(Another obscure end-of-December title; I like ending the year with something weird, and then beginning the next with some guaranteed winners - which (Another obscure end-of-December title; I like ending the year with something weird, and then beginning the next with some guaranteed winners - which thanks to our local B&N closing and so offering everything at half off, I now have plenty of!)
Despite his global fame during the first third of the 20th Century, there are surprisingly few decent biographies of Roy Chapman Andrews, most of which are aimed at a younger audience, (probably due to the dinosaur connection). And frankly this one didn't really strike me as a fully "grown-up" bio either, probably due to its uninspired writing style and constant reference to its hero as "Roy." Still, an adequate - if workmanlike - portrait of the man, at least until something better came along.
PERSONAL COMMENT: As a former graphic designer, I always pay attention to the dustjackets of these older books; and aside from the WTF?? 1970s typography here, I kinda liked this one. There's a nice Warholian feel to the solid colors overlaid on a B&W photo (although I really wish they'd done his assistant's robe as well) that makes me want to get out my silkscreen and do a whole series of 19th-20th century explorers, à la Andy's Marilyn Monroe prints. The whole thing also nicely wraps around to the back cover and its shocking orange camel…
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…undisturbed by any back cover text (and when's the last time that happened?). Also - anyone else remember those old-school corners we used to use to paste photos (often square back then) into photo albums? Good times…
(Purchased online as a withdrawn book from the Sam Houston State University Library in Hunsville, Texas)...more
Roy Chapman Andrews is one of those rare explorer/scientist types who's apparently had more biographies written about him for young readers than for aRoy Chapman Andrews is one of those rare explorer/scientist types who's apparently had more biographies written about him for young readers than for adults.* That's probably due to his close connection to dinosaurs - because even in today's videogame world, what kid doesn't love dinosaurs? - but also because Andrews himself was a prolific writer, with many of his books also being aimed at younger fans, (and according to the American Museum of Natural History itself, during his active career "children worldwide idolized Andrews and dreamed of following in his footsteps, of crossing a great untracked desert by motorcar and camel caravan, of fighting marauding bandits, of discovering fossils no one else had ever seen**" - no wonder he is largely believed to be the model for Indiana Jones!).
Sadly, however, this book is not among the best. It is short, somewhat disjointed, and episodic, providing little overall background on either the Central Asiatic Expedition or Andrews himself; it also uses a vocabulary that I frequently questioned whether a typical middle grader (or precocious elementary reader) would understand. As such, I'd recommend either of the two books listed below, even though they're written for a slightly older audience. _________________________________ * Including (but not limited to) Secrets from the Rocks and Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs: A Photobiography of Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews; amazingly, Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions remains the only dedicated modern "adult" biography of this impressive and delightfully colorful character.
The fall of the Qing Dynasty opened up a new era of exploration in China and Central Asia, introducing the world to such larger-than-life personalitieThe fall of the Qing Dynasty opened up a new era of exploration in China and Central Asia, introducing the world to such larger-than-life personalities as Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, Albert von le Coq, Roy Chapman Andrews, Alexandra David-Neel, Joseph Rock and…Janet and Frederick Wulsin?
Yeah…I'd never heard of them either; but that lack of familiarity with their story - unlike all those other folks - only makes this wonderful book even more of an undervalued gem. "J" and "F" Wulsin went to China woefully unqualified and unprepared (something I can totally relate to), yet managed to pull off two far-ranging expeditions in Central and Northwest before disappearing into a relative obscurity that was only minimally lifted with the publication of this book twenty years.
The first "book" here (rather than "chapter," for some reason) deals with the Wulsin's backgrounds leading up to their arrival in Peking, and as such is the least interesting, (yet also thankfully shortest). "Book 2" deals with their first, briefer 1921 trek through Shanxi, sponsored by Harvard University; and then "Book 3" - the longest section (fully half the book) - deals with their second (and final) expedition through Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Qinghai as the ambitiously-named "National Geographic Society's Central-China Expedition," (although the magazine ultimately only printed one article on the Wulsins, in Feb 1926).
