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I don't feel very much in mood to write review about that guy Emilio Salgari - author and creator of Sandokan. Salgari's legend as explorer, adventurer, and writer knew no bounds. By the 1950s he was the bestselling Italian author worldwide. Dante Alighieri was number 2. Yet critics said that Salgari was mentally deranged. His wife actress Ida Peruzzi got dementia in 1900s and Salgari with his family could hardly meet their ends. By 1910/1911 wife was committed and Salgari himself made suicide. These are facts from his biography while Wikipedia gives inadequate information. Best source on the Net is ROH PRESS at http://www.rohpress.com/salgari.html
Let me try to shuffle this material a bit. We've got here in our country a large array of translations from Italian Emilio Salgari. Those books appeared firstly in the 1920s and 1930s - they were handsomely illustrated and were paragon for adventure literature. For me, as a schoolboy, those hard to find assets were precious. Since Star Wars series were non-existent what else could be opulent for teenager. It was Indian actor Kabir Bedi as Sandokan who gained greatest cinematic fame. He was as popular as Karl May's hero and some other heroes from American Westerns that I couldn't differentiate well. But we were happy and growing up, and those were socialist times clean and uneventful otherwise.
On the parochial side Sandokan's role as cultural phenomenon is limited. If you ask someone from South-East Asia about Sandokan, be it Malaysian or Thai or else, and he had hardly heard of that cult hero. Sandokan appears to be imaginary and fictional creation - a Raja rebel against English and Dutch colonialists in middle of 19th century, sometime between 1849 to 1889. Mompracem, the island-fortress of Sandokan, is non-existent nowadays. On the map, you can see on that latitude the Labuan island which is north offshore Borneo and east of Brunei Sultanate. Now comes the catch, did ever Salgari in his life was seafarer to those places?
Salgari claims in one of his authorized novels that he was there in 1879-1881 for two years. Tremal Naik hired him from Bombay as captain for one of Sandokan's praho (light ship). Salgari willingly served as pirate, he lived with the Tigres of Mompracem and during one of his raids they caught an English ship. On that ship, there was an Englishwoman (called Eva Stevenson, the would be Marianne) that conceded with the pirates and became Salgari's sweetheart. They further continued to live in action but once were tracked in the jungle. Eva died there of tropical fever, while Captain Salgari escaped and was saved by Portugese merchant ship. So it appears that the author himself was prototype for Yanez de Gomera.
It gets too long a story to continue now. You can check in various sources for synopsis of Sandokan novels. I have read those books in confused order but you can make a hubris for oneself. Good luck ...
Let me try to shuffle this material a bit. We've got here in our country a large array of translations from Italian Emilio Salgari. Those books appeared firstly in the 1920s and 1930s - they were handsomely illustrated and were paragon for adventure literature. For me, as a schoolboy, those hard to find assets were precious. Since Star Wars series were non-existent what else could be opulent for teenager. It was Indian actor Kabir Bedi as Sandokan who gained greatest cinematic fame. He was as popular as Karl May's hero and some other heroes from American Westerns that I couldn't differentiate well. But we were happy and growing up, and those were socialist times clean and uneventful otherwise.
On the parochial side Sandokan's role as cultural phenomenon is limited. If you ask someone from South-East Asia about Sandokan, be it Malaysian or Thai or else, and he had hardly heard of that cult hero. Sandokan appears to be imaginary and fictional creation - a Raja rebel against English and Dutch colonialists in middle of 19th century, sometime between 1849 to 1889. Mompracem, the island-fortress of Sandokan, is non-existent nowadays. On the map, you can see on that latitude the Labuan island which is north offshore Borneo and east of Brunei Sultanate. Now comes the catch, did ever Salgari in his life was seafarer to those places?
Salgari claims in one of his authorized novels that he was there in 1879-1881 for two years. Tremal Naik hired him from Bombay as captain for one of Sandokan's praho (light ship). Salgari willingly served as pirate, he lived with the Tigres of Mompracem and during one of his raids they caught an English ship. On that ship, there was an Englishwoman (called Eva Stevenson, the would be Marianne) that conceded with the pirates and became Salgari's sweetheart. They further continued to live in action but once were tracked in the jungle. Eva died there of tropical fever, while Captain Salgari escaped and was saved by Portugese merchant ship. So it appears that the author himself was prototype for Yanez de Gomera.
