Burton is not only an explorer, but far beyond worthwhile destination for a biography:
- Highly intelligent without showing each ivory tower Attitude, Burton dominated dozens languages including Persian, Hindi, Arabic, German, Swahili, Italian, Greek, Latin, Punjabi, Telugu, Marathi and Gujarati;
- Burton was only very learned Hindu devotee and erudite sacred Muslim
- He produced countless books in thrilling English
- Also translated the Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra into English and
- Slept with hundreds or thousands of women, while for ten years, he managed to marry the beloved Isabel.
Liquid, not rousing:
Biographer Rice, who has published numerous other non-fiction books, writes fluently, but rarely exciting. The Burton quotes from his numerous books sound more powerful than Rice herself and arouse interest in the people and its discoveries.
Rice describes historical and intellectual background in detail, sometimes a whole chapter long, or even two. So we learn, especially in the first half a lot about the British colonial administration, the ditch between Shiites and Sunnis, Sufism, about Burtons contemporaries. In such chapters Burton practically does not appear, and sometimes it is not clear why the author is so detail he wants to perform In read-in?
Precise Description:
I had such versions already too long. On the other hand explains Rice not know why the young Burton was abruptly from Bruiser for scholars and seekers.
The detailed descriptions of historical circumstances, especially in Gujarat call the time awake very plastic. Without this, to the manifestation large researched researched Rice the English explorer in ten trips, among others in India, Pakistan and Somalia gradually fell as Burton in mortal danger.
Moment way reminds me of the young Burton to the writer of this review: He pulls satisfied by most unknown corners of India, learning regional languages, worshiped, so Rice, "men who were wanderers, linguists, adventurers, scholars, men of Both daring and intellect"; He writes obsessively on anything new and published it; He endowed beautiful women for their beauty and then: "He liked women in general, whatever the race or color" and later (why?) to the cynics.
Second Half of Life:
With 40 Burton has all the essential adventure behind him - Sindh, Mecca, Central Africa. He married Isabel - finally, after ten years of worship. Biographer Rice devoted the Burton before age 40. More than two-thirds of the running text.
And then you could almost put the book down, Burton would not be such a self-willed character. His later activities but hardly justify a biography, even if he survived several assassination attempts he has third-rate diplomatic posts in God lost corners of West Africa and Brazil, then an interesting episode in Damascus, after many years in Trieste. Burton, quiet, now published some of his most famous books and translations, including Arabian Nights, Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden.
Esteem:
Biographer Rice has clearly respect for Burton before his calculated audacity, his erudition, his multilingualism, his undiplomatic language, his commitment to equality and against slavery. In the English Wikipedia Burton appear less admirable than Rice.
By contrast, the American Rice Burton England sees generally rather mockingly: the East India Company he calls always John Company formerly a familiar term that sounds condescending now. In Burton's dining room he discovered "typical Victorian clutter", the Victorian upper class was a "savage society". Admiration for Burton as well as mockery of England occur in the second part of the book more apparent.
To build:
Rice used barely footnotes, he gives only concise summary source notes at the end of the book, as well as comments on the source material at all. 16 pages black and white photographs and paintings give additional insights. These long bibliographies come to Richard Burton and the books about Burton and his time.
Free associations:
- Rice 'style clearly reminiscent of the book in which I first heard of Burton: The East, the West, and Sex, by Richard Bernstein; both authors seem to disapprove of the British colonialism
- William Dalrymple's White Mughals historical book, Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
- The Pakistan-sections in VS Naipaul's Islam-books remember Burton's time in Pakistan's Sindh today
- Burton's hardships in Central Africa are reminiscent of TC Boyle's dramatic African novel "Water Music", but are not described in Rice as Comedy
The Critics:
sirrichardfrancisburton.org:
What a New York Times bestseller and did much to spark popular interest in Burton in the early 1990s ... He pointedly dismisses Brodie's psychohistorical approach and in general steers things back to a more traditional fact-based model.
Burtonia.org:
Highly imaginative but dubious. Sold well, but Seems to have used at interpolation technique to deduce 'facts'.
Anthony Burgess in the New York Times:
First-class
Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Kirsch:
So exotic and exciting did I read late into the night and started again at dawn ... A man of deep passion and extraordinary sexual appetite, which Burton fascinated by women and sought them out under the most perilous circumstances ... Rice shows us Burton's Struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, his spells of "distressing melancholy" ... Rice is an accomplished historian but, like Burton himself, is enthralled by "subterranean" Knowledge and the intimacies of body and soul. So, For Example, Rice ably Explains the Geopolitics of "the Great Game" and the ancient schisms of the Islamic world, but he does not neglect the contraceptive techniques of Indian courtesans ... And Rice, like Burton, is a poet at heart ... The Adventurer is fully Brought Back To Life in Rice's masterpiece of history and biography. Burton's Ghost and this grateful reader owe Edward Rice a salute and a tribute.
Random Book and Movie Reviews:
Sometimes I felt like I was getting bombarded with information as I chugged my way through this book. Burton travels to so many places, and has so many interests, did Sometimes I felt like I was swimming in information about Indian snake cults, Islamic mysticism, Afghanistan warlords, and others, When all I really wanted what for the story to get moving again
