She

Rating:
Summary: an inspiring read
Review: This book is of the type where you don't want to put it down. It is an enthralling read, and you really get a clear picture of what is happening in your head, better than you would in a film. You grow to care for the characters, and begin to understand how they are feeling, and, by the end of the book you are disappointed that it had to stop.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy at it's best!
Review: This fantastic novel by H. Rider Haggard, describes the adventure of two men traveling to Africa in search for the secret of eternal life.

This story begins when Holly's dying friend comes into Holly's dormitory in the middle of the night and asks him to take on a significant task. Holly would be well paid if he took care of his friend's child, Leo, and gave the child a special chest at his 25th birthday. Broke, Holly accepts this demanding challenge. At Leo's 25th birthday, the chest is opened and inside is a letter from Holly's long gone friend. The letter states that Leo is a direct descendant of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. And so their sojourn to Africa begins with the hope of finding an 2,000 year old African Queen with the secret of eternal life.

This book is great and interesting book, however it dates back from 1905 and it shows. It can be interesting to read a book from so long ago to see their perspective of fantasy books, however, the writing style is very old-fashioned and the language is difficult to follow.

Overall, this is a very nice book. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Old time fantasy story
Review: This fantasy adventure story takes place in England and later transports the reader to the bowels of Central Africa. The story starts when Horace Holly makes a deal with his dying friend. His friend, knowing the end is near, has a young son, Leo, who he leaves an iron trunk to. Horace is instructed not to open the chest until the boy's 25th birthday. In addition, Horace must take care of Leo and raise him.

On Leo's 25th birthday, Horace and Leo open the chest and in it they discover that Leo is part of a historic lineage which goes back to the ancient Egyptians. They also discover that everlasting life can be found off the coast of Africa by bathing in a magical fire. They soon venture to the hidden area to discover an ancient race of cannibalistic people who are lead by Ayesha, otherwise known as She. She is a very beautiful temptress and has the secret to everlasting life. Also, she was in love with Leo's family centuries ago. When Leo arrives, She is much smitten with him.

This book was well written and the adventure well thought out. The level of detail that Haggard uses to describe the Amahagger's (the tribe Leo and Holly discover) were extraordinary. She is easily understood to be a sophisticated woman who has strong powers of life and death over her subjects. However, I found the book a little hard to read. The lengthy paragraphs that detailed the Amahagger society were not needed and slowed the pace of the book. Still not a bad adventure book but the pace kept being diverted by lengthy descriptions.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Fantasy
Review: This is one of the few books that J. R. R. Tolkien admitted had influenced him. C. S. Lewis wrote appreciatively about Haggard (see the book ON STORIES by Lewis). There's a fond essay on Haggard by Graham Greene, too.

I love the way Haggard fits out his story with all sorts of "authentic" details -- lengthy inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and Renaissance English, found on an old piece of pottery passed down for many generations in the Vincey family. Really gets you in the mood. Then our heroes head for mysterious Africa -- a continent about which Haggard knew more than many of his contemporaries, having lived there.

The story gets more and more fantastic, delightfully indulging in what Edmund Burke called the SUBLIME. (Hint: if you're writing a paper on SHE, that is a good topic idea.) I've been reading this book since I was a kid & am reading it again, with much enjoyment, right now.

Haggard's metaphysical ideas, though, haven't worn well. Haggard wrote a sequel about his enchantress, Ayesha, called Wisdom's Daughter. As C. S. Lewis quipped, If Ayesha really was Wisdom's Daughter, she certainly didn't take after her parent.

Rating:
Summary: thrilling! a must read adventure book!
Review: This is the thrilling account of L.H.Holly's adventures in Africa. There he and his ward meet the ruler of the land, She. She is short for She-who-must-be-obeyed, so if you do not obey her you will suffer a terrible death.Her evil beauty is like none of any other being, and unlike mortals, has increased in the 2000 odd years she has lived. This is a must read for anyone who likes adventure and can understand the language it is written in.

Rating:
Summary: SHE
Review: TIME.LOVE.BEAUTY.Intertwined PASSON and JEALOUSY, CELESTIAL and EVIL. "SHE" will forever shines with her own philosophical beauty. I first read this story when I was 12. Could't quite comprehend but was somehow enjoyed by the adventurous plots. The second time when picked it up I was already on my late 30's. This time I was awed by the author's vivid immagination and the tremendous insight about human nature. Written in a decent manner,the story unfolds first in a steady pace, then generating faster and faster till the stimulating storyline seize you with your undivided attention! Though the final climax turns out to be a sad endding, along the adventurous and magical path with Leo and Holly all the way to the mysterious cave of Kor, you'll learn more about TIME, BEAUTY and LOVE. Definitely a worthy literary tour de force, even more rewarding than a trip to King Solomon's Mines! By the way I am an actor and have always dreamed to make SHE into a gorgeous epic, but I happen to be a CHINESE and it will make the film inauthentic if I starred in with any major charater. A PITY.

