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    She: A History of Adventure
    She: A History of Adventure
    She: A History of Adventure
    Audiobook12 hours

    She: A History of Adventure

    Written by H. Rider Haggard

    Narrated by Robert Bethune

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    At one point in his moody, erotic, and barbarous romance of She, H. Rider Haggard puts into the mouth of his narrator, Horace L. Holly, the observation that her story "sounded like some extraordinary invention of a speculative brain." That, precisely, is what She is: a really marvelously inventive story, combining an amazing variety of what should be utterly implausible ideas into a fabric that constantly feels like truth. Even though we know that there was never a diabolical, immortal, fantastically beautiful white queen ruling over a barbarous tribe of cannibals in the heart of what is now Mozambique, it is hard to resist the impulse to pull up the map and muse about where she might have been hidden.

    As we get to know Her, H. Rider Haggard ensures that the mystery only deepens. We see her dispense cruel swift justice; we see her indulge murderous passion; we see her show superhuman devotion; we see her speak from the wisdom gathered in her twenty centuries of life. We can never be sure just who or what she is.

    We see Her through the eyes of Haggard's protagonist, Holly, a Cambridge don utterly out of his depth in a wild and savage world, utterly English to the core, which is what sees him through in the end. Bitter, misogynistic, and more than mildly racist, we know he is also a devoted father to his adopted son Leo, who turns out to be the carrier of an incredible fate and an unusually determined survivor. We have no trouble believing in Holly, and thereby we suspend belief and accept his tale.

    There was a strong streak of racism and anti-Semitism in Victorian England, and Haggard was not proof against it. We have not altered or omitted such passages, but rather have left them as Haggard wrote them. We do well to remember that, just as Haggard fell prey to such thinking from time to time, so too can we, despite all our modern enlightenment.
    At one point in his moody, erotic, and barbarous romance of She, H. Rider Haggard puts into the mouth of his narrator, Horace L. Holly, the observation that her story "sounded like some extraordinary invention of a speculative brain." That, precisely, is what She is: a really marvelously inventive story, combining an amazing variety of what should be utterly implausible ideas into a fabric that constantly feels like truth. Even though we know that there was never a diabolical, immortal, fantastically beautiful white queen ruling over a barbarous tribe of cannibals in the heart of what is now Mozambique, it is hard to resist the impulse to pull up the map and muse about where she might have been hidden.

    As we get to know Her, H. Rider Haggard ensures that the mystery only deepens. We see her dispense cruel swift justice; we see her indulge murderous passion; we see her show superhuman devotion; we see her speak from the wisdom gathered in her twenty centuries of life. We can never be sure just who or what she is.

    We see Her through the eyes of Haggard's protagonist, Holly, a Cambridge don utterly out of his depth in a wild and savage world, utterly English to the core, which is what sees him through in the end. Bitter, misogynistic, and more than mildly racist, we know he is also a devoted father to his adopted son Leo, who turns out to be the carrier of an incredible fate and an unusually determined survivor. We have no trouble believing in Holly, and thereby we suspend belief and accept his tale.

    There was a strong streak of racism and anti-Semitism in Victorian England, and Haggard was not proof against it. We have not altered or omitted such passages, but rather have left them as Haggard wrote them. We do well to remember that, just as Haggard fell prey to such thinking from time to time, so too can we, despite all our modern enlightenment.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFreshwater Seas
    Release dateJan 13, 2016
    ISBN9781942894094
    Author

    H. Rider Haggard

    H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) was an English adventure novelist. Haggard studied law, but rather than pursuing a legal career took a secretarial position in what is now South Africa. His time there provided the inspiration for some of his most popular novels, including She (1887), an early classic of the lost world fantasy genre and one of the bestselling books of all time.

