Novel: The African Queen
Author: C.S. Forester
Author: C.S. Forester
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Little, Brown and Company
Original Publication Date: 1935
Pages: 246
Genre: Adventure
K's Rating: 3 bookworms
Original Publication Date: 1935
Pages: 246
Genre: Adventure
K's Rating: 3 bookworms
The premise of the book is this: Rose Sayer is an English Christian missionary, living with her Reverend brother in the heart of Africa. The brother dies, the Germans are landing, and busty Rose manages to find herself aboard The African Queen, a rickety steamboat manned by Charlie Allnut, a ragamuffin of sorts. Embracing her newfound freedom on the waters flowing through the African jungle, she develops a crazymad plan to turn the steamboat into a torpedo! to bomb an important German ship, also cruising the waters. This rogue military plan drives the adventure and romance that develops and develops, and then denouements into an ending that left me unsatisfied...
If you're into old-fashioned, feverish adventure stories with bullets, backwaters, and boats, read this book. Forester's charismatic characters exhibit a force of will that drives them foward through the African wilderness. Not that Forester doesn't throw bunches of obstacles in their way, such as reeds and water lilys and floods. Who knew water lilys could be such a bitch?
Forester's prose is accessible and simple (although there is some boating and navigation terminology). Compared to Joseph Conrad, who also wrote about colonized Africa, this book is sterile, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. My biggest complaint is the end. For a novel whose characters have such big dreams throughout, the ending should've been big, too. But that's all I'll say on that.
I give this 3 bookworms. Pretty good, glad I read it, would recommend it. It was adapted into a film starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart that I bet is amazing - I could see this translating to film well. I searched it on Netflix, and the DVD doesn't come out til Spring 2010; when it does, I'll try to add a supporting post.
For sure, though, if I'm ever lost in Africa on a steamboat, I'll be super glad I read this book (it's kinda like Paulsen's Hatchet in that way).
(Review written 01-29-2010.)
(Review written 01-29-2010.)
I loved the movie (I've seen it a zillion times), but never read the book. I should give it a try someday, just to see the differences.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want MY leading man to be Allnut, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Though, I wouldn't want him to have Nonuts either.
ReplyDeleteGet the movie from Netflix. Humphrey Bogart is definitely an Allnut. He's dirty sexy on that riverboat. =) And the movie was wonderful - a must see - and I don't often say that in comparison with novels. But it was just perfectly filmed.
ReplyDelete