It gets too long a story to continue now. You can check in various sources for synopsis of Sandokan novels. I have read those books in confused order but you can make a hubris for oneself. Good luck ...
How about that mess with H. Rider Haggard's heritage! Ayesha or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed has been filmed several times and none of them comes true to spirit of the original. "She" (1925) is silent movie with extensive budget but parts of script are missing. "She" (1935) goes as far as the North Pole where Leo/Kallikrates stumble on lost city Kor. "She" (1965) is most popular where Horace and Leo travel to lost city of Kuma. Ayesha dies in the Eternal Fire, while Kallikrates becomes immortal and waits for her reincarnation. There comes "Vengeance of She" (1968) as sequel, where Carol - a modern European girls - is taken over by the spirit of mysterious Ayesha. Finally, "She" (2001) is the latest remake which I couldn't obtain and YouTube has ban on it.
Let's get to the meat now. It appears that Ayesha story is four novels serial written by H. Rider Haggard at different time intervals (1886, 1905, 1921 and 1923). You can check in Wikipedia for synopsis but it is still complicated as Maya calendar. So, stay calm until someone gives you digest or otherwise a one page summary plot. Then if you have patience and compliance, you can stop worry or else you start arguing because its in your character. I know people that hold strong executive positions and still haven't read a book in their life. They are just proxy for authority.
H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) is the most important English writer of adventure fiction. Unfortunately, his novels are not reissued regularly and maybe because there is lack of demand. For instance, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is English Victorian era author who wrote numerous highly acclaimed novels. I would rather read two novels from H. Rider Haggard than one from Charles Dickens. It's not that he is dull, but he is highly unreadable. In our country Haggard has been translated widely in the past 80-90 years. New titles are coming in translation regularly, but I repeat, original Haggard novels are difficult to obtain.
"She: A History of Adventure" and "Ayesha: The Return of She" have appeared recently in double edition. Preface for two books is combined, where the Editor tells the audience how he received a parcel with manuscript. In the parcel, there is attached letter from executives of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey. The manuscript gives a first-person narrative of Ayesha adventures for 2000 years.
Ayesha was borrowed from Arabic, being traditionally one of Mohammed's wives names. What happened in the plot ... ehh, you can start in 500 B.C. when the frame story begin. A threesome story evolves when the Persian king invades Egypt and three people flee away in hidden kingdom of Kor, in Africa. Those are Ayesha (celibate priestess), Kallikrates the Greek (mercenary employed by the Pharaoh), and Egyptian princess (loves Kallikrates and seeks revenge on Ayesha). The story builds on ...
Let's get to the meat now. It appears that Ayesha story is four novels serial written by H. Rider Haggard at different time intervals (1886, 1905, 1921 and 1923). You can check in Wikipedia for synopsis but it is still complicated as Maya calendar. So, stay calm until someone gives you digest or otherwise a one page summary plot. Then if you have patience and compliance, you can stop worry or else you start arguing because its in your character. I know people that hold strong executive positions and still haven't read a book in their life. They are just proxy for authority.
H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) is the most important English writer of adventure fiction. Unfortunately, his novels are not reissued regularly and maybe because there is lack of demand. For instance, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is English Victorian era author who wrote numerous highly acclaimed novels. I would rather read two novels from H. Rider Haggard than one from Charles Dickens. It's not that he is dull, but he is highly unreadable. In our country Haggard has been translated widely in the past 80-90 years. New titles are coming in translation regularly, but I repeat, original Haggard novels are difficult to obtain.
"She: A History of Adventure" and "Ayesha: The Return of She" have appeared recently in double edition. Preface for two books is combined, where the Editor tells the audience how he received a parcel with manuscript. In the parcel, there is attached letter from executives of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey. The manuscript gives a first-person narrative of Ayesha adventures for 2000 years.
Ayesha was borrowed from Arabic, being traditionally one of Mohammed's wives names. What happened in the plot ... ehh, you can start in 500 B.C. when the frame story begin. A threesome story evolves when the Persian king invades Egypt and three people flee away in hidden kingdom of Kor, in Africa. Those are Ayesha (celibate priestess), Kallikrates the Greek (mercenary employed by the Pharaoh), and Egyptian princess (loves Kallikrates and seeks revenge on Ayesha). The story builds on ...
