Good Stuff to Read

I just finished Pat Shipman's To the Heart of the Nile.




I am an explorer fanatic, and this was a really good read. Most history books about the exploration of the Nile in the 19th century refer to "Samuel Baker and his wife Florence" as part of the story. This book steps back and says, "hey - wait a minute. What kind of woman goes exploring in Africa?"

Florence had very shady origins, that she didn't talk about until very late in life - only her husband really knew, and he never said either. The result is that Shipman has to do a lot of guesswork to figure out where she came from. But it's believed she actually was a harem slave that Baker picked up (bought? stole? who knows?) somewhere in the Ottoman Empire.

In any case, they were, incredibly, a love match, and were utterly devoted to each other for the next thirty-odd years. The snippets from Baker's letters about Florence ("To her I have done my duty, and for her I would sacrifice position, wealth, life - everything...") are as romantic as any novel. There was a lot of censure on Baker because of his "nobody" wife, all of which he happily withstood for her sake. And when England got too stuffy for them, they went to Africa.

The politics of African exploration are as interesting as the adventure stories. It's easy to think of snooty white people descending to "civilize" the natives and ruin everything, but it is never quite that simple. The Bakers, for example, nearly died trying to eradicate the slave trade; their naivite sprang from the fact that slavery was so ingrained in the economy that no one was interested in getting rid of it, and there was no infrastructure to educate, medicate, or employ any of the freed slaves.

My only problem with this book - and it nearly turned me off at first - is the novelistic style Shipman uses. She recreates dialogue, and even interior monologue, all of which she claims to be extrapolating from the Bakers' journals and letters. It's not a very believable device, as Shipman is not a gifted dialogue writer:

"Where the truth lies in this detestable country it is hard to say," Sam confided to Florence.

"We travel amongst liars and thieves," Florence responded. "I suppose we must judge only by what we know or have seen ourselves."

There are detailed reference notes on all of it, but, you know. If you relax your history hangups and let the story flow, though, it'll keep you riveted; don't let the style cause you to miss a good book.

Abby