Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (1990) by Edward Rice

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Well, they do say you should never meet your heroes. And in this case, it’s not because my hero was an asshole, necessarily. It’s more the sense of crushing inadequacy that reading about Burton fills me with. I can never be as amazing as he was, not even if I brought mammoths back to life. Mammoths that shit out anti-global-warming unobtaneum.

Though, to be fair, the same can probably be said for most people who have ever lived. Sure, there were probably better people who have lived: Burton, after all, was not really any kind of philanthropist. He didn’t really work to better the world’s lot. In fact, in many ways, he probably made bits of the world indirectly worse off, by laying the foundation for British colonial rule. He did occasionally try to act as a just and fair governor in the various odd places he wound up. But, by and large, he spent his life doing things that he wanted to do for himself, and sod what anyone else wanted.

But there have been few people as genuinely awesome as Burton. Winding through the potted history of 19^th-century colonialism, Burton appears like a real-life combination of James Bond, Indiana Jones and Harry Flashman. He investigated interesting cultures from the inside. He travelled to forbidden places. He was a spy. He was present at game-changing historical events. He was a reckless, brilliant rule-breaker who was never entirely trusted by the establishment, and he was tall, mysterious, scarred, and alluring to women.

Legend.

 Aside from my all-consuming jealousy (I can never compete with his knowledge of 19^th-century exotica because he had the unfair advantage of living through it), would I have liked him as a man if I met him? Unlikely. Despite sharing more than a few of his interests, Burton would probably have soured me with his sarcasm and unsociable ways.

Rice must have had a devil of a task researching Burton: aside from his own insanely prolific (I’m inclined to coin the phrase ‘diarrheic’ for this man who seemed to positively shit out books) tendencies, the resources on Burton are varied and conflicting, with his wife’s input attempting to paint him as a saint (and a Catholic to boot; good luck with that, love) and her jealous nemeses colouring him far more negatively. It seems that everyone had their own version of the man. Burton’s bizarre sense of humour does not help matters much either, with him frequently coyly referring to himself in the third person, hinting at ‘a certain officer known to me,’ with Rice having to guess whether the blackguard is referring to himself or not. The sheer amount of things the man got up to that were deemed not acceptable to Victorian society, but which he simply had to commit to paper, means that he adopts this approach rather frequently. Whether, ahem, examining the gay brothels of Karachi for his superiors or measuring the average penis size of Ethiopians, Burton just has to write about it.

Lad.

So who was this guy, exactly?

I feel as though the man did so many varied and interesting things that I must resort to a list in order to cover them all, adding some commentary where I feel it’s appropriate.

-he travelled Europe as a young man and learned multiple languages. Prodigy, then.

-he went to Oxford, and though a genius at multiple subjects, could not tolerate the stuffiness of the establishment. He antagonised staff and students, fought duel (whenever someone insulted his moustache, seriously) and was expelled. He left by tramping the flower beds with his horse and carriage. That's how much he didn't care.

-he signed up for the East India Company and went soldiering in exotic lands. This is exactly what I would have done had I been living in the early 19^th-century, no question. I too, am ‘fit for nothing but to be shot at for sixpence a day.’ He left for India, having been ‘duly wept over.’ Cynical bastard.

-he became, more-or-less, a believer in Islam. This gave him a significant edge on other contemporary Orientalists, whose sympathies for those they studied was sometimes suspect. Old 'Ruffian Dick', on the other hand, was a true believer.

-he became an initiate into various cults and secret societies including the Sufis and the Hashassins. To be honest, for me this section of the book gets somewhat bogged down in theological matters. But then, I’m not a genius like Burton was.

-he (probably) acted as a British spy during the wars of the North-West Frontier, becoming enemy and advisor to various Muslim Khans and religious leaders. Let’s just say that various places he scouted out during this time later fell under the protective embrace of the British Empire. Who knows how that happened? Oops.