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    Reviews for She

    3.5/5

    560 ratings38 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Distinct and memorable characters, an interesting plot, and an impressive knowledge of language, history, and philosophy could have made this book amazing. However, I wasn't all that impressed by the writing style, which seemed lacking. The author also tended to go on and on about trivial, insignificant details. This caused the book to become monotonous at times.I also hated the plot progression after about the late middle of the book, and the ending was even worse.However, I did like the well drawn characters and strange originality of this story.Okay.
    • 4/5
      This is a great story and I would have given this volume 5 stars except that it inexplicably lacks a drawing of the item that starts this adventure going, an item drawn in every other copy of this book I've seen.
    • 4/5
      With more thematic depth than King Solomon's Mines or Alan Quartermain, She is much less of an adventure novel and more of a single character: Ayesha. The scope of the landscape and her character are what make this book what it is. Long dialogue and exposition can drag a bit, but for any fan of ancient history and philosophy it's a fascinating read. The idea of an old immortal is not a new one, and Ayesha invokes some familiar themes from the vampire novels of the time, but the humanity and struggle that comes with immortality is very rarely portrayed as well as in this novel. As a side-note, many descriptions of Ayesha make me think that Tolkien had used Haggard as a reference and in general their stories are very thematically similar, including ancient languages, lost societies, beautiful and terrible landscapes, down-to-earth protagonists – checked wikipedia and turns out I'm not the first person to think so.
    • 3/5
      The story follows the journey of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen named Ayesha who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". From wikipedia.I liked [King Solomon’s Mines] but I couldn’t get into this late-Victorian adventure story. Ayesha is indeed a terrifying and fascinating goddess, but I didn’t really care about the characters fate. The story set aside, there’s a lot of philosophical reflections about immortality and miracles set over against the modernist ideas of naturalism - quite interesting. There’s also several meanderings on male and female fight for domination. I’m don’t think Haggards reflections would fare well in todays climate. Let me end with a quote that made me laugh: True, in uniting himself to this dread woman, he would place his life under the influence of a mysterious creature of evil tendencies, but then that would be likely enough to happen to him in an ordinary marriage.
    • 3/5
      She by H. Rider Haggard is an adventure novel that was originally published in 1887 after being previously serialized in a magazine. This fantasy adventure is the story of Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey and their journey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. While the story is very unbelievable, I enjoyed being reminded of how I felt as a child when I would watch old Tarzan movies on “Jungle Theatre”.This story about a two thousand year old sorceress, “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed” and her tribe of cannibals is sheer balderdash but there were touches of misogynistic attitudes, a great deal of racism, and definite colonial attitudes that gives the reader a good look at the mindset of imperialist Victorians in the 1880s. Although the story is dated, it is a fact that this book was a trailblazer of original adventure stories, and is well remembered and at times copied even today.
    • 3/5
      What to make of this book?This is the first Haggard book I have read, and one of his earliest books (his second success). The pacing is uneven, the plot is full of holes, and the writing can be terrible—he often runs out of over-blown adjectives so it seems he repeats the word “hideous” 10 times in 3 sentences. Nonetheless he manages to keep the story entertaining and engaging. He certainly is wildly imaginative and deserves props for creating a whole new genre (and being often imitated in books and films).I also don’t find his racism or sexism too off the charts or obnoxious for a 19th century Englishman. The main character ends up longing for the days where polyandry will become the norm and describes positively a female led society. Sure he looks down on savages and poor people, yet he develops a true friendship with a “native” and gives arguments in favor of respecting cultural differences. He also has a deep respect for his old, not too bright servant. The only people Haggard truly despises are Jews (the “Hebrew” race) whom he has She viciously attack not once, but twice. But if Jew-hatred/stereotyping disqualifies English literature there wouldn’t be much to read out there, would there? (Ironically his main biographer was a Jew—Morton Cohen, how’s that for a stereotypical Jewish name?)Finally, to his credit, he does on occasion rise above genre writing and raise interesting philosophical issues regarding sex, aging, culture and society. He puts highly unconventional views (even by modern standards) in the mouth of She and raises ideas clearly influenced by Indian & Chinese philosophies (albeit filtered through Victorian spiritualism). I would give this 3.5 if I could (lost points for bad writing) and definitely recommend this book.In regards to dealing with his uneven writing, I highly recommend listening to The Classic Tales audio book version which offers this book for free. BJ Harrison gives life to Haggard’s purple prose and makes it bearable . His excellent recitation style carries you through the boring bits and somehow makes the blow-hard narrator less insufferable.
    • 3/5
      I am not an expert in the African adventure genre, but I think that She (1886) must have been an influential work. I can certainly see its sense of visual drama reflected in movies like The Mummy and even The Lord of the Rings.
    • 4/5
