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Silly bad. A surprisingly dull updating of Journey to the centre of the Earth or possibly the assuredly illegitimate offspring of Journey and King Somon's Minesor possibly the line of decent goes through bothwith extra racism, more dinosaurs, and guns. Surprisingly from the author of Sherlock Holmes, in which the stories although sometimes (always?) somewhat silly and contrived tend to have a certain cleverness to them, one has to wonder when a party of travellers in possession of a 150 foot rope find a forty foot chasm uncrossable and indeed start to prepare a hydrogen balloon before other alternatives suggest themselves - precisely a convenient cave system that allows the adventurers to exit the plateau of prehistoric Sussex but not any of the prehistoric creatures, who fortunately I guess suffer from extreme shyness or claustrophobia.
One basic problem is that the premise of the story is a good deal less interesting that one thinks at first - mostly because we may be familiar with many films in which dinosaurs chase people and other exciting things happen like seeing women wearing furry bikinis. However if we imagine the story 'man takes a walk and sees a cat', and then substitute the word cat for dinosaur, perhaps we see the problem that Conan-Doyle faced, it's actually not very interesting. As much as it hurts me down to the fingers which glued together airfix model dinosaurs in childhood, the simple fact of a dinosaur does not have intrinsic interest to sustain a novel even such a short one, or if it has, Conan-Doyle doesn't mange to find it. So the story runs as follows Dinosaurs still exist, no they don't, yes they do, well let's go and have a look and check, assemble a team to do so, arrive see dinosaurs. And then what? Conan-Doyle's response is to introduce the fearsome - Ape-man, the mysterious missing link, and borrow from King Solomon's Mines (actually referenced in story) with full savage versus savage battle action and European with their rifles worshipped as living gods Conan Doyle borrows pretty shamelessly from Rider Haggard Professor Challenger is drawn close to Henry Curtis and the plot of a secret land isolated from civilisation is suspiciously similar. And it gets worse (or better depending on your point of view). Creatures the characters don't like are described as filthy and their extermination as cleansing. It's incontrovertible, purely a question of hygiene, well the 20th century was just beginning and this mode of thinking had many more miles to go before it reached the end of that road. What is mildly amusing here is that the species who will meet this fate are part of the "Lost World" a treasury of massive scientific value, the scientists characters are however as happy as everybody else to tidy up nature and kill, kill, kill. Native south-American Indians apparently will intrinsically react to Europeans by carrying the European's luggage even if they share no common language or means of communication. 'Half-breeds' are treacherous and unpleasant ie transgressive in every way, while 'pure' Indians are peaceable and obedient. There is a black man employed as a servant, he is loyal 'like a dog', very strong and somewhat stupid, Conan-Doyle calls him 'Zambo' which is as close as you can get to 'Sambo' as possible, the kind of name you dream up with the assistance of your lawyers when trying to avoid copy-write infringement.
The story suddenly with the introduction of diamonds at the end reminded me of How to read Donald Duck - the point of adventures, and the purpose of the rest of the world, is wealth - wealth which only Europeans can profit from - this is the biggest deviation from Verne's Journey to the centre of the earth
Conan Doyle takes exactly the same dynamic of by the book scientist vs the adventurer who prefers practical demonstration, but strips the charm from the relationship and adds to the aggression and violence, adds a bargain basement version of Allan Quartermain and a journalist in the spirit of the times. The journalist is the story's narrator, Conan-Doyle isn't sure how to use him - a couple of chapters are written as though letters sent by him to London, while the rest aren't and there is no communication possible with the Imperial capital so there is simply a continuous narrative. Conan-Doyle adds a lengthly let's get the heroes together sequence - this is rather dull and silly and when the adventurers do reach the dinosaurs they are more lifeless than the displays in the Natural History Museum, no wonder they became extinct.
Verne is a master of incident to impel the story forward, Conan Doyle isn't. Part of the problem is that his heroes are Britons and representatives of the master race and so can't be seen to be inferior, and therefore can't get lost. Even the Irishman is played straight even if he comes across as a bit lazy and uneducated, when he does something uniquely stupid - going for a midnight stroll in dinosaur country when Conan-Doyle's dinosaurs it has been established, are nocturnal hunters - if all works out for the best as - well I don't want to spoil everything - unlike the map added to the text which gives away great chunks of the narrative. Dull Imperialist story, but on the up side: Rule Britannia!