-he was involved in the Crimean War, though, as always with Burton, things didn’t exactly go to plan. His ragtag regiment didn’t come out covered with glory (they were more like the dirty dozen, in the first half of the movie anyway).

-he became one of the first white men to visit Mecca and Medina… and survive.Even though he went in disguise, his deep belief in Islam means that this trip was a religiously meaningful one to him, and not just an act of colonial bravaggio or cultural insensitivity.

-he took a spearhead through his cheek when ambushed by Somalians in his tent. This gave him a scar that made him look like a serious badass for the rest of his life.

-he travelled (and fought) with John Hanning Speke across central Africa to find the source of the Nile. This is one of the things Burton is most remembered for. The story of the two men’s friendship and eventual hatred is one of the most interesting parts of the book. The hardships the two underwent are almost unimaginable. Burton’s attitude towards the Africans, however, is far less enlightened than his attitude towards the Arabs.

-he underwent a mid-life crisis of sorts, travelling through the US alone on an epic drink bender, about which almost nothing is known. Despite the fact that Burton inevitably wrote multiple doorstoppers about his impressions of American life, this bit of his own chronology remains comparatively blank, and we know little of his feelings or motivations apart from a deep sense of melancholy. I think someone needs to fictionalise a series of adventures about these hard-drinking days. Maybe he even had a native American sidekick.

-he served in diplomatic positions in various exotic locations, from the island of Fernando Po, off West Africa, to regions of Brazil and Damascus, and finally Trieste. Most of his time in these places, however, he seems to have spent skiving off to investigate archaeological ruins or write books.

-he wrote the most popular English translation of the Arabian Nights. But he wasn’t content merely to translate; if he felt that an appropriate English word didn’t exist, he didn’t hesitate to make one up, resulting in some of the most bizarre writing you’ve ever come across. His Nights, like his Kama Sutra, was stacked with sex and scandalised Victorian society.

Quite apart from many of the other great characters of the era, Burton was never exactly what you might call successful. His knighthood came late in life, and most of his cushy posts were begrudging favours given by those who could no longer deny his achievements. He seems to have spent a good deal of his life being at odds: with his university, with the army, with the government, with his colleagues, his superiors and his friends. None of his frequent schemes to make money worked out. Even his achievements were often tinged with scandal – especially his writing, which was always criticised for so flagrantly ignoring the conventions of Victorian society. By the end of his life, he seems to have been afforded a certain reluctant, uncertain credit by the powers that were, and his funeral was a lavish one attended by the great and good.

Rice’s book… well, it seems unfair to sum up. This is not a review, after all – I could no more review a book about Burton than I could review Burton’s life itself. Like the man himself, it is many-faceted, complex, puzzling, maddening but ultimately fascinating. Rice seems to have traveled half the globe in researching it, and is probably a pretty interesting guy himself. The difference is that Burton did all this stuff first, back when it was not just dangerous but socially unacceptable. The man simply did not give a shit what anyone though, and that’s what made him a real hero. It’s also why I’d probably have hated to meet him.
 

Hero.

Vathek by William Beckford

I’m going to have to plumb a bit deeper than usual into the depths of weird fiction in order to review an early example of Orientalist literature- the cod-Arabian Nights fantasy Vathek, written by the demented William Beckford in 1786.

Beckford seems to have been something of a card. At one time the richest man in England, he inherited the blood money squeezed from a slave plantation in the West Indies. This allowed him to live out his insane fantasies, most of which were influenced by the then-nascent neo-Gothic movement and the recently popular Arabian Nights. According to the introduction to the Wordsworth edition-

“…he used his immense wealth to creatc what was in essence a small kingdom in Wiltshire where he indulged himself in all the human excesses. …he exercised his love of Gothic architecture by creating a monastery-like building on his estate… One entered the building through doors forty feet high, so carefully counter-weighted that they could be opened by two fantastically garbed dwarves in Beckford’s employ.”

