She

There are several reasons why I'll pick up a new book to read. Most often I've read other works by the author and want more from them. Sometimes I'll get a strong recommendation from a friend or family member who knows my tastes and interests. Occasionally a review or article will catch my attention. I think this is the first time I've read a book solely because of a dumb meme. I wasn't familiar with the reference, did a little Googling, discovered that the book in question was at my library, picked it up and expanded my horizons a bit!

 

 

The book in question is "She" by H. Rider Haggard. I haven't read anything by him before; he's best known for "King Solomon's Mines", which I've heard of, definitely haven't read, and don't think I've seen any adaptations of.

MINI SPOILERS

She is an adventure novel, written in the late 1800s and set in a fictional area of Africa. As the (modern) introduction explains, Haggard had a fair amount of personal experience with the more developed ( / exploited / colonized ) areas of Africa, but he intentionally cast this novel in the style of a more mythologized and mysterious Africa. Several decades ago, most of the interior of the continent was represented on maps with a big blank space; by the time he was writing, those maps had mostly filled in, but the idea of "darkest Africa" still animated the reading public.

Like other novels of the era, there's a pat wrap-around in which the author comes to explain how this document came into his hands, very much like Frankenstein or Dracula or something of that sort. Also like those books, there's a focus on a singular, ambiguously antagonistic subject: someone you can easily describe as "evil" but who has some intriguing characteristics, whether charisma, pity or resolve.

The exotic setting of the book made me think a little of H. P. Lovecraft, but without the same level of weirdness. Lovecraft (and most fantasy novels) posit that the world is fundamentally different from how we think it is, with powerful magical forces that may be hidden but influence how things work. She has more of a mystical feel to it, the idea that there are little nooks and crannies that we haven't discovered yet: hidden lands, certain properties of life. Late in the novel She emphasizes that nothing She does is magic, just science that they don't yet understand.

Overall I feel most comfortable describing this as an "adventure" novel, but I think most "adventure" books I've personally read are set in mostly barren, desolate or otherwise uninhabited lands: Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Robinson Crusoe and so on. Here, there is a unique, imaginary land, but it's also filled with an entire new (invented) civilization, headed by this one mysterious, alluring, captivating figure. 

Really, what I think this book most reminds me of is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There's gawking at bizarre customs, traveling to an exotic land, a strong sense of mysticism. I think that Indiana Jones was based on old radio serials, which in turn were likely inspired by H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs and other writers of adventure novels.

The titular She of this book doesn't appear until a good hundred pages or so in - it's a very slow burn. The book is narrated by Horace, a middle-aged man who is described by everyone (including himself) as very ugly. Horace adopts a young boy named Leo, who, we learn, descends from a two-thousand-year-old lineage of Greeks, who have maintained a family legend of a fantastical escape from a hidden land in Africa. Along with their faithful servant Job and a Muslim trader named Muhammed, they follow the instructions on ancient artifacts to find their way to this ancestral location. (More plot in Mega Spoilers below.)

Probably because of that introductory meme, I did think of "Lord of the Rings" a decent amount while reading this, although oddly enough not so much with Galadriel. But the character of Job reminded me a lot of Sam in Lord of the Rings. I don't think that Tolkien based Sam on Job; rather, I think that both English authors were reflecting a certain class dynamic. This type of character is a beloved servant who is basically a member of the family, looked on kindly but also with some indulgence. It's a paternalistic mindset, loving but unequal. Both Job and Sam are blunt, honest, brave, resourceful, slightly dumb: many things go over their heads, but they have unquestionably good hearts.

While reading this, I was reminded of an essay I read a while back (which of course I can't find now) about English fairy tales. From the middle ages up through the present day, fantastical English stories tend to follow a similar pattern: the protagonist is a regular person from the "real" world; they leave home and travel to a different place; they have adventures there, solving problems in that place but also personally improving; and at the end they leave the different place and return home, bringing their memories and hard-earned wisdom. As America follows the English tradition, this seems very normal and we don't really question it (and folks like Joseph Campbell describe it as a universal structure); but not all traditions are like that. In other countries, fairy tales may feature traveling to another land, but then staying there, shaping that land to reflect their own home. Or the strangeness may enter into our own land, and either be integrated or fought off. Anyways, She and Lord of the Rings both very much follow the standard English pattern, but most fantastical English novels do so again I think it's more a matter of the authors writing within their own traditions than intentionally copying one another.

MEGA SPOILERS

As soon as I learned that this book was set in Africa, a question I came prepared to ask was, "How racist is this book?" My answer is that it's a bit racist, but not as racist as I was expecting for an English novel of this era and setting. The Amahagger tribe in particular is more surprising than stereotypical; they lack the technology possessed by the Englishmen (particularly firearms), but overall seem confident, stable, and, if not exactly prosperous, certainly not deprived. They have some interesting and surprisingly interesting views on gender, with women initiating courtship and ancestry being traced matrilinearly. The individuals we meet like Billali and Ustane are very admirable: they're honest, compassionate (within the bounds of their culture), and brave. But, like in The Temple of Doom, there are also shocking and gross aspects to their culture, in particular a cannibalistic ritual of "hot potting".

The Amahagger would have killed the English, except they received word from She to expect white-skinned visitors, and warn them to spare them for her own inspection. There's a lot of build-up to She, and it mostly pays off: she's the most eloquently spoken character in the book, has the most interesting backstory, is by far the most powerful. Introduced as a sorceress, she is apparently over two thousand years old, having previously loved Leo's very distant ancestor. There are some hints in the text that she's not actually the same person, that occasionally a young child is taken and groomed to be a successor; but as far as the words of She go, there's only been the one.

She goes by many names. The Amahagger give her the full name of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, which I instantly recognized as a line from Rumpole of the Bailey - it always cracked me up, and it's funny that decades later I finally realize that it's a reference! Her original name was Ayesha, apparently pronounced "Ashha".

Like many novels of this era the pacing can feel pretty slow and odd to modern readers like me. It's subtitled "A History of Adventure", and feels like it should be pretty action-packed, but most of it is characters walking around, looking at things, and talking with one another, often about history. (Again, not entirely dissimilar to Lord of the Rings!) There's basically a shipwreck, one fight scene, and a dangerous leap over a rocky chasm... and that's about all the (physical) excitement over three hundred pages.

I was really curious how She would resolve, and got increasingly nervous as the end of the novel approached without much development. It didn't seem like there would be enough pages to wrap things up. It does end up being a pretty satisfying ending, though, with some surprises and a good amount of resolution.

END SPOILERS

I'm really glad that I read this book. Not so much on its own merits - it's fine - but it feels like it fills in an important gap in the history of books that I care about, spanning from Beowulf through David Mitchell. Its Victorian setting and fantastic material are adjacent to some of my current passions, which heightened my enjoyment of this and also helps contextualize more modern works that riff off of it or just extend that tradition.