But despite the appeal of this classic underdog story, the real treasures here is the gorgeous collection of previously-unpublished photos, which make up the middle third of the book, many in hand-tinted color that at times makes them look like Old Masters:
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Amazingly, all photos were developed and printed onsite in a variety of makeshift darkrooms - a truly daunting/impressive effort in itself, especially in those parts of the vast Mongolian desert where water was largely unavailable. So while both Wulsin's (but especially F) come across as basically unskilled and untrained knuckleheads at the beginning, this soon turns to grudging admiration and ultimately full-on respect by the end (if mostly for J). The endless desert travel; the many fresh and insightful observations on the various Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan and Muslim (then "Mohammedan") cultures and peoples inhabiting some of China's most hard-to-reach areas…and then - of course - those amazing photos:
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A few miscellaneous observations:
The first (boring) section does present an interesting - and not particularly positive - view of expat life in Peking in the 1920's. While China itself continued to suffer through a devastating civil war, those uninvited Westerners enjoyed a "sheltered world of luxuries and social rituals" that included endless dinner parties and dances, horse races and polo matches, and other expressions of "ugly Blank-ism" (substitute nationality of your choice). Certainly not the West's finest moment - but it DOES make me want to go back and take another look at A Photographer in Old Peking.
At the same time, both Wulsins demonstrated an enthusiastic - if often flawed - knowledge of local events. Janet refers to Yuan Shi-Kai as "the former Empress Dowager," and calls Sun Yat-Sen "the talking calamity, who is the cause of most of the trouble down there and the bar to reunification." Both J and F also frequently display the sexism/racism/elitism common at the time: "Chinese architecture has no originality;" "after this life with men servants, I sometimes wonder if I can ever go back to (women) servants with their aches and pains and nerves;" and (my favorite, commenting on the benefits of traveling with another American couple, Harry and Susanne Emery) - "two women in a party are four times as much trouble as one, and one is more trouble than four men." (That from F, obviously.)
Sadly, just four years after their return from China, F abruptly and unexpectedly divorced J while on an expedition to Mexico (ultimately marrying the widow Emery - the "second troublesome woman" in the above comment). J was devastated - but then also remarried several years later - apparently happily - and had a daughter, Mabel, who is the author of this book, (which likely explains the fact that Frederick is portrayed as a bit of a schmuck throughout).
Overall, a solid 5-star recommend for all those who are into such things (you know who you are), and available for under $10 on both eBay and Amazon - so NO reason not to own this delightful, informative, beautiful and deeply human book....more
Excellent historical graphic novel written and drawn by Chris Schweizer, the illustrator behind the surprisingly good Mars Attacks Collection.
ArtistiExcellent historical graphic novel written and drawn by Chris Schweizer, the illustrator behind the surprisingly good Mars Attacks Collection.
Artistically, Mars was notable for Schweizer using a consistent line weight through the whole book, as if he drew it all with a single Sharpie. However, in Crogan he is all about the line, creating action, emotion and depth with an ever-varying thick-and-thin style - really nice. [image] Storywise, this is a surprisingly realistic - i.e., violent with a LOT of death (although no gore) - slice-of-life tale of Legion life just prior to World War I. I also learned a bit about the conflicting units of the French "Army of Africa," which included both Zouaves (French infantry) and Legionnaires (non-French, hence the "Foreign Legion" moniker which had somehow escaped me).
Special kudos also have to go to colorist Weiser - really nice work there. Our library had both the black & white and full color editions of this book, and this colored version blows the B&W one away. Unfortunately, the library only has B&W copies of the other two books in this series, so I'll look for the color editions online or at our used bookstores....more
Pressfield has written one helluva classic Western here - he just set it 18 centuries earlier, where instead of an ex-gunfighter being pursued by outlPressfield has written one helluva classic Western here - he just set it 18 centuries earlier, where instead of an ex-gunfighter being pursued by outlaws, Indians, and renegade soldiers, we have an ex-centurion on the run from various Arab bandits, Roman troops and Jewish zealots; and the book is all the better for its "rip-off" structure.
In typical Old West fashion, we have a surly and silent loner who reluctantly undertakes an assignment to bring back a feared enemy of the state, only to…well, spoilers. But along the way - and across the very Old West-y deserts of Israel and Sinai - he teams up (reluctantly, of course) with a young acolyte and mysterious silent girl, and runs across a roster of other colorful, memorable characters.
That said, the last section (once everyone leaves the desert and returns to what passes as civilization) seems just a bit rushed, and so drops this otherwise excellent book down half a star (but which I’m still rounding back up).