      Fantasy, romance, adventure novel that set the stage for lost kingdom and lost race stories. She was published as a book in 1887 and is the story of Horace Holly and his charge Leo Vincey who travel to Africa and discover a white queen who is referred to has "she who must be obeyed". Rider also led the way in adventure romance novels. And finally it is a book of Imperialist Gothic literature. The author lived several years in South Africa and in the novel praises England and the Queen and when She (Ayesha) decided to go to England Horace fears what will become of England. A reverse of colonialism. The novel explores female authority and the author describes Horace Holly as a misogynist. In addition the book has themes of race and evolution. In this book, the author portrays the people of Africa as savage and barbarians. The evolution is of racial decline. This is the second book by Rider Haggard that I have read. I really don't like his style much and while his writing was an important contribution in the development of novels and therefore deserves its place on the 1001 books you must read before you die. I did purchase a cheap audible narration and that may have been a big factor in the lack of enjoyment. Reportedly, this novel was very popular to the Victorian reader.
    • 2/5
      "Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten."One evening young Cambridge University professor, Horace Holly, is visited in his rooms by a colleague, Vincey, who tells Holly a fantastical tale of his family's history and that he, Vincey, will die before the night is out. Before his departure Vincey begs Holly to bring up his young son, Leo, with instructions that a locked iron box which he brought along with him should not to be opened until Leo's 25th birthday. Holly agrees, and indeed Vincey is found dead the following day. Holly, with the aid of a male nurse Job, raises Leo as his own and on the boy's 25th birthday they open the iron box. Inside they discover a piece of pottery, the "Sherd of Amenartas", which seems to tally with Vincey's unlikely story.Following the instructions on the Sherd the three men travel to eastern Africa where they are shipwrecked. With the exception of their Arab captain, Mahomed, they are the sole survivors of the wreck and the four men travel towards the interior only to be captured by the savage Amahagger people who speak a form of Arabic and are ruled by a fearsome queen, known as Hiya or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" or simply "She".Holly in particular is befriended by Billali, an elder, who introduces the newcomers into the ways of his people, whilst Ustane, a Amahagger maiden, takes Leo as her husband in accordance with tribal traditions. In contrast, Mahomed is seized by a group natives who intend to eat him. In an attempt to save Mahomed Holly accidentally shoots him dead along with several of the attackers. Leo is seriously wounded in the melee and only saved when Ustane throws herself onto his prostrate body and Billali timely entrance.Fearing for their safety and despite Leo being gravely injured Billani takes the three Englishmen to the home of the queen, which lies inside a dormant volcano near the ruins of the lost city of Kôr, a once mighty civilisation that pre-dated the Egyptians. Once there, Holly is presented to the queen, a white sorceress named Ayesha. Ayesha reveals that she has learned the secret of immortality and has lived in the realm of Kôr for more than two millennia, awaiting the return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she killed in a fit of jealous rage).The next evening She visits Leo to heal him and declares him to be the reincarnation of her former love Kallikrates. On his recovery Leo becomes bewitched by the beautiful Ayesha who in explaining her own history shows him the perfectly preserved body of Kallikrates, which she has kept.In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the three Englishmen to see the Pillar of Fire determined that Leo should bathe in the fire to become immortal and that together they can become the all-powerful rulers of the world. On arrival Leo questions the safety of entering the flame and to allay his fears, Ayesha steps into the flames. However, this second immersion, has the opposite of the intended effect, Ayesha reverts to her true age and dies.This novel was first published at the very end of the 19th century when very little was known about the interior of Africa and shows many of the sadder traits of the day, namely misogyny, racism and sexism. Unpleasant as these are what I really disliked was the author's overwritten style which made large parts of it feel very repetitive. In short this is a boy's own adventure that shouldn't be taken too seriously but be read purely as a piece of literary Victorian history that has seen it's day. "There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing of knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature."
    • 4/5
      This novel won me over, but it's not reflected in my initial impression: a quaint 19th century image of Africa as the European adventurer's romantic playground, abounding with MacGuffins to be discovered. The MacGuffin of choice for this outing is a seemingly immortal woman's kingdom, lying somewhere inland from the coast of Zanzibar (now Tanzania) where the swamps are naturally thickest. While there's a long-lasting family grudge to be motivated by, our heroes seem driven mostly by the thought of wandering into the unknown just to see what happens. Solid pacing and detailed narrative are the primary selling features as the Brits tough it out with stiff upper lips, struggling through deadly swamp gases, cannibals and other hazards like men's men. Haggard perilously stakes everything on successfully introducing She to the stage, a build-up that lasts to the halfway point. Surprisingly, She delivers real tension into the story. She has power and presence, her affect on the adventurers is overwhelming, and a sequence of revelations and key plot points are well orchestrated. Aeysha is like Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, but amoral and somewhat maddened by a lost love. Stiff upper lips mean nothing to her, and she rules the story like she rules her kingdom. It only partly ends like I expected, in a way that I doubt would play well if directly translated to a Hollywood screen (I haven't seen any versions) but it has real impact in novel form. It's what it says on the can, a solid adventure story, and it's only somewhat saddled by 19th century style, language and views. I hear at least some of the sequels are also worthwhile.
    • 3/5
      It had been many years since I read this - sometime back in the early '70s at a guess, and my memories of it have also been colored by the Hammer movie that I've watched several times in the interim. The movie is still watchable, but I fear the book hasn't aged well at all. Where it still stands up is in the imaginative sequences - the lost cities, the immense caverns, the pillar of fire and she-who-must-be-obeyed herself, all of which show Haggard to be capable of stirring the blood, which he also does admirably during the early shipwreck scene.

