Reviews for The Works of Washington Irving

The average rating for The Works of Washington Irving based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-23 00:00:00 Christopher Hunter I like this book, but I feel a little guilty about it. It's not just that it is permeated with orientalist attitudes, but that it makes those attitudes seem less quaint and more sinister because they are reinforced here by blatant racism. It is bad enough that the villain embodies the malevolent cunning of The Inscrutable East, but it is much worse when the hero is repeatedly described as the "savior of the white race." To appreciate the book as I do--even if you feel guilty about it--it is helpful to realize that part of its inspiration lay in certain contemporary events in China that shook the confidence of the Western mind in much the same way that 9/11 would one hundred years later. Unrest in the Far East--intensified by the Boxer Rebellion in 1899 and culminating in the collapse of the last imperial dynasty in the revolution of 1911--made the colonizing nations more keenly aware of the vast size and instability of China. Many Englishmen and Americans feared that this "Yellow Peril" would soon overwhelm the West by numbers alone. If Rohmer was a sinophobe, his sinophobia was casual and calculated; his love for the legends of Egypt, Arabia and India, however, was constant and sincere. Essentially an entertainer--he began his literary career as a writer of music hall sketches and songs--Rohmer needed a Chinese super-villain, a sort of racist Bin Laden, to make a pan-Asian conspiracy credible, not for the promotion of any political agenda, but simply to revive in the jaded reader of pulp fiction the potential for fear and terror dormant in this exotic but already familiar lore. One of the particular advantages of a Chinese villain is that it enables Rohmer to transform prosaic London by evoking the dark romance of great rivers. Fu Manchu is never far from the opium dens and criminal dives of the Chinese dockside community of Limehouse, for it is there on the Thames that the Doctor takes up his residence, as he schemes and consigns the meddling agents of English law to a watery grave. Rohmer frequently makes allusions to the Nile, and the Tigris and Euphrates, thus associating contemporary London with the curses of the pharaohs and the marvels of medieval Baghdad. Fu Manchu is central to this project, but the character of Koramaneh also plays a crucial role. A beautiful Arab girl sold as a slave to Fu Manchu, she must do the doctor's bidding, but she is nonetheless in love with Petrie, the "Watson" of these adventures, and continually saves him from danger. Her ambivalence creates an ambivalence in the reader, attracting the reader to the exotic East even as Fu Manchu repels him. Rohmer, the musical hall writer, effectively performs his show biz tricks, and holds us captive in his fantastic, sinister world. I suspect much of the credit for this lies with Koramaneh: rivers may entrance us with journey and mystery, but beauty ensures our seduction.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-30 00:00:00 Mikee Pablo ["The fuckin' orangutan did it" is not a good reveal. (hide spoiler)]