ROH Press The Mystery of the Black Jungle

I've gotten into Emilio Salgari's books in the last year, and they are immensely fun. Mystery of the Black Jungle is no exception and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a classic adventure story. The settings are vivid and the sense of mystery and adventure into the unknown keeps you turning the pages. They are a bit dated by how some animals are portrayed as these deadly and aggressive creatures (or maybe I just don't know how animals actually act), and the heroes feel like they get severe tunnel vision every now and then and make foolish choices, but that doesn't hurt Salgari's stories' entertainment level one bit. It's a shame that Salgari isn't more well-known in the USA. He belongs with the ranks of Kipling, Stevenson, and Verne.

Well, the novel is good and entertaining as far as literary merits are concerned. The reason I do not give it the highest rating is the author's appalling lack of knowledge about the country he was writing on. Tremal Naik? Is that at all a Bengali name? And which Bengali (Hindu or otherwise) does not know about Mother Kali? The author also knew little about the historical Thugs and gives us a garbled version of Thuggee instead. It is true that the tale is entertainingly fast paced. But one may find this element in abundance in any contemporary thriller. Perhaps, in our age, the book is good only to researchers.

Having read and enjoyed Emilio Salgari’s The Tigers of Mompracem (see my review) I learned that a prominent character in his Sandokan saga, Tremal-Naik the hunter, first appears in The Mystery of the Black Jungle. So, being an organized reader and writer, I backtracked and read it before forging on to the next Sandokan installment. The unique thing about Tremal-Naik is that unlike some better known fictive heroes such as H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quartemain, or Hollywood’s Jungle Jim, he’s a renown Indian hunter who works around the delta of the Ganges River in 1850s British India. While by a riverside on several occasions he gazes at the opposite bank and beholds a young woman so stunningly beautiful that he instantly falls madly in love with her. And she is just as smitten by the love bug as Tremal-Naik. Impossible you say? Not so in classic genre fiction, of which this book is a fine example. However, Ada Corishant – for that is the beauty’s name – lives in the Black Jungle; a place so ominous that few dare tread. Dead set on finding her our lovesick hero, his pet Bengal tiger Darma and his faithful servant Kammamuri trek there, only to discover that she is a white priestess worshiped by the Thugs; a mean and vicious Indian cult who are sworn enemies of the British. What follows is at the very heart of this highly enjoyable novel. With skill and dexterity Emilio Salgari – whose knowledge of local flora and fauna always impresses; though a glossary would’ve been helpful – leads us into one extraordinary episode after another until the very last page, in which a breathtaking conclusion rewards the avid reader. Enjoy. -Victor Rodriguez, author of Taíno Sunrise.

Full of adventures. Never one minute to be bored! Awesome book!

I could have gotten over the simplistic swashbuckling style of writing if more virtue had been included in the plot. The characters kill each other like swatting flies. Of course the bad guys would, but so do the "good guys". The hero exhibits faithful love to his "love-at-first-sight" maiden, but he's willing to slaughter innocents to save her. The story's portrayal of Hindu culture is horrific, the kind of story that fosters xenophobia.....human sacrificing. The "holy men" show no qualms about murder. I'm not naive enough to think everyone in India is a saint, but this story makes it seem like the Hindu temples are teaming with nightmarish fiends. Since it was written in the 1800's it's not surprising. The hero is Indian himself, so the story doesn't suffer the white savior syndrome, but still is a gross misrepresentation of the beautiful culture of the East Indian mysticism. A 12 year old might enjoy the stupid plot better, but I wouldn't recommend it because the lack of values and cultural misrepresentations could mislead a child.