      But it falls down badly on some dreadfully casual racism, the inherently worthy but dull protagonists and some shocking plodding exposition, especially early on. Allan Quartermain lifted several of Haggard's other works above all of this, but in the case of She the old warrior is sorely missed.
    • 4/5
      Bill Homewood's narration really added to my enjoyment of this classic.
    • 4/5
      Very imaginative story that is a little too concerned with female power for my taste.
    • 5/5
      This is the first novel I have read as a young girl, I've read it over and over again a lot of times, I bought a new edition because mine was worn out, I love it!! I always wonder why didn't they make it into a movie (A new adaption I mean)?!? It's the best fantasy novel ever!!!
    • 3/5
      I'd never read this classic of adventure-fantasy before. For some reason, I'd always assumed the the author was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, and that it was published sometime in the 1930s or thereabouts. Not so! It was published in 1887!

      The story is fairly simple: An ugly, rather reclusive academic is asked to become ward of a young boy. When the boy, Leo, comes of age, he opens a package left to him by his dead father, and discovers a tale that he is descended from a fabulously long line of Greco-Egyptians, and that somewhere in darkest Africa, there is an immortal goddess who is somehow bound up in his life. Although taking this with a grain of salt, the two are compelled to go investigate the tale - and indeed, they find the fabled, immortal SHE, Ayesha, who believes that Leo is the reincarnation of her long-dead love - who, incidentally, she murdered in a jealous fit.

      Although, for his time period, Haggard was apparently considered to be remarkably tolerant and broad-minded, a lot of this book wound be found quite shocking in may ways to most modern audiences.
      Haggard does go out of his way to be clear that many of the prejudices in the book are those of his characters - but prejudices of his own (or of the society of his times) can also be found coming through loud and clear. There are definite racist, anti-Semitic and very non-feminist views voiced, as well as the fact that the lower-class Englishman, their servant, is basically a humorous sidekick, his class used for laughs. (which, now that I'm thinking about it, has really kinda become a cliche in this whole genre, even in recent times.)

      My copy of the book was from 1972, and I was a bit surprised that it was published unexpurgated, as I know that a bunch of Robert E. Howard's works were censored in their publications from around that time (eliminating references to 'subhuman black savages' and that sort of thing.) (I have mixed feelings about that... I'm generally against censorship, but I'd rather read stories without such content, obviously.)