Sounds like my kind of guy, apart from the fact that he was eventually outed as a paedophile (it does say all the human excesses). The bastard probably even specified that he was looking for dwarves when he put up his ‘help wanted’ signs, or whatever they did back then.

Anyway, to further indulge in his passion for this kind of thing, Beckford wrote Vathek, a novella in the style of the Arabian Nights. The only version he would have had access to at that time would have been Galland’s 1776 French translation- the original document that sparked an enthusiasm for all things mysterious and Eastern across Europe. Suddenly, no dignified upper-crust European was without a hookah and a funny little round cap. For some reason, another development of this was that all Oriental tales henceforth composed by Europeans were written in French! By the time Vathek was translated into English, it was being falsely claimed as being a genuine Eastern legend, because its author was now shamed and living in exile.

The titular Vathek is the Caliph of the Muslim world and the grandson of Haroun Al Raschid. Raschid was a real-life super-Caliph who reigned during Baghdad’s glorious hey-day, but he was also famously fictionalized in the Arabian Nights. By making Vathek his grandson, Beckford shows us immediately that 1) he knows his Orientalism, and 2) Vathek is a badass. It’s a bit like writing an American novel and having your protagonist be Abraham Lincoln’s grandson, or something.

Like his creator, Vathek is a hedonist. Probably unlike his creator, he can kill men stone dead with a look from his eye when angered. He builds a tower from which he can overlook all of his kingdom, and he adds five wings onto his palace, each of which caters to the pleasuring of one of the five senses. At the beginning, he’s not such a bad guy. He’s happy to share his good living and his pleasure palace with all and sundry. But when a mysterious Indian appears at the palace selling weapons that fight by themselves and other powerful items, Vathek becomes obsessed with acquiring such power. Like Faust, he makes a deal with a demon in order to gain it. And whenever he lags in his commitment to this cause (such as when he falls in love with the daughter of an Emir), his witch of a mother ensures that he continues on his path to damnation. Soon the two of them are merrily sacrificing first-borns and stripping naked in front of pyres full of mummy bones and eyes of newt. Will it all end happily?

Despite being one of the oldest texts I’ve read for the site, Vathek is a relatively smooth read. The characters do talk in a kind of mock-Shakespeare vernacular, with plenty of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’, but by and large the prose rattles along at a pleasant rate. And like the Arabian Nights themselves, the novella is light on character and long on incident. The frequent detours the plot winds into are sometimes tiresome, though it’s hard to remain critical when each is so chock-full of dangerous journeys, wise Viziers, loyal eunachs and graveyards full of helpful ghouls. Even old Mohammad himself makes a brief late appearance- not sure if that’s the kind of twist that goes down well east of Suez.

Vathek himself is clearly a stand-in for Beckford, and an early Gothic anti-hero. Byron himself claimed to have modeled himself somewhat after him. His only weakness (and it’s a whopper) is his desire to experience all things and learn all knowledge. While I don’t advise you to emulate him completely, tracking down a copy of Vathek is recommended for those interested in experiencing what’s largely regarded as being the finest European imitation of the Arabian Nights.

Khartoum (1966)

The great British public have always loved a good failure- Scott, Shackleton and Oates (to name several Antarctic-related examples) all became national heroes because they did not succeed in their efforts, but put up a jolly good fight none the less, and showed the world that the British upper lip remains stiff till the end. To this distinguished list one can add Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, the Governor-General who died at the siege of Khartoum in the Sudan in 1885. In 1966, following the success of Lawrence of Arabia, he finally appeared on film.

The shadow of that earlier movie looms large over Khartoum. Once again, a charismatic English military man is sent into the burning sands to live amongst Arabs (and Europeans in blackface!) and rally them for a historic battle. Sound familiar? In this case that man is Charlton Heston as 'Chinese' Gordon, hero of the Crimean and Opium Wars. British Prime Minister William Gladstone sends Gordon back to the Sudan, where he had clashed with slave traders just a few years before. Trouble is brewing there in the form of one Mohammad Achmed (Laurence Olivier), the self styled Madhi, or 'expected one', who is uniting the various Sudanese tribes against Anglo/Egyptian rule.

