Into Africa: The Epic Adventures Of Stanley & Livingstone (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
After a while I stopped noticing how badly written this book was and just went with the flow of the story. Sometimes this was very difficult, as there were lots and lots of adverbs and no noun seemed to ever be deprived of an adjective. No one ever went into a town: rather they rushed or scampered or sauntered or something equally silly. Clearly the writer must have had to read lots and lots of Victorian English to put this book together and this told in his style. Worst of all was the hyperbole about the remarkable achievements of these two men. I don’t know if it is really reasonable to say this was one of the greatest epic stories of all time. You know, it seemed to be basically the story of a couple of blokes more or less lost somewhere they quite frankly didn’t belong in the first place. Perhaps I am being too harsh? I’ve always had a bit of a problem with ‘Adventurers’. I’ve always been quite sympathetic to the view that huskies should be trained to eat those on their way to the North Pole (either magnetic or true) as soon as the first snow begins to fall or after their 100th call of ‘mush’. I tend to look on in disgust while tax payer money is spent rescuing some fat-arsed English gentleman who doesn’t realise that his yacht should always remain with its sail pointing out of the water. I don’t know much about sailing, but I do know that So, I wasn’t really expecting to feel very much sympathy for any of these ‘lions’. And so I was as surprised as anyone when I did feel sympathy. The writer cleverly understood that if you want to find the link that will immediately bind all men together in a tight brotherhood you merely require a discussion of the immanent threat of castration or of multitudinous illnesses of the testicles, particularly elephantiasis that ends with the phrase ‘one foot in diameter’ and suddenly I’m using nearly as many adverbs as the writer did and cheering on the boys with the best of them. I’ve even started saying, “There were made of sterner stuff in those days”. The story of Speke and Burton is the beginning of the homo-erotic aspect of this book – and, let’s face it, all ‘boy’s own’ stories are always guaranteed a homo-erotic element. There was speculation that these two were lovers. Anyway, during their first exploration into Africa they landed in an area where the locals tended to cut off the penises of the enemy they captured. There was a fight in which Burton got a spear through the face (through his cheeks) and Speke was captured and the natives began fondling his genitals while trying to make up their minds about how to remove them in an appropriately painful and humiliating way, when they became distracted and thought that they should save that particular pleasure for a little later. To keep him in his place they ran spears through his legs severing muscles. All the same, (in what I hope taught the African Natives the lesson to never leave until tomorrow what you can do today, Speke evaded them by crawling and dragging himself for three miles to safety. Why am I telling you this story? Well, mostly because of what the author said next that ‘lessor men’ following such an experience might give up exploring, but not these two. I kid you not! He actually used the phrase ‘lessor men’. As one of those lessor men I was still not convinced that returning to Africa after a tribe has fondled your genitals as a prelude to providing you with a free castration does not necessarily make you a morer man. In fact, I would have said that behaviour like that on behalf of the locals probably means that you aren’t really welcome and that you should probably just take the hint. I read this book because I was hoping for a description of how we found the source of the Nile. Herodotus whetted my appetite for this subject with his description of his efforts to find ‘the source’ and his speculations on what the source might be. There was then a huge falling out between Burton and Speke after their second African holiday about where the Nile started, and to settle this disagreement between the two of them Livingstone began his touring of East Africa for years. Livingstone wanted resolve who was right, but also, wanted to prove them both wrong and to prove Herodotus right by finding his mythical ‘fountains of the Nile’. The two main characters of this book are Livingstone and Stanley. Livingstone basically spent years screwing his way across Africa. This proved to be too much for Victorian England who could not believe that their favourite son was engaged in a Touring and Whoring expedition and filling his journals with comments on how beautiful the women where. He was very much the sort of man who figured that you are more likely to get what you want with a teaspoon of honey. He was strongly opposed to slavery and this was part of the reason why none of his letters ever got home, as the Arab Slave Traders that were given his mail destroyed it soon after he left them with them as they were afraid he would encourage the world to try to stop their very profitable business. Livingstone was a bit nutty, but nutty in a good way, and I ended up quite fond of him. Stanley wasn’t really an American, wasn’t really called Stanley and definitely wasn’t really all that nice. He had a thing for young boys which conveniently continued the homo-erotic theme of this book which you might have thought ended with Speke and Burton. He was also a bastard, in all senses of the word. A very strange man, he may not have spent as much time having sex with the local women as Livingstone seems to (although, he did seem to start to fancy the local women much more as time went on) but rather what he liked much more was beating people for getting sick and not marching quick enough. Despite the fact that he was rather tall, he really did suffer from what is generally referred to as ‘short-man syndrome’. Despite all attempts to make Stanley look human in this book, I still came away not liking him at all. That he later went on to help set up the Belgian Congo pretty much sealed his fate for me. Livingstone was attacked by a lion at one point in the story and it is described in the book as an epiphany for him – he was never to feel fear again from what I can make out. Now this is very interesting as Livingstone’s view of this experience is much the same as that put forward in Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. Basically, that from the moment a great cat has us in its power we have an evolved trait that makes us relax and not feel pain or fear. Chatwin creates an entire myth around this about an ancient (and now extinct) great cat that hunted and haunted our existence while we were hunter gatherers and this fearless state we feel in the jaws of a great cat is an evolved trait (though how it could have ‘evolved’ is a little hard to explain given you would seem to be about to join the ranks of the Darwin Award Winners). Livingstone comes to much the same conclusion as Chatwin, but instead places the success of this trait as being due to divine grace. Either way, I think it is interesting and would like to know if this has been documented elsewhere as being something we experience while being eaten by great cats. Like I said, there were many things about this book I didn’t like, the gushing prose not the least. But the book has enough redeeming features to make it worthwhile and some of the historical curiosities and stories do make this amusing. If you want to see why Simon Winchester is such a good writer a quick comparison between any of his and this one would be a very worthwhile exercise.
