She by H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) wrote a number of adventure novels of which She, published in 1887, and King Solomon's Mines (1885) are the most famous. Both were enormously popular. She describes a trip taken by two men, Horace Holly (the narrator) and his ward, Leo Vincey (described as the handsomest man anyone has ever seen), to darkest Africa. Leo's father, now dead, bequeathed to Leo a document claiming that Leo's ancestor Kallicrates was killed, two thousand years ago, by a woman who had passed through the fire of life and would not die. The woman, Ayesha, loved Kallicrates and intended that he also pass through the fire, so neither of them would die. But Kallicrates, who was married to Amenartas, refused, and Ayesha killed him in a fit of jealousy. Amenartas escaped, but she bore a son, and in the document now in Leo's possession she urges her son, or his descendants, to go to Africa to avenge the death of her husband, their forebear. Leo undertakes to do that.
There follows an account of a harrowing journey with shipwreck, narrow escapes, encounters with cannibals, and threats of horrible tortures, but Leo and Holly receive the protection of She or She-who-must-be-obeyed, the absolute ruler of the region, whom to disobey is to die. In time they arrive at a mountain in which enormous caves have been hollowed out by members of a fallen civilization. This is the stronghold of She, who we soon learn is actually Ayesha, radiantly, irresistibly beautiful (a consequence of the fire of life) despite being 2000 years old. Leo has contracted a fever on the journey and is at death's door. Ayesha offers to save him with a powerful potion, but is overcome when she first sees him. She claims he is the reincarnation of Kallicrates, whom she has mourned for 2000 years and who has now returned to her. Leo resists her advances at first, but when she removes her veil, revealing her unearthly beauty, he falls in love with her in spite of himself. She shows him the corpse of Kallicrates, which she has kept embalmed in perfect condition for 2000 years, and it resembles Leo in every detail. She persuades him to go with her to seek the fire of life. After another arduous journey they find the fire, deep in the earth, but he hesitates to enter it. To prove that there is nothing to fear, she enters it herself. It turns out, however, that a second firebath undoes the effect of the first, and in a matter of minutes she ages by 2000 years and dies. Leo and Holly make their danger-filled way back to England.
The story, obviously, is preposterous (and I have left out a wealth of subsidiary adventures and lugubrious occurrences that make it more preposterous still). Nevertheless, I suspect it is no sillier than plenty of other fantasy-adventure or science fiction or horror stories, so I suppose that objecting to its absurdity is more a complaint about the genre than about this book in particular, just as complaining about the absurdity of The Wizard of Oz is beside the point. Nevertheless, I would not particularly recommend it even to aficionados of the genre because I thought it abominably written. The prose is often turgid and bloated, especially in places where the narrator falls into quasi-philosophical speculations, and, I thought, never felicitous. The conversations with Ayesha are all in a contrived, pseudo-archaic style that quickly became an intrusive annoyance. That said, however, I would conclude that if you are enthusiastic about fantasy-adventure stories full of narrow escapes, gruesome scenes, murders, battles, narrow escapes, daring deeds, supernatural occurrences and the like, and if you have a high tolerance for long stretches of purple prose, this book may be for you.
There follows an account of a harrowing journey with shipwreck, narrow escapes, encounters with cannibals, and threats of horrible tortures, but Leo and Holly receive the protection of She or She-who-must-be-obeyed, the absolute ruler of the region, whom to disobey is to die. In time they arrive at a mountain in which enormous caves have been hollowed out by members of a fallen civilization. This is the stronghold of She, who we soon learn is actually Ayesha, radiantly, irresistibly beautiful (a consequence of the fire of life) despite being 2000 years old. Leo has contracted a fever on the journey and is at death's door. Ayesha offers to save him with a powerful potion, but is overcome when she first sees him. She claims he is the reincarnation of Kallicrates, whom she has mourned for 2000 years and who has now returned to her. Leo resists her advances at first, but when she removes her veil, revealing her unearthly beauty, he falls in love with her in spite of himself. She shows him the corpse of Kallicrates, which she has kept embalmed in perfect condition for 2000 years, and it resembles Leo in every detail. She persuades him to go with her to seek the fire of life. After another arduous journey they find the fire, deep in the earth, but he hesitates to enter it. To prove that there is nothing to fear, she enters it herself. It turns out, however, that a second firebath undoes the effect of the first, and in a matter of minutes she ages by 2000 years and dies. Leo and Holly make their danger-filled way back to England.
The story, obviously, is preposterous (and I have left out a wealth of subsidiary adventures and lugubrious occurrences that make it more preposterous still). Nevertheless, I suspect it is no sillier than plenty of other fantasy-adventure or science fiction or horror stories, so I suppose that objecting to its absurdity is more a complaint about the genre than about this book in particular, just as complaining about the absurdity of The Wizard of Oz is beside the point. Nevertheless, I would not particularly recommend it even to aficionados of the genre because I thought it abominably written. The prose is often turgid and bloated, especially in places where the narrator falls into quasi-philosophical speculations, and, I thought, never felicitous. The conversations with Ayesha are all in a contrived, pseudo-archaic style that quickly became an intrusive annoyance. That said, however, I would conclude that if you are enthusiastic about fantasy-adventure stories full of narrow escapes, gruesome scenes, murders, battles, narrow escapes, daring deeds, supernatural occurrences and the like, and if you have a high tolerance for long stretches of purple prose, this book may be for you.