June Letters

Hi there! I happened upon your criticism/review of the Twilight series recently while searching for some recommended reading and was rather pleased by your analysis. Your assessment of both the criticism and praise of the series was an eloquent exercise that gave specific voice to similar thoughts I'd had while reading the books, but had failed to clarify for myself to such an extent. Perhaps it's self-serving to think that you were dead-on (as I am in almost complete agreement with your sentiments regarding the series), but because you seem to be of similar sensibility, I am wondering if you could recommend further reading along the lines of the Twilight books.

Thanks for the writing and for the response!

kathi

Thanks for reading! I'll actually be doing a couple of installments of our "On My Bookshelf" series, in July and August, that will (hopefully) contain other books you'll enjoy, so keep an eye out!

Wolfen Moondaughter, Den Mother and Asst. Reviews Editrix

Hello,

As usual, I'm very much enjoying the Tart Time Machine excursion through the ripping yarns of yester-year, hurrah! Dem fine stuff, empire-building, Boys' Own and such. Bracing. Makes a fellow proud to be British, what? Or feel faux-Brit, under dear old Vicky, the mother o' us all, dontchaknow. Three times three cheers for the grande olde lady. And as usual... some thoughts of me own have bubbled to mind...

Firstly — The Curious Case of Disney and the "First" Jungle Book Sequel.

Disney released their film version of The Jungle Book in 1967, and it was a huge success. So huge in fact that it appears the Disney Company began to contemplate something they'd never done before – produce a sequel. Original JB storyman, Larry Clemmons, was tapped to write a follow-up. He met with Baloo voice actor and singer, Phil Harris, and together they came up with More Jungle Book: Lonely and miserable in the jungle, Baloo decides to pay a visit to Mowgli in the man-village and gets caught by the humans. Mowgli has to round up the gang, Bagheera and King Louie, to rescue him. The project reunited originals Phil Harris and Louie Prima (Sebastian Cabot must have been unavailable, as Baggy-baby is voiced by Dal McKennon), and a whole slate of new songs were written, with the stand-out being King Louie's number "If You Want to See Some Strange Behavior (Take a Look at Man)". But despite all this energy and work... no film. What we did get in 1968 was a long-play album on Disneyland Records, More Jungle Book: Further Adventures of Baloo and Mowgli. The complete story in vocal track, music, and songs, with an illustrated booklet. There was even a smaller "read along" version released. But no film. The next animated feature from Disney would be 1970's The Aristocats.

Why did More Jungle Book never appear as a film? Maybe the feeling was a complete animated sequel would take too long and momentum and interest would be lost. Maybe a general disinclination to revisit what had already been done. Maybe just the tone of the times had changed. Still, seems an awful lot of talent and creativity went into a simple "storybook" record. And a bit of a shame that when the time came to make Jungle Book II, the work already done at Disney wasn't revisited – More Jungle Book remains one of those teasing, intriguing might-have-beens.

Secondly - I've been raking the old brain box in response to Rebecca's plea for suggestions on a vintage work with an admirable adventurix. The species is rather thin on the ground. Empire-building is paternalism unleashed, up the Y chromosome, boys, and bite the bisquit! A strong woman in Victorian terms would be one who kept her decorum in the colonies with nary a hair out of place, kept teacup and saucer balanced as the cannonballs flew, and kept the lace doilies fresh and hearth fires burning even in a tent on the veldt. However, a few remarkable ladies of proper vintage do tread the halls of memory:

Ayesha, she who must be obeyed, of H. Rider Haggard's novel She – the 2000 year-old "white goddess" ruler of a lost African tribe. Although rather vile and villainous in her first appearance (amoral, sexually predatory, willful, all the misogynist adjectives for independent and intelligent), Haggard was captivated enough by his own creation to bring her back in two sequels. And Ursula Andress embodied her to a turn in the 1965 Hammer film adaptation, also starring the always-fantastic Peter Cushing.