Rating:
Summary: THE TRUTH ABOUT SHE
Review: WE ARE A STUDENTS OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCEAND WE HAVE FOUND THAT THIS BOOK IS A REAL HISTORY. WE THINK SIR HAGGARD WAS IN CONTACT WITH AN ESSOTERIC GROUP , LIKE ROSACRUCIANS OR THEOSOPHICS, WHERE HE FOUND THE HISTORY OF SHE. ONE OF HIS MISSIONS WAS WRITTE ABOUT IT. WE'D LIKE TO CONTACT WITH PEOPLE WHO HAS SIMILARS OPINIONS TO SHARE INFORMATIONS VERY CONFIDENTIAL.

Rating:
Summary: Movie Material
Review: What a book! How many movies, and scenes, and other books have been spawned from this one. Some scenes have been duplicated exactly, like the marching army of skeletons and the chasm with the leap over two projecting stones. Steven Spielberg is intimately acquainted with this novel. I'm surprised that he hasn't made it into his own film. It's a terrific read, written when Haggard was not quite 30, and it's underlying theme is death. What is it? What does man's life mean? What of religion? All kinds of unanswerable questions are pondered in the course of this thriller. And Love. No wonder it has endured. What an imagination Haggard must have possessed! There are two subsequent books where Ayesha somehow returns. It is in her character that we see the yound Haggard, dreaming of the perfect woman.

Rating:
Summary: The nature of woman revealed
Review: When it comes to women H. Rider Haggard has the inside track as revealed in this "Show and tell" novel. We see the workings and wonders of the nineteenth century mind. You may also find some interesting attitudes towards the other people in Holly's crew.

I have read some different versions of the book and found the Barns & Noble books New York (ISBN 0760752400) to have the best introduction (by Clifton Ganyard) that falls just short of Cliff's Notes in explaining Haggard's background and writings. The illustrations are the same as in the Modern Library version but are clearer and larger. You get to see the writing on a potshard that I have not taken the time to see if it is a real language. Of all the versions I prefer most the recording with narrator Fred Williams; at first he seems to be monotone and out of breath. Then as he approaches the adventure he picks up a bit. By the time he comes to the cliff hanger he is huffing and puffing. He actually has the sound and feel of some old person recalling a long past adventure.

Holly is visited by his dying friend in the middle of the night. He is sworn to secrecy and given a mysterious chest to hold onto and asked to take charge of the friend's son (Leo). When the time came to open the chest and find the contents, the adventure began. I will not relate the story as it is the unfolding that is a good part of the mystery. However if you are expecting an adventure story It is there but there is much more with philosophical discussions of science and society.

The story is over way too soon so be sure to get the next book "
Ayesha: The return of She."

Rating:
Summary: "the eternal feminine" unfrocked
Review: When the young psychologist Sigmund Freud picked up this book, it presented him with the idea of the Anima or eternal feminine, which as a concept was picked and enlarged by his peers, metaphysicians and astrologers (e.g. Liz Greene's work on relationship astrology). That such a catchy idea came from what was effectively an off the shelf best seller with no literary pretentions indicates just what a fun and fascinating read it presents, especially for a young man who wishes a read encapsulating the perfect specimen of womankind.
This particular edition is good for it contains an excellent introduction by Professor D. Karlin with extensive and helpful notes. Karlin makes it clear that the book is a sort of fantasy within a fantasy and the joke is usually on us. It's contents are so "out there" that the author is at pains to state "every word is true" through his chosen first person mouthpiece, and he adds several details that makes the book's events plausible while you are in it.
The book is a masterpiece of archetypes including the Anima, acient civilization and archaeology, exploration, hunting and Africa as she used to be. It further represents the last mysterious possibilities that could be squeezed out of a world whose potential to amaze was fast disappearing due to the advent of transport and exploration. It is an old fashioned Indiana Jones type epic with explorers making a big discovery that could shake the British Empire to its very core.
The elements come from Haggard's own association and love of Africa (he includes the extinct Quagga one of the descriptions)
and his contact with an angelic woman with whom his fascination was was not satiated as he was married already. There is a great deal of swashbuckling adventure hived off from Livingstone, Egyptology, linguistics, classics and history as well of prevailing views and outlooks - but all this is eventually fused in a saga that is anything but boring in the same dynamic and suspensive style of bestsellers of the time (serialised in popular magazines) as S. Holmes and Jules Verne.
Needless to say, the book is over the top even for that time and is a literary equivalent of Jurassic Park, taken up by everyone but academia and the gatekeepers of high culture.
The subtext has disturbing and provocative elements which could by identified as mysoginy, soft porn and the frustrated psyche of the average young male at the time. She is destroyed in the end and provides the perfect excuse for both the principal male protagonists to give up women.
Haggard himself has recently been discovered to have had a secret relationship which bore him an illegitimate child and we also realise he was not really an imperialist and supported free tendencies for Africans in the shadow of imperialism. He predicted the inevitable independence of African states and the imperial overtones in the book should not be misread as jingoistic.
For people too rushed to pour over Trollope or Dickens, this is Victoriana at its greatest with many interesting contemporary themes including the theory of evolution which reads extremely fast. It is a window into history and an ultimate fantasy exploring the sources of life and immortality itself and represents something made in a hurry in the "white heat" of the author's anvil. A performance he probably never repeated.
Absorbing, mysterious and shocking - some people will find it unravels a great deal of their innermost tendencies and sexuality into the limelight of coherence and myth.