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Literary Review, March 2007
'The Hottentot Venus' is a significant and timely book...Rachel
Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Holmes' biography of this unhappy woman is gripping and meticulously researched' Spectator 'A significant and timely book ... Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story. Saartjie Baartman has found the perfect biographer' Frances Wilson, Literary Review 'Musters as much factual information as possible, telling her tale with care and respect' Independent 'Impeccable ... In telling her extraordinary story, Holmes's fascinating book illuminates the forces which dominated her age, and resound in our own' Sunday Telegraph
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A beautifully written text, this book is a prize for any bookshelf. Rachel Holmes has succeeded once again in blending impeccable research with delightful prose; and when combined, invites the reader into a different place, a different time, a different viewpoint...at first, we are at one with the indigenous population of South Africa, following a story of domestic drudgery and bad luck - suddenly we are ripped from our comfort zone and introduced to a freak-obsessed showcase London - profit wins over protection and a lifetime of servitude makes itself abundantly clear to our subject, Saartjie Baartman. She reacts to her new surroundings accordingly and that is what makes her story all the more poignant.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Two sets of human attributes are most fascinating to us. The first are
those which we believe we share with others and so enhance our common
humanity. The second, and more dangerous, and those which we believe
show up our differences, and help us to define ourselves, both as
groups and as individuals. Those differences sometimes give grist to
primitive and irrational racism.
Sartjie Baartman was a young Koisan (the current non-racist word used
for people formerly known as Hottentots and bushmen) woman born in the
1790s into the serving classes in Cape Town in the important and
remote trading teritory of Dutch/British South Africa. She was very
pretty and had a most enormous and, for Europe, unusual steatopygic bottom. She was brought to London and exhibited as a kind of freak show. She went on to Paris, and died there around 1815.
In London, anti-slavery campaigners had agitated for her human rights; in Paris she was seen as of scientific interest, and eventually dehumanised. Following her early death, she became a specimen on the shelves of a Paris museum. Following South Africa's renaissance under Mr Mandela, he requestedthat her remains be returned to her native country, which they duly were, and there she has achieved a mother-of-the-nation status.
Rachel Holmes' book starts with the historical background of Sartjie's
origins in Cape Town and follows her journeys to London and Paris and
her final return home to modern South Africa. The book is highly
readable and authoritative, not sparing in criticism of the
absurdities of the European scientists of the era nor of the details
of Saartje's short and tragic life. Read it and weep.
those which we believe we share with others and so enhance our common
humanity. The second, and more dangerous, and those which we believe
show up our differences, and help us to define ourselves, both as
groups and as individuals. Those differences sometimes give grist to
primitive and irrational racism.
Sartjie Baartman was a young Koisan (the current non-racist word used
for people formerly known as Hottentots and bushmen) woman born in the
1790s into the serving classes in Cape Town in the important and
remote trading teritory of Dutch/British South Africa. She was very
pretty and had a most enormous and, for Europe, unusual steatopygic bottom. She was brought to London and exhibited as a kind of freak show. She went on to Paris, and died there around 1815.
In London, anti-slavery campaigners had agitated for her human rights; in Paris she was seen as of scientific interest, and eventually dehumanised. Following her early death, she became a specimen on the shelves of a Paris museum. Following South Africa's renaissance under Mr Mandela, he requestedthat her remains be returned to her native country, which they duly were, and there she has achieved a mother-of-the-nation status.
Rachel Holmes' book starts with the historical background of Sartjie's
origins in Cape Town and follows her journeys to London and Paris and
her final return home to modern South Africa. The book is highly
readable and authoritative, not sparing in criticism of the
absurdities of the European scientists of the era nor of the details
of Saartje's short and tragic life. Read it and weep.
Format:Hardcover
This is a really fabulous book, a gripping read, and a great study on many levels, whether the history of South Africa, London in the eighteenth century or just man's humanity/inhumanity to man (and I include woman in that generalisation), perhaps borne out of fascination and curiosity. Highly recommended.
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