I'd give this book a 3.5 if I could but would hesitate to go higher because my memory of the book doesn't give me enough mental ammunition to have a meaninful conversation about the relationship between Richard Francis Burton(19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) and David Livingstone (19 March 1813–1 May 1873) . I had a coversation about them earlier this summer (2010) during which we wondered about Burton and Livingstone and whether and how often they met in person? Livingstone was in Africa between 1941-1856 (starting in S. Africa) first as a missionary, later as an explorer. Burton was in India and Arabia during Livingstone's early years on the continent and their paths likely had little reason to cross during these years. Yet, I am curious about whether during Burton's subsequent time in Africa, or whether in England his path overlapped much with Livingstone's and what their relationship was like? Livingstone in his journals describes Burton's manner and his supporters with some personal distate that is unsurprising when you consider Livingstone was a missionary and Burton went on to 'translate' the The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana and other volumes of what were considered erotica in his day. Livingstone left Africa for England in 1856 where he wrote a memoir of his African experience published in 1857 as Missionary Travels And Researches In South Africa - David Livingstone, which makes him famous. It seems Livingstone could have/should have met Burton at the Geographical Society during the years 1864-65 or at the meeting of the British Association in Fall 1864 where Livingstone planned to speak? Burton and one-time expedition member (now rival) John Hanning Speke were famously due to debate the issue of the source of the Nile at the annual meeting that year in Bath on September16, 1864. The day before the planned debate, Burton and Speke sat near each other in a lecture hall. According to Burton's wife, Speke said "I can't stand this any longer," and left the hall. The next day, Burton received news that Speke had killed himself in a hunting accient after leaving the lecture hall. Burton did not speak as planned. Livingstone would later attend Speke's funeral, Burton did not.
What do You think about Into Africa: The Epic Adventures Of Stanley & Livingstone (2004)?
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume." Of course, we all know this famous line from the story of New York Herald reporter Henry Stanley, who was sent out to find the missing African missionary and explorer David Livingstone.If you read this book carefully, you'll find that Stanley may or may not have actually said these words. And, if you read the New Yorker review of this book (June 2, 2003), you'll find that some of the incidents recounted in this book are probably based on Stanley's highly embellished memoir How I found Livingstone. The New Yorker writer chides Martin Dugard for his broad "pattern of unreliability."Keep this in mind while you read Into Africa. But don't let it stop you. This is a ripping tale of adventure, heavily dosed with enjoyable biography. It's a winning combination. I love the way the author starts each chapter with a geographical accounting of the miles that stand between Stanley and Livingstone while they are living their separate lives and then while their destiny is becoming intertwined.Livingstone and Stanley both come across as more noble than they probably were. Stanley's brutality toward the African people and Livingstone's cruel desertion of his family are both downplayed. So, if you want to know more, check out Mr. Dugard's bibliography. If not, just content yourself with knowing more than you knew before about this iconic greeting.If you want to know more about the travels of missionaries sent out by the London Missionary Society, the agency that first sent out Livingstone, read Tom Hiney's On the Missionary Trail: A Journey Through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with the London Missionary Society. It's the story of a two-man deputation sent out in the early 1800s to check on the society's first missionaries in remote places around the globe. Another great book.
—Nancy Kennedy
I've read through 100 pages and I am thoroughly unimpressed with the writing. Perhaps I am not far enough in (1/3) to have been snagged by whatever Dugard is setting up, but I feel like I am getting yanked over all of delicious stories that I came into the book looking for, and I'm getting yanked by a poor writing style to boot. To be honest, the writing style reminds me of my own writing style, and how bad it can become sometimes. It's not really that the sentences are put together poorly, it's the implications and flavors of the sentences: they seem to be backed up with little evidence but act like they have lots. Dugard attempts to draw exciting stories but must resort to generalities to hide an apparent lack of research. I contrast this directly to "Into the Silence" by Wade Davis, which suffers from an overabundance of evidence masterfully crafted into sublime story-telling.It's tough to think that I'll return to this book unless "Explorers of the Nile" turns out to be even worse. They seem like they'll cover the same material.
—Andrew
"Doutor Livingstone, presumo?"Esta é uma das frases mais célebres da história e foi proferida por Henry Morton Stanley, no momento em que finalmente encontrou o Dr. David Livingstone, que se encontrava desamparado no centro de África.Livingstone, um dos maiores, senão o maior explorador do continente africano do séc. XIX, decidiu fazer mais uma viagem a África, com o intuito desta feita, de descobrir a localização exacta da nascente do Nilo. Porém nem tudo correu como planeado.A sua nação, Inglaterra, viveu anos de ansiedade imaginando o que lhe teria sucedido. Muitas hipóteses foram levantadas, inclusive julgaram-no morto. Porém a sua força e determinação fizeram com que ultrapassasse todas as dificuldades possíveis e imagináveis do território central africano.Stanley, foi o jornalista escolhido, pelo dono do jornal Herald de Nova Iorque para em missão secreta partir para África e descobrir o real paradeiro de Livingstone.É o trajecto que estes dois exploradores fizeram que Matin Dugard se propõe a contar aos leitores desta obra. Um livro muito, na minha opinião, ao género do 1808 (de Laurentino Gomes) extremamente interessante, bem organizado e escrito.Não é de todo um romance. No entanto consegue prender o leitor, tal é a forma agradável como "se deixa ler."Págs. 412Ref. ISBN: 978-972-46-1713-8Editora: Casa das Letrashttp://conspiracaodasletras.blogspot....
—Marco Caetano