The politics of this time are not easily understood, and to its credit the film does try hard to hint at their complexity without getting bogged down in too much detail. If you'll bear with me, I'll provide a little background: Britain under Gladstone was at an unusual point in its Empire-building career. While he was virulently anti-colonial, the British Empire ironically grew faster under his watch than at any other time. Despite his protestations, events continually conspired to cause Britain to engulf country after country.

The Khedive of Egypt, while nominally a subject of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, was in reality completely under the influence of the British and French due to the massive debts the weak ruler owed to European countries. Britain, criticized for allowing Egypt to go to ruin, 'reluctantly' decided to take a more hands-on approach. Thus Gladstone also inherited an unwanted responsibility towards Egypts own 'empire'- the Sudan. Egypt, however, was clearly not up to the task of combating the Mahdi's uprising. Gladstone was left in the unenviable position of having to prevent a humanitarian crisis (the large amount of Egyptians and Europeans who would be massacred should Khartoum fall to the Mahdi) while not wanting to directly involve the British government or army.






















So, one's interpretation of the situation (and of the film) may be, to a large degree, depend on one's opinion of Gladstone himself. He is played as a bit of a villain in the film. As an Irishman, I certainly have a lot of time for the Grand Old Man's distaste towards Britain's habit of acquiring colonies. But having inherited what was already the largest Empire on Earth, this attitude frequently caused him to flip-flop on issues. His refusal to commit to the Sudan- a situation that Britain was already up to its starched collar in- was bound to end in disaster. In place of official British intervention, Gladstone unofficially sent the one man he knew he could distrust- Gordon. But enough history. Is the film any good?

Damn straight it is. For starters, anyone who questions Chuck Heston's ability to carry off charismatic characters like Gordon deserves a bayonet through their DVD collection. Granted, the Omega Man is an extremely unusual choice to play a 19th century British officer, but there wasn't a man alive in 1966 who'd done more to prove his chops for carrying historical epics. His accent tends to migrate more than a wandering albatross, but he brings just the right sense of pathos to Gordon, as the man who fears failure but not death slowly realizes that Khartoum will bring him one of both of these things. Laurence Olivier also makes the most of his part- his Mahdi is a character to be feared from a distance more often than encountered, but his (fictional) meetings with Gordon do not disappoint.

The music is also truly awesome- it ranges from stirring military marches to the kind of exotic sensationalist Orientalism that would have Edward Said choking on his Turkish coffee. Hell, if you're not a fan of un-PC depictions of Eastern culture, then stay away from 19th century British history, and stay the hell away from Khartoum! This is a world of minarets, dancing harem girls and blackface white actors praising Allah. Having said that, the Madhi in particular is played as a smart and complex man, who points out to Gordon that their aims are not so very different. And if he's also portrayed as a barbarian who collects the heads and hands of his enemies- well that's ok, because the real Mahdi was a man who collected the heads and hands of his enemies. So its not all Arabian Nights fantasy.
























As I've stated above, this movie does suffer by comparison with Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence is a British film made by a visionary director comparable in style to Stanley Kubrick (in fact I believe I made this very comparison myself in a previous review). Khartoum is very much a straightforward American-style movie, and fits very much into the 1960s 'epic' movie cycle. The shots are slightly more artless, and the desert is used as a slightly arbitrary location rather than as a character. Perhaps comparisons would be unfair- were it not painfully obvious that Khartoum clearly got the green light because of the success of Lawrence. It even steals the 'overture' and 'intermission' structure of David Leans movie, slightly watering down the concept in the process.

But such gripes aside, the quality of the movie is good evidence that it ought to have been made regardless of circumstances.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

This was intended to be a mini-review.

(That's right. I didn’t think I had too much to say about Lawrence of Arabia.)