Also reading here Professor Challenger and his wifeshe is literally put in her place, on a narrow pedestal five foot off the ground, one feels with relief how good it is that Sherlock Holmes was celibate (though admittedly we've only Dr Watson's word for it), and coming to think of it it is a bit suspicious how much of his time he spends round with Holmes rather than practising medicine - or does Watson actual earn his money by selling drugs to Holmes? The story shows that Conan-Dolye was a good writer of genre short-stories but struggled with the novel as a form. This one is all one idea - what if prehistoric Sussex existed on a south-American plateau in the present day? But it is an idea which quickly doesn't get very far without the introduction of perfectly horrid ape-men.
One basic problem is that the premise of the story is a good deal less interesting that one thinks at first - mostly because we may be familiar with many films in which dinosaurs chase people and other exciting things happen like seeing women wearing furry bikinis. However if we imagine the story 'man takes a walk and sees a cat', and then substitute the word cat for dinosaur, perhaps we see the problem that Conan-Doyle faced, it's actually not very interesting. As much as it hurts me down to the fingers which glued together airfix model dinosaurs in childhood, the simple fact of a dinosaur does not have intrinsic interest to sustain a novel even such a short one, or if it has, Conan-Doyle doesn't mange to find it. So the story runs as follows Dinosaurs still exist, no they don't, yes they do, well let's go and have a look and check, assemble a team to do so, arrive see dinosaurs. And then what? Conan-Doyle's response is to introduce the fearsome - Ape-man, the mysterious missing link, and borrow from King Solomon's Mines (actually referenced in story) with full savage versus savage battle action and European with their rifles worshipped as living gods Conan Doyle borrows pretty shamelessly from Rider Haggard Professor Challenger is drawn close to Henry Curtis and the plot of a secret land isolated from civilisation is suspiciously similar. And it gets worse (or better depending on your point of view). Creatures the characters don't like are described as filthy and their extermination as cleansing. It's incontrovertible, purely a question of hygiene, well the 20th century was just beginning and this mode of thinking had many more miles to go before it reached the end of that road. What is mildly amusing here is that the species who will meet this fate are part of the "Lost World" a treasury of massive scientific value, the scientists characters are however as happy as everybody else to tidy up nature and kill, kill, kill. Native south-American Indians apparently will intrinsically react to Europeans by carrying the European's luggage even if they share no common language or means of communication. 'Half-breeds' are treacherous and unpleasant ie transgressive in every way, while 'pure' Indians are peaceable and obedient. There is a black man employed as a servant, he is loyal 'like a dog', very strong and somewhat stupid, Conan-Doyle calls him 'Zambo' which is as close as you can get to 'Sambo' as possible, the kind of name you dream up with the assistance of your lawyers when trying to avoid copy-write infringement.
The story suddenly with the introduction of diamonds at the end reminded me of How to read Donald Duck - the point of adventures, and the purpose of the rest of the world, is wealth - wealth which only Europeans can profit from - this is the biggest deviation from Verne's Journey to the centre of the earth
Conan Doyle takes exactly the same dynamic of by the book scientist vs the adventurer who prefers practical demonstration, but strips the charm from the relationship and adds to the aggression and violence, adds a bargain basement version of Allan Quartermain and a journalist in the spirit of the times. The journalist is the story's narrator, Conan-Doyle isn't sure how to use him - a couple of chapters are written as though letters sent by him to London, while the rest aren't and there is no communication possible with the Imperial capital so there is simply a continuous narrative. Conan-Doyle adds a lengthly let's get the heroes together sequence - this is rather dull and silly and when the adventurers do reach the dinosaurs they are more lifeless than the displays in the Natural History Museum, no wonder they became extinct.
Verne is a master of incident to impel the story forward, Conan Doyle isn't. Part of the problem is that his heroes are Britons and representatives of the master race and so can't be seen to be inferior, and therefore can't get lost. Even the Irishman is played straight even if he comes across as a bit lazy and uneducated, when he does something uniquely stupid - going for a midnight stroll in dinosaur country when Conan-Doyle's dinosaurs it has been established, are nocturnal hunters - if all works out for the best as - well I don't want to spoil everything - unlike the map added to the text which gives away great chunks of the narrative. Dull Imperialist story, but on the up side: Rule Britannia!
Also reading here Professor Challenger and his wifeshe is literally put in her place, on a narrow pedestal five foot off the ground, one feels with relief how good it is that Sherlock Holmes was celibate (though admittedly we've only Dr Watson's word for it), and coming to think of it it is a bit suspicious how much of his time he spends round with Holmes rather than practising medicine - or does Watson actual earn his money by selling drugs to Holmes? The story shows that Conan-Dolye was a good writer of genre short-stories but struggled with the novel as a form. This one is all one idea - what if prehistoric Sussex existed on a south-American plateau in the present day? But it is an idea which quickly doesn't get very far without the introduction of perfectly horrid ape-men.