Oops, wait a minute! I didn't know this Movie, so it comes under number seventeen in my Winnetou Collection - sixteen from 1963 to 1968, plus this one produced 30 years later starring Pierre Brice (1929-2015). Winnetous Rückkehr (1998) was produced by the same staff and shot in same locations as the franchise series from 1960s. Coupled with music by Martin Bottcher it renders fine conclusion to Winnetou legacy, a German trademark. I disregard many of the hilarious remarks that I read about this hero. Most of them are written by Americans and allies that have never had respect for Winnetou, and why should they!
Things go further like that. I have just watched a 45 min. TV documentary about Karl May on YouTube - "Das letzte Raetsel" (2016). It develops the thesis that Karl May was a psychotic personality with multiple identity syndrome. Narrator is a respected psychiatrist from Germany who had long time done research with Shatterhand Estate in Radebeul (near Dresden) where Karl May Archive is located. The Archive tend to embrace the voluminous heritage of the Author, i.e., some 90+ separate "Bands" of titles which consist of novels, short and long stories, travel notes and few autobiography books. Truly Nietzschean type of Superman this guy seemed to have been. Most of the presumptions for disorder personality are based on his photo archive, enlisting several big albums with photography shots thought to be forged. And how about his regular sessions at Vila Shatterhand where he presented personal "I" narratives. He even provided at sight the famous "Henry Carbine" with which he never parted during his adventures.
Whether one believes in that matter, did he or did he not traveled, is problem of personal choice. Karl May did not produced his many friends that he described in his novels. Neither his several wives witnessed. He only produced photographs, many letters and the books he wrote. Many materials have been lost in time and two World Wars. In my country, I have some 40+ volumes "Bands" translated and most of them in the period 1977 to 1997. Then there are older translations before 1950s and some of them severely adapted so that you can get lost. All in all, there is good concordance between original Karl May plot and screenplay of the Winnetou franchise series from 1960s. Worth reading the whole Karl May heritage and I am in process of doing it.
Now, my good American friends, why should we argue about the quality of Karl May legacy. You simply haven't read the Author in a way that you have read James Fenimore Cooper, for instance. Or you don't know that his first writing attempts were Ghost and Mystery stories like Edgar Allan Poe's. But he quit because they were such bad written stuff. Karl May became a real celebrity only when Winnetou appeared in his stories, also Kara Ben Nemsi in Africa and Ottoman Empire, also Dr. Karl Sternau in Mexico - Latin America, and also some other series that haven't appeared in Film (from South Pacific, Siberia, etc.) Enjoy your time ...
Things go further like that. I have just watched a 45 min. TV documentary about Karl May on YouTube - "Das letzte Raetsel" (2016). It develops the thesis that Karl May was a psychotic personality with multiple identity syndrome. Narrator is a respected psychiatrist from Germany who had long time done research with Shatterhand Estate in Radebeul (near Dresden) where Karl May Archive is located. The Archive tend to embrace the voluminous heritage of the Author, i.e., some 90+ separate "Bands" of titles which consist of novels, short and long stories, travel notes and few autobiography books. Truly Nietzschean type of Superman this guy seemed to have been. Most of the presumptions for disorder personality are based on his photo archive, enlisting several big albums with photography shots thought to be forged. And how about his regular sessions at Vila Shatterhand where he presented personal "I" narratives. He even provided at sight the famous "Henry Carbine" with which he never parted during his adventures.
Whether one believes in that matter, did he or did he not traveled, is problem of personal choice. Karl May did not produced his many friends that he described in his novels. Neither his several wives witnessed. He only produced photographs, many letters and the books he wrote. Many materials have been lost in time and two World Wars. In my country, I have some 40+ volumes "Bands" translated and most of them in the period 1977 to 1997. Then there are older translations before 1950s and some of them severely adapted so that you can get lost. All in all, there is good concordance between original Karl May plot and screenplay of the Winnetou franchise series from 1960s. Worth reading the whole Karl May heritage and I am in process of doing it.
Now, my good American friends, why should we argue about the quality of Karl May legacy. You simply haven't read the Author in a way that you have read James Fenimore Cooper, for instance. Or you don't know that his first writing attempts were Ghost and Mystery stories like Edgar Allan Poe's. But he quit because they were such bad written stuff. Karl May became a real celebrity only when Winnetou appeared in his stories, also Kara Ben Nemsi in Africa and Ottoman Empire, also Dr. Karl Sternau in Mexico - Latin America, and also some other series that haven't appeared in Film (from South Pacific, Siberia, etc.) Enjoy your time ...