Pressfield's last book set in ancient times was 2006's equally strong The Afghan Campaign, since when he has written the very good Killing Rommel (set during WWII) as well as two books set in the 2030's (the less successful The Profession and 36 Righteous Men); so Man at Arms was a welcome return to his established wheelhouse. (Pressfield is also well known for his books on writing itself, including [but not limited to] The War of Art and Do the Work. Indeed, his books on writing have far more GR ratings and reviews than any of his fiction...which is great, but just shows that his historical masterpieces - which also include Tides of War, and Gates of Fire - deserve a far larger readership.)
Great book for the most part, and recommended for all readers of both historical epics and classic Westerns....more
A grueling, thrilling story of imprisonment, escape and survival, I was surprised to see that this book came out way back in 1956 - I thought it was mA grueling, thrilling story of imprisonment, escape and survival, I was surprised to see that this book came out way back in 1956 - I thought it was much more recent, having only been turned into (or "served as the inspiration for") the Peter Weir film "The Way Back" in 2011. But in fact, this was one of the first books to expose the horrors of the Russian gulag system, published eight years before Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's more famous One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The first section of Rawicz's trial and transport across Siberia is harrowing enough, but then his escape and epic trek from just south of the Arctic Circle across the Gobi desert, Tibet and finally the Himalayas - [image] - is truly the stuff of legend, and an amazing testament to the human spirit....
...if only it were true.
There has always been a suspicious lack of evidence supporting Rawicz's story, as well as questions about how he could go through such an intense bonding experience only to immediately lose touch with his fellow few survivors, (no one else was ever able to find them either). And so as Weir began researching his film, the long-simmering if low-key controversy surrounding Rawicz's book became the focus of a full-on BBC investigation, which ultimately led to the sad conclusion the Rawicz most likely did not make the famous "long walk" after all.
But that didn't mean that no one else did. Because around 2009, another Polish veteran, Witold Gliński, came forward to claim that it was he who had made the journey, and that his story had been "appropriated" by Rawicz and his co-author Ronald Downing. Of course, this story was then challenged by one Leszek Glinieckim, who claimed not only to have been a classmate of Gliński's during the period in question, but to have documentary evidence to prove it...
And so the question remains even today: did Rawicz or Gliński or anyway in fact make this epic journey? The Long Walk certainly rings true when you read it, but is it the recollection of an actual participant or someone else who had heard the story in vivid detail? Sadly, 80 years on we'll probably never know the true story, despite more recent attempts such as Linda Willis' inconclusive 2010 investigation, Looking for Mr. Smith: Seeking the Truth Behind The Long Walk, the Greatest Survival Story Ever Told. But fact or fiction - it's still a helluva story, (4.5 stars if it were only true; but just 3 here based on its doubtful authenticity), and a darned good movie.*
* Just rewatched it and it really is a helluva movie, with great performances from Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan, Jim Sturgess and Mark Strong. Peter Weir hasn't made anything since this, so at ten years and counting this could be his last film...and while probably not his greatest, still a strong enough finish to an outstanding career....more
(#2 in a stack of "read and throw away" paperbacks while back in Taiwan)
Didn't remember having read this before, but I had a strong sense of déjà lu (#2 in a stack of "read and throw away" paperbacks while back in Taiwan)
Didn't remember having read this before, but I had a strong sense of déjà lu as I got into it, so apparently I did at some point back in the 80's.
Exciting story, very well-written, and with a strong sense of time and place - Follett obviously did his homework. While the ending was never in doubt, Follett did a good job balancing mystery and history, and now I'll do some Wiki-work to find out just how close to the facts he stayed in the story of the Afrika Corps' assault on Egypt.
This was apparently filmed as a TV movie in 1985, with Cliff Robertson and David Soul (as well as a bizarrely-cast Robert Culp as Erwin Rommel). Considering the amount of sex in the book, this adaptation was probably a disappointment on a whole lot of levels.
