV shows were based is quite mind-opening as well. As far as stereotypes, I think the characters I have met so far in his books have been archetypes. As pointed out above with Gagool, these are types we recognize from people we know in our work. The similarities are about the characters' vividly drawn personalities so much more than whichever "race" they happened to be in the books. The potential parallels go on and on-- for example hockey players on our favorite teams are either Jeekie or an Umslopagaas, but seldom both. :~) There's a lack of homophobia I also like, where there are close male friendships free of fear of embarrassment. In more than one passage a character-- I believe it's Quartermain-- describes the beauty of some of the other men in the story. In today's revisionist thinking it might be said that it's a thinly cloaked gay thing, but I think manliness just had different expectations and dynamics back then. Anyway, again, it offers a lot to think about. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Grab Date: 24 Dec 07 - 07:37 AM Thing is that as far as idealism goes, Quartermain is very much of a piece with Kipling's true-heroic figures, like the spy-masters in "Kim". The reason they're accepted and followed by their "natives" (to use the 19th-century word) is because they've taken the trouble to understand and integrate themselves into the culture around them, instead of blindly trying to recreate "Englishness" in a land which has its own culture. And being heroes, they of course behave honourably towards their own people. So instead of being army-style leaders who have authority because of their rank, they're leaders of a band of equals, having authority only because the rest of the group know they're the best people to command - certainly not just because of their skin colour. Both Rider Haggard and Kipling were free with counter-examples too: most obviously, "The man who would be king" has white anti-heroes whose hubris catches up with them, and "Black heart and white heart" explicitly shows the Zulu warrior as the hero and the white man as the villain. Most of their stories also have various minor characters who impede the heroes and their party with their prejudices. A lot of the problem today with Rider Haggard is probably the casual attitude of the black characters to killing - it doesn't sit well with modern attitudes. But it is pretty historically accurate. The attitude to killing isn't black-specific either, when you reckon that most of the whites abroad would be soldiers or ex-soldiers and therefore wouldn't have much compunction about killing either. Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Big Al Whittle Date: 24 Dec 07 - 05:47 AM I learned about King Solomon's mines from Classics Illustrated. As I remember Allan Quartermain was a bit unenlightened. The trouble is, he never gigged any old people's homes. You meet Gagool every couple of days. Its no excuse to stop singing. You never know, she might get off on the Fred Astaire medley. Usually by the time you leave, she's leading the singing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Manitas_at_home Date: 24 Dec 07 - 03:48 AM Waterstones have a section for classic adventure stories which seem to be new imprints. The King Solomon's Mines they have has a very retro slip cover on it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Little Robyn Date: 24 Dec 07 - 01:46 AM We had to study Nada the lily at High School - about 50 years ago! I loved it. Robyn |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: katlaughing Date: 23 Dec 07 - 10:48 PM You can search many used bookstores online through www.addall.com which lists copies of many of his books. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Dec 07 - 09:09 PM He was a brilliant writer, one of the favorites of my youth. Good to be reminded. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 23 Dec 07 - 09:00 PM Remember the cook - Alphonse was it?) Oh yes, that was Alphonse. I'm just getting to the passage where Umslopagaas leads the battle he planned. I love the multi-dimensioanality of the Native characters, and how different they are from one another in the books and across the books. I love that they are leaders, not servants. I love the strength of the women. She, Benita, Yellow God, King Solomon's Mines, and Alan Quatermain are all available at audiobooksforfree.com, with good narrators. I'm going to hell for sure-- after several years using the free versions' bad sound quality for long drives with Hardi, I pay now for the cheap but much better sound quality. Totally hooked! One aspect of these I have enjoyed so much is that the view Haggard and other "historical" writers' present need not remain my only view-- I love to do research during each book to learn more about the author, geography, cultures, and current events (of that time) of the regions. I learned a lot about France, for example, as a result of de-mystifiying a lot of The Count of Monte Cristo. Sure, the fictional views are limited and skewed in many ways; but they provide an opening from which much more can be viewed. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Dec 07 - 08:36 PM Dunno what is meant by "could only download these works," but She, KSM and Alan Q are available for $1.00 or so from many book dealers through www.amazon.com. I remember that HSM and She were favorites when I was a child. Cetywayo and His neighbours is another I remember. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Murray MacLeod Date: 23 Dec 07 - 07:37 PM loved his books as a child, and can still vividly remember Umslopogaas with his horn handled axe with the crescent shaped blade and the point on the other side. I wanted an axe like that so badly. I also used to have nightmares about Gagool, Chaka's witchfinder. She was seriously scary. |
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Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard From: Dave the Gnome Date: 23 Dec 07 - 05:28 PM It's funny, Susan. We were discussing the Victorian pre-occupation with the 'Noble Savage' only about 3 or 4 hours ago. HRH is a super example of the same. Firstly, I must point out that I do love his work and my formative years were spent imagining the Veldt that Hunter Quatermain saw down the sights of his Henry Martini. I wanted to add Haggards work to my library of things to read and re-read but was very disappointed to discover that I could only download these works. Next, when I did re-read them, I found a whole scope of descriptive narrative as vivid and fresh as they day they first appeared. But the attitude to not only the 'Savage' but to non-English members of the world (Remember the cook - Alphonse was it?) probably prohibits his works being as widespread as it used to be. I find nothing wrong with his portrayal of Umslopogas's (sp?) undying loyalty to the white hunter, bearing in mind attitudes prevelant at the time, but in this age I can fully understand why people are a little coy about accepting the works. That being said I do believe that my life, as a youngster, was enriched by visiting King Solomons mines rather than corrupted into believing that Quartermain was somehow better, or worse, than his African contemporaries! Maybe if more people understood that these were wonderful works of fiction and that attitudes were not always what they are today we could be in a position to enjoy early escapism more? Maybe we could appreciate the type of sentiment expressed in your example. And maybe learn from our ancestors? Cheers Dave |