      However, I did enjoy reading this book. It IS an entertaining story, subtexts aside. And it's also interesting, historically, to see the attitudes of the 19th century through the lens of a story like this. It's also interesting to see how much philosophizing, poetics, & etc are included in what was unapologetically written as a sensationalist adventure story - a 'wild romance', as it's referred to in the opening of the sequel!

      The attitudes, and the different levels of them, seen in this book could fuel quite a lot of analysis - I'm not surprised that it's been studied in college classes - but right now I'm too tired to get into an extended essay!
    • 4/5
      She, along with King Solomon's Mine, are the most famous works by H. Rider Haggard. Considered to be one of the first "Lost World" adventure stories, She is a fun read. The story is centered around She which is short for She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a nearly immortal queen who presides over the ruins of Kor. The story starts with a mysterious legacy left with Horace Holly who is asked to raise a young boy and give him a locked trunk when he reaches 25. The box contains a potsherd with the fragments of of a story that quickly results in the ward and guardian venturing into southern Africa. Their journey to Kor and what they find there is the heart of the story. It should be recognized that She was published in 1886 and its characters come from the Victorian Age. As such, the native Africans are depicted as cannibals. The ruined glories of Kor are the product of a vanished civilization strongly implied to be something other than African. In addition to the depiction of Africans, the interaction between men and women is also far from modern. She herself is white and such a vision of loveliness so as to be dangerous for any man to look upon unveiled. She is also cruel. Yet that cruelty is somehow forgiven due to her beauty. My favorite quote explaining this phenomena reads "No doubt she was a wicked person . . . but then she was very faithful, and by a law of nature man is apt to think but lightly of a woman's crimes, especially if that woman be beautiful, and the crime be committed for the love of him." She is a fun story set in a time that still had blank spaces on the maps that could be filled in with imagination. Haggard unleashes that imagination to tell a heck of a tale.
    • 5/5
      She By Henry Rider Haggard.

      I suppose were I a scholar of those languages the formatting might be a problem.

      This is a great book and a great classic and I suppose if I understood even a shred of Egyptian, Greek or Latin then I might be just as incensed as some others about the butchery of those parts of the book.

      As it is I thoroughly enjoyed the story and hope that there are not any plot points that are of great import in all that hashed up gobble-de-gook.

      I read She because I had read Atlantida by Pierre Benoit which someone had said was a major rip from She.

      So to begin I would like to say that Atlantida doesn't come anywhere close to being the intense classic that She is and to make such a claim actually denigrates the work of Henry Ride Haggard. Whatever Atlantida is it is considerably different and so much less in content that any notion that its a copy deserves only a shrug.

      She,Ayesha, is liken to an old Trope in history and mythology and literature. Amongst Aphrodite, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Nefertiti-She takes her place. Women known for great beauty and seductive nature whom men will throw down kingdoms and fortunes to their very deaths, to stand beside.

      It would seem to some that She of H.R.Haggard is considered the template for further lost world sub-genre. It may be so, although I would argue that it was a new template using an ancient trope.

      What's interesting about She is that there are mountains of exposition from one central character, Ayesha, that not only tell the story of her long life but give insight into her philosophy and her ideals about religion. Not only do her arguments twist and sway the narrator but he is also enthralled by her beauty and presence and has perhaps lost a portion of his ability to argue rationally.

      The narrator Holly is not a handsome man. He in fact is liken to a Baboon. But the orphan whom he has raised from childhood, Leo, perhaps has a handsomeness that could almost rival the beauty of She.

      Of course this wouldn't be a story without the back-story of the family line of Leo. A back-story that may fatefully link Leo to Ayesha.

      The story is written in that high and almost florid manner of it's time and might weigh heavy on the readers of this age but I think it still stands well through time with a multilevel examination of several moral and ethical dilemma. Though it often seems that the narrator goes purple the writing is strong and indicative of the writing of the time and the story does not suffer.