I haven't read a lot of Follett, but recall at least Eye of the Needle and Lie Down With Lions - the latter of which I particularly enjoyed at the time, but in historical hindsight is now kind of depressing, (Americans helping real-life Afghan Muj leader Ahmad Shah Masood fight the evil Soviets, back when both the Cold War and the War on Terror were still largely black and white). I have zero interest in his monster "Kingsbridge" or "Century" trilogies, but may look for more of his stuff from the 80's and 90's....more
Excellent dose-of-reality counterpoint to Peter Mattheissen's more lyrical/philosophical The Snow Leopard. Montgomery's story follows Tom McCarthy - cExcellent dose-of-reality counterpoint to Peter Mattheissen's more lyrical/philosophical The Snow Leopard. Montgomery's story follows Tom McCarthy - conservation director for the Seattle-based Snow Leopard Trust - during one of his periodic research trips to Mongolia's Altai Mountains in search of its native leopards. (To my surprise, Mongolia is home to fully a third of the world's remaining snow leopard populations. Another fun fact: while Nepal's - i.e., Mattheissen's - snow leopards generally roam over a home territory of 11-23 square miles, in Mongolian, a single leopard's range is more than 380 square miles!)
This is science at it's most boring but also most realistic. It's a constant schedule climbing, falling and freezing, all in the hopes of finding mere "signs" of snow leopard presence, (no leopards were spotted during this three week trip - in fact, McCarthy went one period of nine years without actually seeing a wild leopard; and indeed, all the beautiful leopard photos in this book were taken of animals in captivity/breeding programs). So what do they look for? Scratch marks, pee stains, paw prints...and poop - lots and lots of poop. Yet they come away with valuable data that will be analyzed later to help determine the size and range of the Altai/Gobi leopards. ('Nuther fun fact - the fastest way to determine whether their collected poop did in fact come from leopards and not bears, wolves or foxes, is to use specially-trained sniffer dogs back here in the States.)
Montgomery is a born adventurer and an excellent writer - the Boston Globe described her as "part Indiana Jones, part Emily Dickinson." She's written a number of books in this series, and does a great job mixing peripheral information into her main topic - in this case, sidebars on Genghis Khan, the daily life of Mongolian nomads (think "yaks and sheep"), the return from extinction of the takhi (better known in the west as Przewalski's Horse), etc. However, she's written a number of animal-focused books for adult readers as well, including several biographies of naturalists like Temple Grandin, Dian Fossey/Jane Goodall, etc.
You can support the Snow Leopard Trust through their website - www.snowleopardtrust.org - with donations, by "adopting" a snow leopard, or by purchasing their products. Both this book and the overall cause of "Saving the Snow Leopard" are highly recommended to nature lovers and conservationists everywhere....more
My first Quiller book, although I vaguely remember "The Quiller Memorandum" as a George Segal movie back in the mid-60's. This one, the fifth in the sMy first Quiller book, although I vaguely remember "The Quiller Memorandum" as a George Segal movie back in the mid-60's. This one, the fifth in the series, might be slim on plot (a plane crashes in the Sahara and Quiller has to find and destroy it - that's literally the entire story - although there is a pretty slick twist in the final two pages), but Hall makes up for it with apparently endless inner dialogue. Early on, it takes 50 pages for Quiller to avoid surveillance and get from Point A to Point B; couple chapters later Quiller jumps out of a plane on page 101 and doesn't hit the ground until 106, (although later on, it only takes Quiller three pages to do the exact same jump in the exact same spot!).
Hall at least sounds like he knows his tradecraft, and Quiller is a more realistic spook than Bond. Quiller's first-person narration is appropriately underplayed, and I like his overall run-on style. This is how he describes an attemped assassination attempt by blowing up his car:
So at 1915 I checked out of the Hotel Africa and went across to where the Chrysler was parked and they said later at the hospital that the glass had been the worst trouble because some very small fragments had got stuck in my face and they'd been difficult to find.
And this is the first paragraph of the whole book, which just nicely prepares you for the tone to follow:
I came in over the Pole and we were stacked up for nearly twenty minutes in a holding circuit round London before they could find us a runway and then we had to wait for a bottleneck on the ground to get itself sorted out and all we could do was stare through the windows at the downpour and that didn't help.
Hall was another recommended author from Mike Ripley's excellent reference Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, and I may look for some other Quiller's if I can find them for under a buck somewhere (found this one for 65-cents at our huge used bookstore in Manassas), but no rush - still have another dozen or more to go through from my first spree....more
Excellent book - Alan Moorehead is to Nilotic Africa what Peter Hopkirk is to Central Asia, except that Moorehead did it decades earlier. That said, IExcellent book - Alan Moorehead is to Nilotic Africa what Peter Hopkirk is to Central Asia, except that Moorehead did it decades earlier. That said, I cannot give this the 5 stars it probably deserves unless I could upgrade Moorehead's The White Nile to 6. The White Nile is simply the better book, if only because the White Nile itself is the better story.