The reason for this is that it's a classic, and you should go see it, and that's all there is. If you still need more persuading, let me tell you that this movie features Alec Guinness out in the desert wearing a brown cloak. Given the evidence of Star Wars, that can only be a positive thing.

It's the War to End All Wars, and on the Arabian peninsula, the scheming Brits intend to overthrow the ailing Ottoman Empire by uniting the various squabbling Arab tribes. Granted, compared to the epic slugfest going on in central Europe, it’s a distinctly second-tier affair. Guinness plays the Arab leader Prince Feisal, and Peter O'Toole (repeat offender!!) plays T. E. Lawrence, an Englishman with conflicting feelings of identity. Lawrence is fey and a little bit fruity (not sure if O'Toole intended to portray him as being gay, but it's a possibility). His superiors don't quite trust him, but before you can say 'the Judland wastes are not travelled lightly', Lawrence has recruited Feisal and other chiefs, and sent them on their merry way to raid that hive of Turkish scum and villainy, Aquaba. The Arab Revolt is underway!

This film gets everything right. It's epic without ever being boring or ponderous, and that's a tough line to straddle. Not many four-hour long movies achieve it. The first half of the movie is especially stirring- watching Lawrence whip his rough-and-ready camel commandos into shape as they score some early victories is thrilling. Like djinns, they appear out of the desert leaving the Turkish guns at Aquaba pointing uselessly out to sea. Huzzah! The second half focuses more on political machinations, as Lawrence begins to wonder exactly what the British have planned for the Arabs after the war. Things do slow down a bit here, but it's still fascinating viewing.

The film is similarly rough-and-ready with history. There are inaccuracies and plot holes large enough to march the 11th hussars through, but it all makes for a better movie. The cinematic Lawrence is made more sympathetic by his ignorance of the Sykes-Pycot agreement to annex Arabia, which in real life he was well aware of. Such discrepancies rankle less than they might- often simplifying a complex situation allows a movie to flow better.

In terms of sheer cinematic craft the film is unmatched. When Lawrence first announces his excitement at being sent to Arabia, there's a jump-cut from a lit match to the first burning rays of the rising desert sun that rivals the bone/spacecraft cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey for sheer pretentiousness. In fact, much of the movie is very like Kubrick's classic in feel. Like 2001, much is hinted at rather than explicitly stated in long, lazy scenes.

A note on the score- upon arriving at the top of a hill or mountain and suddenly being confronted with a dramatic view of the surrounding landscape, a suitably dramatic theme is required. I once had a friend who hummed the Lord of the Rings theme to himself in such situations. Not me- for me its gotta be Maurice Jarre's immortal Lawrence score that sums up the right kind of majesty. I've heard it said that the mark of a good movie is how it affects you in your life afterwards- I guess this applies even to trivial things like the above statement.

The most powerful character in the movie is the desert itself, portrayed with stark beauty by director David Lean. The visions of impossibly remote and desolate dune-scapes are awe-inspiring. It’s a harsh, unforgiving and inscrutable world of mirages and quicksand, sandstorms and vicious bedouins. Somebody once called the Arabian campaign 'the last picturesque war'- a somewhat thoughtless but fitting epiphet, given the evidence of this movie.

Deserts hold a fascination for me- the combination of endless flatness and murderous sun is almost the complete opposite of the wet greenery of home (Ireland!). It’s a completely alien world. In an early scene, Lawrence journeys alone through the desert to meet his British contacts, and sings that old music-hall classic 'I'm the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo' to keep his spirits up. He's singing to himself, but the song echoes off the rocks and is reflected back to him. It’s a bit like staring into the abyss, and having the abyss stare back, I guess- this inhospitable environment will mirror aspects of a man's character back at him that he didn't know were there. Indeed, Lawrence finds his life's worth in the desert. It's the old colonial fantasy of the white man who leaves his starched-collar world behind and lives as a native in a more primitive environment where men can be real men (except if they're gay. Maybe).

I guess I did have a bit to say about Lawrence of Arabia. Who would have thought?