      J.L. Dobias
    • 4/5
      A Victorian gothic thriller with an element of a lost world scenario, there is both eroticism and adventure, with Haggard intent on placing his novel firmly in the context of his era's fascination with all things archaeological. It has the most marvellous femme fatale with Sigmund Freud claiming it depicted the eternal feminine, the immortality of our emotions (but what did he know). There are reflections on the meaning of life, immortality and death amongst some fine descriptive writing exuding atmosphere, but there is no science fiction and it is not a book for children.It is a Victorian novel written by a man who worked in the colonial apparatus of the time and so by todays standards it is politically incorrect, however within the context of the story I did not find it offensive, (but then I am a white English male, so what do I know) and it is a great story. It starts with a mystery: an old friend turns up at a University professor's (Holly) house, saying he is going to die this very night, but he has one last request. Will he act as guardian to his son and take charge of a casket which must not be opened until Leo comes of age. The years pass and the casket is finally opened and it contains an improbable story of Leo's birth right backed up by hard archaeological evidence. It is too tempting for the two men to resist and they take ship to Africa to search for the lost kingdom of Kor. They and their servant Job, survive a shipwreck and after many vicissitudes they stumble into the land of the Amahaggar tribe; ferocious cannibals ruled by a white queen Ayesha or she-who-must-be-obeyed. Ayesha has discovered the secret of eternal youth and is waiting for the reincarnation of her lover Kallikrates, which of course happens to be Leo. Both Holly and Leo fall in love with Ayesha who is a murdress and has no compunction about killing anyone who gets in her way (one look will do it). The climax of the novel is a perilous journey undertaken by the three men and Ayesha to the pillar of flame that will bestow immortality.Haggard goes to some lengths to lift his novel out of the rut of a typical Victorian gothic romance and I think he is largely successful. He must have realised that with such a fantastic storyline he needed to give it some authenticity, to give it some semblance of reality. Early in chapter III a facsimile of the pottery shard containing the story of Kallikrates is reproduced in uncial Greek, which is translated into classical Greek before being reproduced in English. Haggard takes time to explain the ethnography of the Amahaggar tribe and the lost civilization of the Kors. His central characters discuss religion, morality, the mysteries of the universe, the desire for immortality and the passions of love and desire. This together with an atmospheric depiction of Ayesha's cave complex, a nightmare journey through the swamps and a thrilling edge of the seat climax makes this book fully deserve it's classic status. Haggards characters are reasonably well rounded and in Ayesha he has managed to transmit an eroticism that makes Leo and Holly's actions perfectly understandable.This novel has appeared on lists of early classic science fiction novels, but I did not read it in this way, because Haggard is so intent in placing the story in a contemporary setting with its historicity thoroughly explained that such a reading would in my opinion be perverse. Had this novel been set on another world or had there been any hint of Ayesha not being of this world then I might acknowledge a science fiction element. The novel is nicely structured and I did not mind a more leisurely pace while Haggard filled in the background or took off on one of his more thoughtful, profound passages, it did not feel like info-dumping and it certainly added to the books literary merit. I enjoyed myself with this read and I am tempted to go for [Ayesha: the Return of She] 4 stars
    • 5/5
      One of Haggard's three best (with King Solomon's Mines and Allen Quartermain), possibly his best. From the intellectual fascination of the "Shard of Amenardis" through all the adventure of finding "she" and ten the great moral question of accepting her offer, followed by her sudden end, it is quite extraordinary.
    • 3/5
      Found it somehow not as entertaining as the other AQ novels I have read. Seemed a tad laboured. Also the conception of love went way past obsession into insanity.
    • 4/5
      After reading King Solomon's Mines, I was really expecting something quite a bit different. Something more in the physical action / adventure category. Sure enough, it started off quite in this manner, with a journey into Africa, encounters with less-than-hospital natives, etc. But once She-who-must-be-obeyed is introduced, the adventure takes a decidedly deeper and more psychological bent to it. The end result is mezmorizing, much like Ayesha herself is said to be. Quite enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      I've read "She" a number of times, it's always a fascinating read. "She" is a compelling character and the supernatural elements are intriguing to me. The philosophical dialogue about the temptation of eternal life is unsettling: I'm not sure if I would want to live forever, but the prospect of being invulnerable to disease/death, and having the resulting power, is not so easily dismissed. I suppose it's irrational to dwell on it, and thus squander what remains of my appointed time.