The White Nile focuses on the exploration of the Nile and the search for it's source, telling a number of other stories along the way but all still in the service of the greater history of the river itself. However, there is no such thread in The Blue Nile, since it's source was never truly in question; the entire story of the Blue's exploration is fully told in the book's first 50 pages. After that, the book focuses on three separate stories - the French in Egypt, the Turks in the Sudan, and the British in Ethiopia - which in descending order have less and less to do with the river proper, until in the final section on Ethiopia, the river is barely mentioned at all. And so the overarching theme of Blue is more of a stretch than in White.
Still, those three stories are riveting, and additionally benefit from being ones I had never heard before, (whereas I was already familiar with at least the basics of most of The White Nile's stories - Burton/Speke, Gordon/the Mahdi, Stanley/Livingstone, etc). The tale of a young Napoleon invading Egypt while still in his 20's presents a much different picture of Bonaparte than the one painted in his Waterloo years; and the story of Emperor Theodore of Ethiopia is just insane, both literally and figuratively - I cannot wait now to read Flashman on the March, the last book in that excellent series, which brings together Flashman and Theodore, (talk about a match made in literary heaven!).
So yes, by all means a resounding recommendation for The Blue Nile. Just remember to think of it as a delicious and surprising dessert following the more substantial main course of The White Nile, and you'll be able to enjoy them both in the proper perspective.
AUDIOBOOK COMMENTS: Great narration by British actor Patrick Tull, in full-on Nigel Thornberry mode. However, I would recommend reading rather than listening; it helps keep the various people and places straight by seeing them spelled out. And even though the book would greatly benefit from more maps and pictures (perhaps they're in the hardcover version; I merely looked at the paperback), just being able to refer to the main map in the front of the book helped everything make a lot more sense....more
EXCELLENT telling of Wood's harrowing hike from the source of the Nile all the way to the Med, passing through such garden spots as Rwanda, Uganda, SoEXCELLENT telling of Wood's harrowing hike from the source of the Nile all the way to the Med, passing through such garden spots as Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. However...have learned from experience that such stories are better appreciated when taken in smaller doses, so am putting this aside at the convenient halfway point, just as Wood crosses into South Sudan. Will definitely return in a week or two, after a break for something less intense...
...and now I'm back and finished. I also just listened to Wood's Walking the Himalayas; and while I found it thoroughly enjoyable, Nile is by far the better book, the grander adventure, the more compelling story. In fact, while Nile is an obvious bookend to Himalayas, it is in many ways an even more fitting companion to Alan Moorehead's classic The White Nile. White Nile tells the story of the river's exploration from roughly 1850-1900, while Walking the Nile gives us a contemporary (2014) and often heartbreaking snapshot of the river and its surrounding lands today. So for the true gourmand, I would recommend reading the three books in that order - White Nile and then Walking the Nile, with Walking the Himalayas for dessert (if you still have room).
White Nile is itself a fairly violent history - what stories of exploration and colonial conquest aren't? - but the gauzy lens of time adds a layer of adventure and even romance. But there's no such filter on Walking the Nile. As Wood travels downstream from south to north, he moves from conflict zone to conflict zone, passing from the killing fields of Rwanda to a Uganda still struggling to recover from the depravities of Idi Amin, and then on to South Sudan, whose bizarre and intractable tribal war reads like deleted scenes from "Apocalypse Now."
And that's just the first third of the journey. The unstable situation north of Juba forces Wood to skip the endless swamps of the Sudd and jump ahead to Khartoum. Very likely this was a life-saving move for Wood, but it also neatly divides the book into two distinct sections - the jungles of the upper Christian/animist "black African" Nile, followed by the deserts of the lower, Muslim Arab Nile.
But despite the change in scenery, the misery remains the same. Sudan continues to suffer under the military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashirl while a thousand kilometers north, Egypt remains in near constant unrest, a situation largely unchanged since the Arab Spring in 2011. In fact, one of the book's more interesting surprises (and there are many), is that it is the people of Sudan - which the State Dept's still lists as a "State Sponsors of Terrorism" - who are the book's most hospitable and friendly; while Egypt - the land of pyramids and countless tour packages - is second only to South Sudan as the most oppressive, suspicious and generally "on edge" country along Wood's route.
