BS: Author H Rider Haggard (II)

Subject: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:08 AM

I think I must have read all his books, along with CS Forester, when I was supposed to be studying in the library in 5th year! Anyway - I have been re-reading recently, the latest is 'The Zulu Trilogy' - Marie, Child of the Storm and Finished. HRH does of course use language that was acceptable at the time but may not be so now. His extensive use of 'Kafir' and 'Savage' to describe the indiginous Afican people and descriptions of how they need a firm hand by the White Man, many would, today, find offensive. But those were the attitudes prevelent at the time. He does, incidentaly, on many occasion, show that he is a great admirer of the Zulu and other peoples and in a language that would today be considered a little patronising makes it quite clear that the 'hero' (Alan Quartermain in this instance) holds his bearers and native hunters in high regard.

I am quite happy to regard this as just something that did happen in the past and, in fact, see the language and attitude of the fictional characters as a window into past attitudes. But do other people see it as such? I suspect if a modern writer were to use the same language and terminology the books may be frowned upon. I loved the books as a youngster and still do now. But modern sensitivities tells me that such language and attitudes should not be perpetuated.

How do we reconcile this?

Cheers

DeG

---

See Thread I (click)

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:56 AM

Knee-jerking changes based on the mythology and mass-think of the period. There's not much to reconcile, except that we are inconsistent critturs.


A

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: fat B****rd
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 05:01 AM

Recently re-read "Heart of Darkness" I wonder if a really 'new' version would change the use of the 'N' word.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Alec
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 05:37 AM

I think it's wrong to judge the standards of one epoch by the standards of another but though some of H. Rider Haggard's terminology may be slightly cringe-inducing it is as you say. He genuinely respects and admires African (especially Zulu) tribal culture & actively encourages his readers to do likewise.
Interestingly, Quartermain has enjoyed a minor revival of late due to his cult status among Steampunks. They tend to be very quick to label people & concepts as racist but it's a charge which is very rarely made against Haggard.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 06:14 AM

I spent two months teaching Huckleberry Finn to my juniors. Talk about an outmoded way of thought and life.

These books have value as long as it is made clear at the outset that the reader is visiting a past that no longer can be lived, that the language and attitudes did not reflect the respect and equality that we supposedly have now.

It helps to point out that Frederick Douglass was a brilliant man who started out as a slave and rose to become, among many other things, the United States' ambassador to Haiti. He got his chance. How many others never got theirs?

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 07:04 AM

If you change the past according to how you conceive of the present you lose your chance of ever finding out what misconceptions rule in the present. The whole purpose of historical analysis is to learn about other worlds and ways of thinking (not to predict the future!).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 08:40 AM

I enjoyed reading H Rider Haggard's stories when I was a boy, but my favourite was not based in Africa. It was called "Eric Brighteyes" and was set in Iceland during Viking times.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 08:50 AM

The problems, if they exist as such,are much more recent than Rider Haggard----- I recently read a British train (railway) annual from 1962, which contained the phrases "Working like a black" and " Nigger in the woodpile".

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 09:40 AM

Thanks all - so far some sensible comments. I don't see it as a problem. I enjoy the stories and would not change them for the world but I am accademicaly interested in other peoples views. I am a little worried, I suppose, that some of the links to the past will be obliterated in this search for the perfect state of not offending anyone!

I will look for Eric Brighteyes, Teribus - I must have missed that one first time round! Woohoo - found it on Project Guttenburg as free download:-) Thanks for the tip and looking forward to it.

See http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2721/2721-h/2721-h.htm

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 10:08 AM

Its the same with Rudyard Kipling - Labelled by some as Jingoistic and Racist , when all he was doing was portraying the way people thought THEN ! And Racist ? You're a better man than I am Gunga Din says it all !

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 10:25 AM

We had a previous thread where I think we discussed this. If I recall correctly, it would be worth looking that up.

But also see PM.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 10:29 AM

The old one: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=107217#top

Maybe the threads could be combined.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 10:47 AM

Of course, the real problem with Rider Haggard was that he was hagridden.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 11:34 AM

"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." HRH

The earlier thread on Haggard.


A

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 12:11 PM

Just looked at the old thread after I PM's you, Susan - Was it realy over a year since I started re-reading HRH? Blimey - doesn't time fly! I am still only a fraction of the way through and looking forward to many more adventures:-)

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 12:28 PM

Quote from the end of 'Finished'...

