The African Queen
1935
(A fearless woman and a cynical man in the African jungle decide to perform an impossible military feat.)
All text except quotations is copyright 1999 by David Lahti, and represents his views alone. Please comment on this page in my guestbook. 
CONTENTS:
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Envisage a Robert Louis Stevenson-style adventure plot blended with a American twentieth-century pragmatic "just do it" attitude and a shake-up of some traditional attitudes regarding religious belief and sexuality. This is The African Queen in a nutshell. Rose Sayer, recently liberated from a life as an African missionary by the death of her brother, patriotically but naïvely conceives of blowing up a German ship at the end of the Ulanga river during World War I. By degrees, she convinces the cowardly Charles Allnutt to lend his rickety steam-powered boat to this service. Surviving German attacks, rapids, insects, malaria, heat, mechanical mishaps, and unnavigable stretches of marsh, they reach the Königin Louise and prepare to torpedo it with homemade devices. Rose has seen difficulty after difficulty surmounted by her own optimism and Allnutt's resourcefulness, and has developed a revitalizing self-reliance in the process which is antithetical to what she thought was the pious way of life. Allnutt has been affected by their successes as well, learning a bit of optimism, perhaps even bravery. They weave a tight fabric of trust during the voyage, which makes the continuation of their mission possible. He in his cowardice and cynicism has to rely on her strong spirit, and she in her ignorance and naïveté has to rely on his capability. Their mutual growth and interdependence inevitably culminate in romantic love.
An adventure story is spoiled by
premature revelation of the ending, so I won't give it away, except to say that
this particular ending is the most curious aspect of this book. My conclusion
is that it reveals Forester's fearless commitment to a pragmatic idea that life
and living and doing are more important than having lived for or done anything
in particular. Interestingly, any feeling in a reader of being shortchanged by
this ending (I admit I did) amounts to having a philosophical difference with
Forester (I admit I do). Then again, I could be reading too much into it
(though I doubt it), and the ending might simply be what the author believed
would be the only realistic way to see the two adventurers through.
Top of Forester's African Queen
"There was something infectious, something inspiring, about the notion of 'doing something for England'."
-ch.2.
"Rose sincerely believed that if she were to go to heaven she would spend eternity wearing a golden crown and singing perpetual hosannahs to a harp accompaniment, and-- although this appeared a little strange to her-- enjoying herself immensely."
-ch.2.
"...his mind had never been accustomed to doing any continuous thinking, so that in a situation in which there was nothing to do but think he was helpless."
-ch.5.
"Freedom and responsibility and an open-air life and a foretaste of success were working wonders on her... She had lived in subjection all her life, and subjection offers small scope to personality. And no woman with Rose's upbringing could live for ten days in a small boat with a man-- even a man like Allnutt-- without broadening her ideas and smoothing away the jagged corners and becoming something more like a human being. These last ten days had brought her into flower."
-ch.6.
"He was a man simply made to be henpecked. What with the success they had met under Rose's command up to now, and with the events of the night, Rose's ascendancy over him was complete."
-ch.8.
"She had never realized before that friendliness and merriment could exist along with a serious purpose in life, any more than she had realized that there was pleasure in the intercourse of the sexes."
-ch.8.
"Whether or not they lived happily ever after is not easily decided."
-ch.19.
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...you want a modern-styled tropical riverine adventure, especially if you are looking for a touch of romance and a female protagonist.
Top of Forester's African Queen
If you like this, you'd also like...
(for the explorer of Africa:)
-Josef Conrad, "Heart of Darkness" (1902).
-Sir Henry Morton Stanley, How I Found Livingstone (1872).
(for the woman of adventure:)
-C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (1956).
-J. C. F. von Schiller, The Maid of Orleans (1801).
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