Princess Flavia, the betrothed of King Rudolf of Ruritania in Anthony Hope's pocket-swashbuckler The Prisoner of Zenda. True, Flavia never picks up a sword or swings from a chandelier, but her strong sense of self and devotion to duty set her miles above the faint, swooning princess throng of a thousand other works. "You men and your noble talk," she tells the hero before he sets off for the last battle, "You never realize that women have a duty too." Putting the good of her country and people above her own happiness is damn heroic stuff, for all its quiet and lack of flashy bravado.

Elizabeth Bishop, the daughter of the Governor of Jamaica and owner of "Captain Blood" stands fast in the face of pirates, attempted ravishment, the blandishment of ill-got treasures, and fatal sword-to-sword and ship-to-ship duels to the death. All while possessing the flexibility of mind to change her views on slavery, the rights of the individual, and the assumption that wealth and privilege equal justice and authority. Hers is quite a voyage and she never loses her self-possession.

Carla Goteborg, the fearless femme spelunker and James Mason's rival in Journey to the Center of the Earth is a bit of a cheat to add, I know, but her inclusion in the excellent 1959 film adaptation deserves mention, as it goes far to remedy the absence of a strong female character in Verne's original novel. After all, Mason's Sir Oliver Lindenbrook had Pat Boone and a hunky Icelander named Hans as backup; Frau Goteborg was prepared to make the journey alone, and in a corset! Now that's pluck!

Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916) and Tavia the warrior-slave (A Fighting Man of Mars, pushing the time period at 1929), of ERB's Barsoom cycle. In typical Burroughsian fashion, both ladies are keen hands with a sword, face dangers unflinching and fight battles unfailing. Thuvia even helps topple a false religion, while Tavia turns the head of a soldier originally pining for a beautiful but vapid princess. One doesn't find women like these everyday, even on Mars!

Burroughs, interestingly, indicates the transition into the Pulp era of American and British literature, an era that would see more fully-formed the modern concept of the independent, empowered adventure heroine.

Thirdly – while H. G. Wells is more properly considered a science fiction writer by those who consider such things, there are certainly aspects of the Victorian adventure to his The Island of Dr. Moreau Certainly enough for Burroughs to swipe most of it for his novel The Monster Men. And as Verne is being discussed at length, it's amusing to note his irritation with Wells, presaging the divide between "hard" and "soft" science fiction – "I write about the real, or what could be real with but a little application. The Nautilus is no dream creation," ranted Verne, "But where is his time machine? Show it to me!"

Conan Doyle, also more generally remembered as a mystery writer, charged full steam into adventure with his other great creation, Professor Challenger, in a series of five novels published between 1912 and 1929. The most well-known today, The Lost World, gave us a realm of still-living dinosaurs, and opened the gates for King Kong, Jurassic Park, and a so-so TV series in the 1990's. Pulp-writer Manly Wade Wellman brought both Prof. Challenger and Sherlock Holmes face-to-tentacle with Wells's Martian invaders in the homage novel Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds. An extraordinary partnership well before Alan Moore's Extraordinary League.

Fourthly, and lastly – For a return to the glory that was Empire, but with a properly modern, dare I even say jaundiced, eye, one can do little better than the Aubrey/Maturin naval adventures of Patrick O'Brian, or the ribald, rakish, tell-it-like-it-was remembrances of Sir Harry Flashman, as recorded by George MacDonald Fraser.

May the sun never set on stout hearts and true!

Yours Imperially,
Dennis

Thanks, Dennis! Now I really want to track down that More Jungle Book album you talked about! I adored the first movie, but while the animation was better in the second film, and I should have been happy about how spunky Shanti was, it just llacked the magic of the first film somehow. It seems a true waste that all the work that went into the unmade second film has been forgotten, save by those who have the album!

And I must say, that Elizabeth Bishop and captain blood has really caught my fancy — I'll have to track them down! I wonder if Disney's Elizabeth Swann was inspired by Bishop....

Wolfen Moondaughter, Den Mother and Asst. Reviews Editrix

Dennis,

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I've read the first three books in the Barsoom series and loved them; Dejah Thoris is one of my favorite heroines. Now you've got me antsy to track down the succeeding volumes, so I can read up on Thuvia and Tavia. And I guess have to add The Prisoner of Zenda to my Must Read list.

Rebecca Buchanan, Features Editrix