She: A History of Adventure

"These five books are not necessarily my ‘favourites,’ but historical novels that have had an influence on me and my writing. She was a novel that was so incredibly powerful and popular in its day. It was first published in book form in 1887, having been serialised the year before, and it sold something in the region of 80 million copies. It’s never been out of print. It’s a first-person narrative that follows the story of a Victorian man called Horace Holly and his ward, Leo Vincey. This novel was one of the first of what became known as the ‘lost kingdom’ genre. In many ways, it’s the beginning of what we now think of as fantasy fiction : creating an entire world that carries on outside of the real world. Of course, it came out of a very particular time in history: British imperialism and colonisation, British pride in ‘The Empire’. But, beneath the surface, there are themes of anxiety about a world that is changing, the rise of the new woman, and the fears of that within traditional Victorian society. Women wanted the vote and wanted education and wanted to be powerful. There are, of course, many issues about reading a book written in 1887 by somebody who believed absolutely in the ‘civilising power of imperialism.’ But it is a superb adventure story. Rider Haggard’s sense of place is incredible—he served for many years in the Cape and knew He knew the land very well—and had quite a lot of contempt, really, for many of the white colonialists and a great deal of respect for the Zulu nation. It’s a story of a woman leader. The queen of this kingdom and of the lost city of Kôr is Aisha, ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed.’ Aisha is two thousand years old, and is kept alive by the Pillar of Fire, a fire of life that has kept her alive as she waits for her murdered love to come back to her. So it’s about rebirth and everlasting life, a very different kind of Grail story. “So many people’s lives are not reflected in the archives because the evidence was not kept, not because it didn’t exist” When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the phrase ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’ was in common usage. My father loved the book, and when I was older I understood that, yes, it was because my father—against his upbringing in many ways, and the views of the time—believed absolutely in women and men as equals. He, like millions of readers, loved the idea of this powerful woman who was in charge. For me, it is an extraordinary piece of fantasy fiction, lost world fiction, and it shows how to make place a central ‘character’ in a book."

"I had read King Solomon’s Mines when I was probably too young to read it. I think plenty of movies have been made of that; it’s Haggard’s most famous book today. I came across She because it was in a book of essays by C. S. Lewis; he has a whole essay called ‘The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard.’ The concept of mythopoeia is one that intrigues me greatly – that’s why I did my doctoral dissertation on the mythopoesis of George McDonald, because Lewis and others call him the greatest mythopoeic writer. There’s a great sentence that Lewis has at the conclusion of his essay. He points out the deep defects in the book, and I would agree with him, there are defects, not least in some of Haggard’s racism. (He has characters of different races with positive traits, but he does fall into some stereotypical racism as well; I think I want to allow that he’s not as bad as many in his time – it doesn’t justify it, but it’s important to recognise that he was ahead of some others.) Lewis says that what keeps us reading in spite of all the defects is the story itself, the myth; he says Haggard is the textbook case of the mythopoetic gift, pure and simple. He’s talking specifically about the novel She – so when I read that, I knew I had to go read this book. It’s a quick read. It’s an adventure romp . She: A History of Adventure is its title, and it’s a first person narrative that follows the journey of an academic and his ward, who isn’t quite as intelligent as he is – he’s good looking, but not smart. They journey to a lost kingdom in interior Africa that they accidentally discover, and there they encounter an unknown people who have a mysterious white queen named Ayesha. Ayesha is known to her people as She, which is short for ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed.’ She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed will be a very familiar phrase to any Brit. The phrase is less familiar in North America, but in the UK I’ve heard people use that title grumblingly for their wives or their mothers – and Rumpole in John Mortimer’s classic radio drama Rumpole of the Bailey always calls his wife that. She is the story is from which that is sourced! So, the two gentlemen set off on the journey when a mysterious shard is discovered, one which indicates that the young, handsome, not-so-intelligent Leo is descended from a mythical people – and, we discover, potentially from Isis. So it’s a story of forgotten inheritance once more. Knowing that C. S. Lewis loved the story, I was intrigued to try to figure out why. I later discovered that Tolkien really loved this story too, and it’s one of the few more modern texts that Tolkien actually names as an influence. There’s an interesting link with Lewis… She Who Must Be Obeyed, this white queen, is an immortal being that comes from an earlier time, another world, who has power to kill people and to charm people. When men are not in front of her, they know she’s evil, and they know they need to get rid of her. When they’re in front of her, they lose all ability to withstand her beauty and her charm, they’re just mesmerised. However, if women are in front of her, they continue to see her as evil. As soon as I read that, I thought: that’s Diggory and Polly from The Magician’s Nephew ; that’s Jadis, the White Queen, from Narnia! And we have that direct Lewis quote saying that this is a great mythopoeic tale… For me, that was exciting, to see story shaping story! She engages with ancient Egyptian myths, ancient African myths, and story-less contemporary Imperial England coming together with that, thus creating a new story and a new myth with mythic power. There’s another section where Ayesha is Jadis from Narnia… She meets these two characters from England, and immediately thinks, “Oh, a new territory I can conquer.” The text says: ‘She had evidently made up her mind to go to England. And it made me absolutely shudder to think of what would be the result of her arrival there… In the end, she would, I had little doubt, assume absolute rule over the British dominions, and probably over the whole earth, and though I was sure that she would speedily make ours the most glorious and prosperous empire that the world had ever seen, it would be at the cost of a terrible sacrifice of life’ – and we, the reader, know it would be evil. And that’s exactly what Jadis wants to do when she arrives in England in The Magician’s Nephew ! So one of the really important legacies of She is how it has shaped the next generation of fantasy writers. I think it’s worth reading if you’re interested in the history of fantasy, worth visiting – it’s a quick read – for that element alone. And for how Haggard brings together myths of the past to shape a new myth, that we now know did go on and successfully shape yet other literary myths, new fantasy that was to come after him."