Wood is a competent but not exceptional writer. However, there is so much innate magic in this book that it remains captivating throughout, (all except for the last few chapters, which - intentionally, I hope - are almost as much of a slog to read as they were to walk). Desert is desert, and so both Sudan and (even more so) Egypt lack the wildlife, diversity and inherent interest of the southern jungles. But Wood's "short cut" through the volcanic moonscape of the Bayuda Desert is a riveting story in itself. And for some reason I can't forget his trip to Meroe, the ancient Nubian trading center now all but lost to the Sahara north of Khartoum. Wood describes the many pyramids and history of the place with suitable awe and even a dash of artistry, but then has his guide ask their bored camel drivers if they even know what the pyramids are. Their response - a shrug and a simple "piles of rocks" - speaks volumes; just really nice.
To call this an unrelenting load of crap would be to give unrelenting crap a bad name. This was about the worst book I have ever read - orOh. My. God.
To call this an unrelenting load of crap would be to give unrelenting crap a bad name. This was about the worst book I have ever read - or at least begun to read. The writing style ranges from non-existent to awkwardly textbookish ("such a matching trio of firearms was known as a garnish of guns") to blatant xenophobic ("he could hear their terrible war cry of 'Allah Akbar! There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet!'," which I can only assume is 'terrible' in the same way as "God is great, and Jesus is his only Son" would be?).
But worst of all is the sex, which at best sounds like it was written by a never-seen-a-naked-woman teenager ("she wore nothing beneath it, and her buttocks were pale and round as a pair of ostrich eggs"), and at worst like a five-year-old ("His tammy is singing to my quimmy, she thought, and my quimmy likes the tune").
The whole thing - or at least as far as I got - just reads like a horrible James Clavell spoof. Spoiling it further is the fact that I am actually in Khartoum as I write this, and visited the tomb of the Mahdi in Omdurman just this afternoon (long story) - only to then return to my hotel and read about the British slave girl Rebecca exchanging 'oral favors' with the Mahdi himself; an image I can now never disconnect from my otherwise once-in-a-lifetime visit, thank you very much Wilbur.
So...an extremely reluctant 1-star, only because I cannot give it negative stars. To all who know and trust me, please avoid this like the plague....more
The cover blurb from The Baltimore Sun calls The White Nile "a truly great work - massive, monumental...a wonderful story of heroism, a superb feat ofThe cover blurb from The Baltimore Sun calls The White Nile "a truly great work - massive, monumental...a wonderful story of heroism, a superb feat of research...the best book of it's kind," and they are right on all counts.
This is the best kind of history, fleshing out what we thought we already knew and introducing new stories so wonderful and important we can't understand how we'd never heard them before. Beginning with the first major exploration in 1856 and running through the end of the century, it includes all the great pairings of Africa - Burton and Speke, Stanley and Livingstone, Gordon and the Mahdi - and ties them into a surprisingly cohesive whole. Along the way, it also brings in such other relevant events and characters as the Suez Canal, the American Civil War, the "White Rajah of Sarawak," the Dreyfus Affair, Major (later General then Lord) Kitchener and a very young Churchill; and introduces a full cast of important and colorful players I'd never heard of before, but will never now forget - the Europeans Emin, Slatin, Baring, Gessi and Baker; the Arabs Zobeir, Tippu Tib, the Khalifa Abdullah, Sultan Barghash and Khedive Ismaili; the Africans Mutesa, Mwanga, Kabarega and Rumanika...
And of course, there's the endless geography lesson - the Mountains of the Moon; the explorations and ultimate understanding of Lakes Victoria, Edward and Tanganyika; the history and importance of Zanzibar; the slow transition from Equitoria and the always-warring kingdoms of Bunyoro, Karagwe and Buganda into today's Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; the deadly desolation of the endless Sudd; and so much more.
This is a long, dense book - "massive and monumental" indeed - best taken in small chunks. And while the writing is excellent throughout, I found the second half less interesting simply because it was largely a repeat of the Gordon/Mahdi struggle that was covered in more depth in The First Jihad, which I read a few months ago - although this is obviously not the author's fault.