Often I wonder whether party politics will not on the end prove the ruin of the British Empire

Quoted without commeny:-)

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Penny S.
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 01:15 PM

I spent many teenage hours reading Haggard, but went off him for two reasons. One was when I noted that the mysterious queens who had seemed so attractive as central figures, were always white - even Egyptian Ayesha. The other was in his collaboration with Andrew Lang, "The World's Desire". In rewriting the end of the Odyssey (in which I had a natural affinity with Odysseus' wife) and extolling Helen (to whose reign in Egypt he managed to introduce the Vikings), the authors included a sentence in which a man leaving his wife to worship the Strange Hathor explains that a woman cannot understand what draws him. This was written in such a way as to exclude the female reader of the book.

After a brief examination of the text, and a self examination, in which I considered that I was demonstrably in the top three percentiles of general intelligence, and therefore more intelligent than most men, I determined that what the secret was, if not the understanding of it, ought to be perceptible, if it was obvious to the thickest male. (I was a teenager, remember, and the interests of the males I knew were fairly transparent.)

What I deduced was that any man would find female beauty irresistable for obvious sexual reasons, and would leave his wife for the chance of some icon of loveliness, which is something women have known for all time, and if Haggard and Lang did not know that they were deluding themselves.

But what has kept me from Haggard was not that. It was that for years I was nagged by the thought that maybe I was wrong and they were right, and that there was something I was not allowed to know. I don't read writers who insult me.

Penny (and how very dare he challenge Homer and kill off Odysseus' wife?)

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 02:39 PM

"What I deduced was that any man would find female beauty irresistable for obvious sexual reasons, and would leave his wife for the chance of some icon of loveliness, which is something women have known for all time, and if Haggard and Lang did not know that they were deluding themselves."

Penny, are you saying that you actually believe in this as wisdom everyone should know? It comes across that way. If so, I feel a bit badly for you, and for men you have to deal with. But then again, I'm only in the upper 10%, and a male at that, so maybe I'm not smart enough to know that I would leave the good lady I love for "some icon of loveliness".
                  Dean, who loves a relatively "plain" woman with as lovely a heart and spirit as you'll ever find.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:33 PM

To repeat, HRH had female problems -- he was attracted to ice cold distant beauties. Not all men are.

Probably his mother never breast fed him.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 03:15 PM

Neither Nombe nor Mameena in the Zulu trilogy where white. Both described as beautiful and both quite central to the stories. I am sure I could find other examples but as I have just finished this set they are fresh in mind.

I guess the idea of a white woman being of great power in Africa is not too implausible. Something different to look up to maybe? Shows that the native African does not hold the same pigmental predjudices that their European counterparts have? Or maybe it is just that HRH has problems understaning all women yet feels more at home with the few women he would have been close to; probably all European?

I assume that Penny has her tongue firmly in cheek with reference to some of the comments but I could be wrong. Being a mere male and having no idea, as well as no interest whatsoever, in which intelectual strata I belong:-)

Cheers

DeG

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 05:00 PM

Nada the Lily was by some way my favourite of all the HRH books, and she wasn't white either, despite the somewhat ironic title.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 04:36 AM

My favourite was the eponymous 'Allan Quatermain', the story of the return of Quatermain and Good to Africa, and the journey to Zu-Vendis, at the end of which Quatermain meets his death. Kept me awake for hours as a lad, reading by torchlight under the blankets! :-)

And apologies to all but, as a life-long pedant, I feel compelled to point out that it's not 'Quarermain', but 'Quatermain'.

Exit stage left, ducking and weaving........ LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 04:37 AM

Or even 'Quartermain'! Effin' HTML! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 02:52 PM

Haggard's stories are among the very best adventure tales of his time. I see no reason to complain that they don't dovetail perfectly with present day political sensibilities. Why would they? What would be the odds against it? Astronomical, I would think. Nothing written back then dovetails with the political sensibilities of this time.

As for us now with all our pretensions...we will appear as fools or barbarians to some future order of thought. That's how it goes.

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Tangledwood
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 06:08 PM

"As for us now with all our pretensions...we will appear as fools or barbarians to some future order of thought. That's how it goes. "

Let's hope so!

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 09:33 PM

I have just read Russell Thorndikes 'Doctor Syn' as well. Another re-read from my youth! Am I trying to re-live the past d'ya think? Anyway - Enjoyed it very much. As un-PC in parts as HRH and by a more recent writer but written about an earlier period.

Has anyone else read Doctor Syn recently? Is it just me or does Mr Mipps sound rather like Blackadders Baldrick? :-)

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: H Rider Haggard
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:23 AM

You might enjoy some of Talbot Mundy's books. Wikipedia entry here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talbot_Mundy

Ross