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Subject: BS: H Rider Haggard From: wysiwyg Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:56 PM For his time, he was quite the revolutionary writer when it came to racial stereotypes, and he wasn't a bad everyday philosopher, either. I've been enjoying some of his novels as audiobooks. Here's a long passage I especially liked the other night, from Alan Quatermain, after Alan's son has unexpectedly died a young man. Alan is reflecting on life since he has been back in "civilized" England, and is longing for his African-advernture alternate homeland, where he has lived most of his working life in partnership with people of a number of widely different African cultures. I've added a few paragraph breaks for readability, marked >. It's a paste from the Gutenberg text, where _ is used to indicate italics. ~Susan ===== Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For forty years and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways; and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the children of light; and what have I found? A great gulf fixed? No, only a very little one, that a plain man's thought may spring across. >I say that as the savage is, so is the white man, only the latter is more inventive, and possesses the faculty of combination; save and except also that the savage, as I have known him, is to a large extent free from the greed of money, which eats like a cancer into the heart of the white man. It is a depressing conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the child of civilization are identical. >I dare say that the highly civilized lady reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity when she thinks of her black bead-bedecked sister; and so will the superfine cultured idler scientifically eating a dinner at his club, the cost of which would keep a starving family for a week. And yet, my dear young lady, what are those pretty things round your own neck? -- they have a strong family resemblance, especially when you wear that _very_ low dress, to the savage woman's beads. Your habit of turning round and round to the sound of horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders, the way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior who has captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which your taste in feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things suggest touches of kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental principles of your nature you are quite identical. >As for you, sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in _you_. There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good? Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt. A vainglory is it, and like a northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark. Out of the soil of barbarism it has grown like a tree, and, as I believe, into the soil like a tree it will once more, sooner or later, fall again, as the Egyptian civilization fell, as the Hellenic civilization fell, and as the Roman civilization and many others of which the world has now lost count, fell also. >Do not let me, however, be understood as decrying our modern institutions, representing as they do the gathered experience of humanity applied for the good of all. Of course they have great advantages -- hospitals for instance; but then, remember, we breed the sickly people who fill them. In a savage land they do not exist. Besides, the question will arise: How many of these blessings are due to Christianity as distinct from civilization? >And so the balance sways and the story runs -- here a gain, there a loss, and Nature's great average struck across the two, whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty equation in which the result will equal the unknown quantity of her purpose. I make no apology for this digression, especially as this is an introduction which all young people and those who never like to think (and it is a bad habit) will naturally skip. It seems to me very desirable that we should sometimes try to understand the limitations of our nature, so that we may not be carried away by the pride of knowledge. >Man's cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you will make it bulge out the other, but you will _never_, while the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference. >It is the one fixed unchangeable thing -- fixed as the stars, more enduring than the mountains, as unalterable as the way of the Eternal. Human nature is God's kaleidoscope, and the little bits of coloured glass which represent our passions, hopes, fears, joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what not, are turned in His mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns the stars, and continually fall into new patterns and combinations. >But the composing elements remain the same, nor will there be one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever. This being so, supposing for the sake of argument we divide ourselves into twenty parts, nineteen savage and one civilized, we must look to the nineteen savage portions of our nature, if we would really understand ourselves, and not to the twentieth, which, though so insignificant in reality, is spread all over the other nineteen, making them appear quite different from what they really are, as the blacking does a boot, or the veneer a table. >It is on the nineteen rough serviceable savage portions that we fall back on emergencies, not on the polished but unsubstantial twentieth. >Civilization should wipe away our tears, and yet we weep and cannot be comforted. Warfare is abhorrent to her, and yet we strike out for hearth and home, for honour and fair fame, and can glory in the blow. And so on, through everything. So, when the heart is stricken, and the head is humbled in the dust, civilization fails us utterly. Back, back, we creep, and lay us like little children on the great breast of Nature, she that perchance may soothe us and make us forget, or at least rid remembrance of its sting. >Who has not in his great grief felt a longing to look upon the outward features of the universal Mother; to lie on the mountains and watch the clouds drive across the sky and hear the rollers break in thunder on the shore, to let his poor struggling life mingle for a while in her life; to feel the slow beat of her eternal heart, and to forget his woes, and let his identity be swallowed in the vast imperceptibly moving energy of her of whom we are, from whom we came, and with whom we shall again be mingled, who gave us birth, and will in a day to come give us our burial also. ===== See Thread II (click) |