The book was written in 1960, and so Moorehead's epilogue is interesting for his surprisingly relevant and timely comments and predictions on the confrontation between Arabs/Europeans and Islam/Christianity in general. He notes that at the beginning of the period, the Western explorers and African Arabs got along quite well, and highlights how expeditions like Speke's and Livingstone's in fact would never have succeeded without the generous support and hospitality of the region's Arabs (mostly slavers). However, this deteriorated over time, culminating in the seige of Khartoum and battles of Omdurman and Um Diwaykarat; and with no irony, the author concludes that "no prudent man, however, would venture to say that this is the final end of the matter."
I will definitely take a breather now and enjoy some lighter fare before tackling Moorehead's sequel, The Blue Nile; but I look forward to it at some point as this was just an excellent, educational and thoroughly enjoyable experience....more
Some good some bad, so a solid if average 3 stars:
* THE GOOD: Larsen is a pretty solid writer; has a decent style and definitely knows airplanes, so Some good some bad, so a solid if average 3 stars:
* THE GOOD: Larsen is a pretty solid writer; has a decent style and definitely knows airplanes, so his technical stuff sounds spot on - a great example of "write what you know."
* THE BAD: Unfortunately, Larsen doesn't know Sudan, the story's main setting. As I'm going to Khartoum soon, I thought reading a thriller set there would be pretty neat - but the story never gets any closer to Khartoum than the airport, (which Larsen locates much farther out of the city than it really is). So there is really no detail or feel for Sudan specifically, and as a result this is just a generic desert-based story that could be set in any generic Muslim country. So big disappointment here.
* THE SO-SO: The first half of the book is basically "Enter the Dragon" - guy sent undercover to apparently do one job, while lurking around at night doing his real sneaky "find out what's really going on" job. And the second half is your standard ticking clock "bring down the aircraft before it hits its target" actioner. Not bad, but nothing unique either. Plus, a few proofreading misses, along the "don't know what do to" line. And one of the more egregious gaffe I've seen in a long time when our hero dons a baklava rather than a balaclava to go out snooping around at night - unless he really intended to bribe his way out of trouble with a delicious pastry dessert. Oh, and there's a gorgeous Italian doctor working away in the middle of nowhere - when is there not? And finally - yeah, gotta deduct at least a coupla points for naming his hero "Jammer." When was an action hero last named Bill or Frank?...more
Bittersweet story of South Sudan's "lost boys" from the seemingly endless fighting in the region. First read this before my 2016 trip to Khartoum; jusBittersweet story of South Sudan's "lost boys" from the seemingly endless fighting in the region. First read this before my 2016 trip to Khartoum; just read it again because I couldn't really remember the details. I'm finding more and more that books are like movies - the first time I read/see them is to enjoy the experience in real time, but I have to read/watch them again if I really want to retain the information....more
Part of this is my fault. I went into The Four Feathers expecting A.E.W. Mason to be the Sudan’s Joseph Conrad, but if I’d bothered to read some of thPart of this is my fault. I went into The Four Feathers expecting A.E.W. Mason to be the Sudan’s Joseph Conrad, but if I’d bothered to read some of the other Goodreads reviews I would have known that he is in fact it’s Jane Austen. But I’d already seen the Heath Ledger film version, so expected this to be a real adventure story about cowardice and bravery and redemption, with lots of battles and only a touch of romance - rather than reading more like an old-school British drawing room stage play, full of country estate rambles and windy speeches that talk about rather than show what little real action the story contains.
So on that point, I'll take the hit for not doing my homework. But aside from just not being what I expected, there were also what a thought were a number of technical flaws with the story as well. In places, the book will skip months and even years between chapters, but then have one long extended “scene” where a variety of things are explained in just one day (see Willoughby’s and Jack’s revelations in chapters XV-XIX) after several years of nothing happening – solely in order to move the story several leaps forward. Yet when we’re actually in the great stone prison at Omdurman where we finally hope to get the Conradian level of detail we've been waiting for, Mason takes the lazy way out with lines like “the details of their lives during the (next) six months are not to be dwelt upon.” Indeed, Harry’s entire imprisonment and escape takes only 40 pages, four pages shorter than the aforementioned single afternoon with Willoughby and Jack.
Mason has some other literary ticks as well. Perhaps it’s the age of the book (written in 1902), but in places his language comes off as comically Biblical: “For the ground was thickly covered with boulders, and the camels could seldom proceed at any pace faster than a walk. And all through the next day they lay hidden again within a ring of stones…” And in other places in his awkward retelling of the escape – which should be one of the book’s key scenes – Mason breaks the fourth wall and intrudes as the present-day storyteller, momentarily but jarringly taking the reader out of the story: “Nowadays the traveler may journey through the two hundred and forty miles of that waterless plain of coal-black rocks and yellow sand, and sleep in his berth upon the way…But in the days when Feversham and Trench escaped from Omdurman progression was not so easy a matter.”
