- Paperback: 348 pages
- Publisher: iUniverse.com (1 Sep 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0595291333
- ISBN-13: 978-0595291335
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 16.3 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,022,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Elijah Kinch Spector at www.goodreads.com and www.abouttocharge.wordpress.com
So, in my many searches for the best in historical, swashbuckler-type adventure fiction, I have more than once stumbled across the name of Emilio Salgari-usually mentioned by native Italian-speakers who lament that they cannot share his greatness with their English-speaking friends. Having now read the first book, Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem, I must say that I can see what all the fuss is about, but I would have seen it all even better had I been able to read the book when I was about thirteen. The story of an entirely vicious, hate-filled, revenge-obsessed pirate who suddenly (very, very suddenly) falls in love, causing everything to change for him, is full of the kind of melodrama, and spurts of blood, that I would have loved at that age.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Excerpt from a review by Prof. Georges T. Dodds, SFSite.com
Ah--! finally a book to keep me up reading until 3 a.m. rather than put it down -- it sure has been awhile! Emilio Salgari's pirate tale, The Tigers of Mompracem, serialized in the Italian newspaper La Nuova Arena in 1883-4, first published in book form in 1900, and here translated for the first time into English, is so chock full of action that the best cultural equivalent in North America that I could propose would have been the better dime-novel adventures of the late 19th-early 20th century. Or, perhaps think Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s swashbuckling movies, or, if in a different genre, the Indiana Jones films -- this is the sort of thing Salgari has put to paper. Variously termed the father of heroes, the Italian Verne, the Italian Dumas, the father of Italian adventure fiction and even the grandfather of the Spaghetti Western, by his countrymen, Salgari sure could write a top-notch adventure novel.
Dr. Georges Dodds is a research scientist at McGill Univeristy whose interests lie predominantly in both English and French pre-1950 imaginative fiction. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Some books, old as they might be, tend to leave some significant marks within us.
In my case, the most significant writer that had the biggest impact, was Emilio Salgari. Albeit he never left Italy, he managed to describe places around the world with such vivid detail that the reader actually felt there. One of my favourite series was about the Indian prince Sandokan, who fought viciously against the British in order to reclaim his empire stolen by them.
What caught my attention was the fact that there were no good guys or bad guys in these books. Albeit Sandokan was the hero we cheered for, he was capable of tremendous atrocities, like killing every single person on a ship he may had captured. At the same time, the bad guys, in this case the British forces, were not just bent on the destruction of everything they came across. We got a sense that these were real people doing what they did because they seriously believed in it and not because they had some secret agenda of evil they needed to follow.
The most impressive thing is that there was a real sense of comradeship in these stories, combined with admiration and respect between adversaries. Field Marshall Rommell and General Patton were enemies, but they had profound respect and admiration for each other and what each had achieved strategically. This type of chivalry, in our present-day world, seems to have disappeared, replaced instead with this weird and ever-changing sense of "respect" based on who packs the biggest gun or the most bling-bling.
On top of that, in these books, I learned about life: good people die, bad guys win. Bad guys would do good things and sometimes the good guys, especially when pushed to their limits, would do horrible things. I seem to have the habit, every once in a while, to grab one of the twelve books and devour it in a day. As a kid, it used to take me weeks to read one of them.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When I was a child there were two great adventure writers we held above all, Julio Verne and Emilio Salgari. Both men were prolific adventure writers and took us around the world with their stories, introducing us to the people and customs of far away lands in the process. I read Sandokan in Spanish when I was a child and it is still one of my favorite books. Salgari's books were always full of fast paced adventure and Sandokan The Tiger of Malyasia one of his most legendary heroes. When I learned the book had finally been translated into English, I bought it for my 9-year-old son; he loved it. He read it with a dictionary next to him for looking up "pirate" words he didn't know. Now he has lent the book to his cousin who doesn't like to read. She hasn't put it down for two days! These stories go back two generations in my family, and now they have been passed on to our children. Thanks for making Salgari's works available in English!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you like irrational excessive adventures as those of today's Stieg Larsson, you can't lose Salgari. Emilio Salgari was a popular writer practically contemporary of Jules Verne, but both were frontally opposite in his conception of adventures. Verne's adventures exposed the goodness of scientific progress, kindness and reason prevailed in its characters as was typical of those who believed in the science advances of S. XIX. But Salgari is in the antipodes of that: in his many novels, instead reason, ever prevails the most dark instincts and irrational, excessive, gratuitous violence and superstition. Terrible tortures are explained in great detail (I do not recommend these books for children today.) The pirates, in this case Sandokan and his fierce men of Mompracem, as the ferocious Hindu warrior Tremal- Naik Tremal or Kahmmamuri doesn't hesitate to steal or buy the best British weapons to use them against England. Love and hate are always tremendous and horrific. You don't search any moral here, and this involves both the British governor Lord James Brooke and his deadly enemy Sandokan and his lieutenant the Portuguese Yanez, for the dispute on the island of Mompracem and the love of the English woman Lady Mariana Guillonk. So, Sandokan And Lord Brooke fights to death, at land and sea.
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