    • 4/5
      By all rights I probably should reread this before reviewing--I last read this in my teens. I think I'm a little afraid I might find She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed diminished in my esteem, and I'd hate that. I'd rather remember this not only as a rollicking good adventure to read, but above all Ayesha, the "She" of the title, as one of the kick ass heroines of Victorian fiction. Along with King Solomon's Mines, She is the most famous of H. Rider Haggard's novels, and I like this one more. Indeed, this spawned three sequels. There's even one where the hero of King's Solomon's Mines, Alan Quartermain, meets Ayesha--She and Allan. My favorite of the Ayesha books actually is the prequel Wisdom's Daughter, where Ayesha tells her own story--historical fantasy about Ancient Egypt. This particular is the original, published as a serial from 1896 to 1897. It's set 2,000 years after Ayesha was born in the present day of publication. For Ayesha is immortal--and incredibly powerful. And now she's confronted with an Englishman who bears a uncanny resemblance to her old love. And yes, some of the prose, it is purple. I'm not going to claim this is the same order of classic as the best by Charles Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. But like Arthur Conan Doyle or Robert Louis Stevenson or Rudyard Kipling, Haggard really could spin a good yarn.
    • 4/5
      Another book I probably would have enjoyed more when I was younger. I could see this being adapted for an Indiana Jones movie (and there are elements of the IJ movies that may have been borrowed from here). Interested me as much for the insight it gives into Victorian England as for the story itself.I probably would have been better off w/o reading the annotations. I wish the notes had been footnotes rather than endnotes (although I can see this being difficult as the novel itself had footnotes), and I wish there were a way to distinguish between explanatory notes, and notes dealing with changes to the manuscript.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating document, but I had high hopes for this book, and it didn't quite live up to them. Much as I love stories about imperious, sexually dominant women, Ayesha just didn't live up to her hype -- she was cold and beautiful, yes, but also irritatingly vapid and coquettish. Hard to root for her. Still, plenty of stuff to mull over here, relating to sex, race, class, etc.
    • 4/5
      An interesting book indeed. This book, along with King Solomon's Mines, established the universe in which seemingly every subsequent adventure story would be set. Everything you need is here, the Victorian era, lost civilizations, gentlemen explorers, and mysteries that time should have forgotten. The climatic ending of the novel involves a harrowing underground adventure that would make for a good summer blockbuster. Every time you see Indiana Jones or Lara Croft leap across a bottomless pit, know that this is the source.One hundred and twenty-five years on, style can be a potential roadblock. Like many popular Victorian novelists, Haggard can be damned slow sometimes. Stop apologizing that your pen is inadequate to describe the indescribable and get on with it! The book is not near as bad as Sir Walter Scott can be, since Haggard wrote after the invention of photography; he had no need to describe things in exhaustive detail for people who had never been more than 50 miles from home. The thing to know is you can just skip or skim parts that seem slow, and that will keep your interest up without harming the narrative.However, for all that thick prose, you can see a different world through Haggard's works. Some of the things I enjoy about Victorian adventure novels are the places one can visit in the imagination, and the shift in perspective to see the world as the Victorians did. Here we have a work of popular literature with large sections of Greek and Latin, implying both the author had the capacity to compose it, and at least some of the readers to understand it. When our gentlemen adventurers meet the titular She, a great deal of time is spent in philosophical discourse. Since Ayesha has been roughing it for 2500 years, she is in dire need of intellectual stimulation. How different this feels than Robert E. Howard!The lost civilization is located 10 days journey from the coast between Delagoa [Maputo] Bay and the Zambesi river, inside the rift valley volcanoes therein. Rift valleys always make for dramatic landscapes. Also, the history of Arab trade on the east coast of Africa becomes important to the story. I never knew there was a distinction between original Arabs, al-'Arab al-'Ariba, and the descendants of Ishmael, al-'Arab al-mostareba.The dramatic action of the book is most moral. There are harrowing escapes and acts of derring-do, but