Another annoying point is Mason's repetition. Early in the story, Mason tells us that "it was incredible to him (Harry) that he should ever have won her (Ethne);" only to tell us again just two pages later that "he watched her in a despairing amazement that he had ever had a chance of owning her." And Mason has Ethne tell us so many times that "two lives must not be spoiled because of me" that if I were Jack Durrance, I'd have rather been deaf than blind.
My favorite “Masonism,” however, lies in his goofy chapter titles, which sound more like stage cues or directors notes and include such apparently crucial details as Lieutenant Sutch is Tempted, to Lie, Durrance Sharpens His Wits, Mrs. Adair Intervenes, Ethne Makes Another Slip, Durrance Lets His Cigar Go Out, and (my favorite) Colonel Trench Assumes a Knowledge of Chemistry.
Still, if you stick with it the key ingredients of a classic story are all there, even if they take some digging to find. For today’s reader, it would have helped if Mason provided more in terms of historical context. In 1902, the English-reading public would have been intimately familiar with the details of Britain’s adventures in the Sudan, which began with the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882 and ended with the Battle or Omdurman in 1898 – just three years before Mason’s book came out. But I doubt that many readers today would understand the background of the places and figures that are necessary to set the scene – Khartoum, Suakin, Wadi Halfa; the rise of the Mahdi and the fall of the “little general to the south,” (Charles “Chinese” Gordon). And this is both unfortunate and important, because this whole episode played a foundational role in the rise of militant Islam in the mid-1800's, and explains much of what is happening with al-Qaeda and ISIS today. Fortuitously, I am also currently reading Daniel Butler’s excellent The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam, which provides all the necessary background and analysis (as well as excitement) missing in Feathers, and which I’ll review separately as soon as I’ve finished.
P.S. - I hope I'm a better judge of books than movies, because I happened to enjoy the Heath Ledger remake (41% on Rotten Tomatoes), whereas I could barely get through the 1939 version - which is more faithful to the book (IMHO not necessarily a good thing) and which scored 100%. ...more
Fascinating and timely overview of what was pretty much the birth of militant Islam vs. the West. Never really knew anything about this before, other Fascinating and timely overview of what was pretty much the birth of militant Islam vs. the West. Never really knew anything about this before, other than that "General Gordon was killed during the siege of Khartoum," so this brought together a wealth of interesting information - Sudanese history, birth of Islam, life of Gordon, etc. I can't vouch for it's accuracy - the library book I read had several pages of angry "corrections" penciled in by a previous (and obviously Muslim) reader, and at least one Goodreads reviewer considered this "maybe the single most bigoted and racist historical book that was published in the modern era." I didn't really see that much bigotry/racism, but again - as this is my first exposure to this history, I can't judge it's accuracy or objectivity.
My only technical complaint is that the book could have used a better proofreader. Casemate is a small Philadelphia publisher that specializes in military history; and unfortunately, as is often the case with smaller houses, there are way too many typos. And Butler makes the mistake (IMHO) of going with "Moslem" through most of the book, rather than the now-preferred "Muslim," (although he uses that a few times as well; here again, probably a case of loose editing).
But overall, an excellent overview and the perfect companion to The Four Feathers, which I also just finished - review of which can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(For those who wonder about this sudden interest in the Sudan, turns out I have to take a trip there in June for the State Department, and such historical works are all I could find at the library - for some reason, not really a lot of tourists going there these days, so no good guidebooks. I just hope things have gotten a little calmer there the past hundred years!)...more
As I said in my review of Open Range, "like most good westerns, this is a small story about small (as in unimportant) people -- no saving the world heAs I said in my review of Open Range, "like most good westerns, this is a small story about small (as in unimportant) people -- no saving the world here, just a few good men trying to get along in a changing world." However, while Leonard remains a truly great writer, this was one of his earlier works and just doesn't hold up as well as such other classics as True Grit, which came just eight years later. More a novella than a real book, this is a good but not great novel, more notable for the impact it had on later writings than for its own writing and story....more
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