Manly Months - One Final Thought

I know we're done with Manly Months but I had a few more examples to share.

Here is everyone's favorite Victorian Historian, Professor Patrick Allitt, discussing the tough schooling that boys received in Britain in the 1800s.

The two most famous [schools] and two of the most ancient were Eton and Harrow...The Duke of Wellington had claimed that the battle of Waterloo, back in 1815, had been won on the playing fields of Eaton.  What he meant by that was that the tough schooling which the young gentlemen had been given there had prepared them for their roles as army officers and enabled them to prevail in the situation of the battle itself.  Eaton, especially in the early 19th century, was a very hard school indeed.  A merciless discipline was enforced by the master on the boys, but also by the older boys on the younger ones.  They had a system called fagging which really amounted to a kind of slavery in which the younger boys were completely at the mercy of the older ones and could be bullied and beaten by them without any redress at all.

Manly Months Conclusion

When Men Were Men

Manly Months is done.  We spent April and May reading manly 19th century literature, and you might be surprised at just how rough and tough our ancestors were.  Believe it or not they didn't all sit around sipping tea and eating cobbled oats.  I know, they wore those lacy looking shirts and all, but don't define them by their frilly fashion sense.

Here are the books I managed to read and review:

• King Solomon's Mines, by Sir H. Rider Haggard (1885)
• Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)
• Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1899)
• The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)
• The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888)
• The Frozen Pirate, by W. Clark Russell (1887)

Only six books, I wish I could have finished more.  Here's a list of others I could have added to this list, and still plan to read:

Book Review: The Frozen Pirate, by W. Clark Russell (1887)

This is one of the better books I read during Manly Months here at The Literary Rambler.  It's the story of adventure on the seas, of treasure and survival.  It starts out with some of the boldest action language I've ever seen.

The storm made a loud thunder in the sky, and this tremendous utterance dominated without subduing the many screaming, hissing, shrieking, and hooting noises raised in the rigging and about the decks, and the wild, seething, weltering sound of the sea, maddened by the gale and struggling in its enormous passion under the first choking and iron grip of the hurricane's hand.

That's what W. Clark Russell was known for, and that's why people read him.  I first heard about him from the Sherlock Holmes story, The Five Orange Pips, which had Watson reading a Russell book.

Book Review: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888)

The Black Arrow was a harrowing tale of a young adventurer, trying to find his true love.  It's set against the backdrop of the War of the Roses.  You don't have to know anything about the history of the period, the author feeds you any details necessary.  For the most part it's not a bad tale, just a bit long winded.  That may not make a lot of sense because it's a small book - only about 80,000 words, 220ish pages.  But it felt like it just went on and on.

Manly Months Report

With only two weeks left in our Manly Months the pressure is on to deliver more of that manly stuff!  Don't worry men, there are plenty of other manly 19th century books out there, even if I can't get to them all.

I've reviewed four books and am working on two more.

• King Solomon's Mines
• Captains Courageous
• Heart of Darkness
• The Red Badge of Courage

• The Black Arrow
• The Frozen Pirate

I think I can squeeze in at least one more after this.  But there are many others I wish I had time for.  So much adventure literature of the 19th century took the form of either true war stories, or sea tales.  Here are some of the others I hope to read.

• W. Clark Russell - various sea stories
• Captain Frederick Marryat - various sea stories
• Victor Hugo - Toilers of the Sea (1866)
• Stephen Crane - The Open Boat (1897)
• Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast (1840)
• Winston Churchill - various war stories including The River War (1899)

Book Review: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888) First Thoughts

I stopped reading this book.  Well into the third chapter I had no idea what was going on because of that crazy vernacular.  It was written in the late 1800's, but it took place in the 1400's so Stevenson wrote it in that God-awful style straight out of Canterbury Tales.  It's hard to understand, and it makes it difficult to follow.

However, I could tell the storyline was worth reading,

Book Review: The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)

Tom Sawyer goes to war.

I won't be flip about this book, but I'm probably too old to have read it.  I can now understand why it is so often assigned as a book report in school.  It gives wonderful insight into the mind of a teenager who goes into battle and wants to be a hero.  The descriptions of the main character's thoughts took me back to my own teenage years, describing well the myriads of trifling things that occupy the mind of a guy that age.

It's a coming of age story, as our main character - referred to as "the youth" - is worried that he will run from the battle.  Will he stand and fight?  Will he run like a big chicken?  That's his worry.  It's perfect.  Looking at the Civil War from a distance, looking at the battles as an outsider, we see cause and purpose, we see strategy, we see a fight against slavery maybe, an insurrection perhaps, a great upheaval.  We see all those things.

Book Review: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1899)

Yes, this is the book on which the movie Apocalypse Now was based.  Same kind of deal, a man, Marlow, traveling up a river to find another man, Kurtz, who has gone crazy and needs extracting.  Along the way we're treated to surreal and brutal scenes of inhumanity.

This book is far more introspective than I realized it would be.  It's told in the manner of a person looking back on a great sadness or horror, after reflecting on it for some time.

Joseph Conrad was a master literary figure, I gathered that much even if most of what he was saying was far too obtuse for an adventure novel.  Plus his writing can sometimes be a bit long winded.  Take this sentence for example.

Book Review: Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)

Not so bad sea story about a boy who falls off a ship and is kidnapped by a nice guy who punches him in the face so he learns some manners.

There you have it, the whole story in a nice little nutshell.  I'm not saying it's a bad book but it did surprise me.  The main premise is exactly as I stated above.  For some reason I pictured the book differently.  I thought it would show a young man becoming heroic.  He learned all about life at sea, that much I did expect, but I just pictured him saving the ship in a storm or something.  I mean, the title is Captains Courageous, don't you think he should have done something courageous?  But all he did was fish a lot.

Book Review: King Solomon's Mines, by Sir H. Rider Haggard (1885)

This is an action/adventure book.  Blood pumping action, heart thumping adventure.  This book is about high adventure in Africa made famous by stories of big game hunters and old legends of lost treasure.

It's not for the faint of heart.  It's not for your mother's drawing room or your gran-gran's tea parties.

Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.

Book Review: King Solomon's Mines, by Sir H. Rider Haggard (1885) - Writing Style

Right, well I'll jump in and start this thing with a quote from the introduction that is worth writing down

....books are easier to understand when they are written in plain language

and

...a true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words.

This book, more than any book I've read from that period, reads in a style similar to modern writing.  Gone are the too-flowery descriptions and heavy language.  It's blunt, it's strong, and it's brutal.  I say, fine job.

Manly Months Humor

Time to start Manly Months!  Best to start these things with some fun.

Like many people do on a Friday night, I was looking up Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and came across this video.  Then I saw the size of this organ and said, "Holy Cow, look at the size of that organ!".

And then the response popped in my head.  You score 3 extra Rambler points for guessing the correct response.

Grab a Can of Manly!

Okay men, listen up.  We're going to start having more manly books on this review site.  After reading Cranford I thought I was going to grow boobs.

So put on your mad faces.  That's right.  Now give me a GRRRRR!

Yes!  Let that testosterone flow.

Starting in April, we're going to read King Solomon's Mines.  You heard me right, maggots!  Allan Quatermain.  The original Indiana Jones.  Adventure, murder, travel through Africa, treasure, intrigue.  You got it!