the true conflict arises from the irresistible attraction our gentlemen explorers feel towards She. She is a creature of supernatural beauty and wisdom, but one who still shares the weaknesses of human nature. Both men love her, almost against their will. I say almost, because they are of divided minds. She is a wicked creature, but they are so smitten with her that they excuse her wrongs even against themselves. They know this, but cannot resist her charms. It is the characteristic sin of males, writ large upon a fantastic backdrop. How many powerful men have been ruined by a pretty face?Ayesha herself is remarkably flawed. She has been given unnaturally long life and superior powers of reasoning, but her conscience has not grown to match. Like a Greek goddess, she is powerful, yet strangely petty. She can have anything she wants, the problem is what she wants. The wicked acts she commits are indeed small, the problem is that she has no sense of the responsibilities that go with great power, and that great things are expected of those who have been given much.While I do like Haggard's work, I would be interested to see this same idea in another author's hands, Tim Powers for example. The cause of this whole expedition was Ayesha's murder of the remote ancestor of one of our gentlemen heroes. This remarkable man refused to abandon his wife for Ayesha in her glorified state, and in a rage she slew him. Twenty-three centuries later, his ancestor simply acquiesces. He is literally powerless against Ayesha. Why was his ancestor made of sterner stuff? There is a mystery here that goes unexplored.While Robert E. Howard may not have philosophical discourses between his characters, Solomon Kane at least would find the grace to resist She.
    • 3/5
      A rip-roaring adventure story set in East Africa in the mid-Victorian period. As might be expected from the time it was written and the prevailing colonial mores, there are what now seem some unacceptable attitudes towards native African races, though these are less prevalent than in many books from this period. As an adventure story it fairly races along, and encompasses shipwreck, kidnap, brushes with cannibals and a beautiful, ageless African queen with Helen-like powers to captivate men with a single glance.It may all sound somewhat ropey but in vact it hangs together surprisingly well, and certainly kept me reading eagerly through to the end.
    • 4/5
      I read this as an eBook on my Nook Color. I notice that that version includes some text not in my hardcopy edition. A check on the Internet shows that Haggard revised the book more than few times after its initial publication in serial form.So - given that a book like this should probably be read when you are in your teens - how does it hold up for a *somewhat* older reader? Pretty well, I would say. The books deficits are very clear, including lots of long-winded speeches and descriptions in flowery terms that wouldn't be out of place in an early John D. MacDonald attempt at a love scene. However, the essence of what these speeches and narration are trying to convey is pretty good stuff, philosophically, so we plunge right through it fairly easily. At no time does it become quite as exaggerated as Lovecraft or other writers who were inspired by Haggard's work. The other most annoying part of the book is the narrator's constant statements (one per chapter I would say) that something is too fantastic to be described or that words fail him, or more proclamations to that effect. That gets a little old after a while, but in every case the descriptions the narrator is able to provide are pretty good.On the plus side, this book, while an archetype for the lost world type of adventure story, doesn't read like a tired series of cliches. Putting aside the routine though not pervasive racism and the typical English attitudes of its narrator and his adopted son, Leo, who is the impetus of the story, the narrative is less predictable than I expected. Its success, of course, depends upon the character of She, and Haggard succeeds in creating a creature who is a mix of tenderness and coldbloodedness. She leads the narrator and Leo on a journey to a place of fire that is the source of her longevity (over 2000 years!). I won't offer any spoilers as to what happens. Elsewhere in the book, there are scenes that I will certainly continue to recall from time to time for years to come, the unique torches for instance, or my favorite new verb--hotpot!
    • 4/5
      I'm not sure where I got the idea to read this book, but I'm glad I did. It is a good, classic adventure through Africa and the mysteries that lie therein. Realistic thrills and adventure with a smidgen of the supernatural I can see why it was so popular 120 years ago. If you like Indiana Jones or Allan Quartermaine(also by the same author) you'll enjoy this one.
    • 2/5
      This book will simultaneously amuse and annoy you. It's Victorian origins positively ooze from the pages, filled as they are with British machismo, casual bigotry, and baffling melodrama. And yet, all that is part of what makes this story fun. It's the kind of book you love to hate.