The African Queen by C. S. Forester (1935)

Well the movie has a substantially better ending than the book.
But Rose is a much stronger woman in the book, has lots of internal dialog, and the narrator adds much more too than in the movie, thus making her far more interesting.
Actually Kate could have played her just as written, she had played many strong and resourceful women, but I guess the producers wanted a more post war "wife"?  But you can always tell when you are in the middle of a John Houston movie; it just moves from scene to scene; not a minute wasted. Bogart is amazing; his facial expressions are brilliant!

I think we have to remember that writing in the 30's was beginning to experiment a little more on the racy side; and so the character became something that would have been unthinkable in the previous century.

When finally on her own out from under the men of her own family Rose comes into her own for the first time in her life. She however understands how men work and how to manipulate them too. Charlie is a man that needs a mission, direction, and a goal, that's all. He is a capable man that can make, fix, & repair anything. In the 30's he would be the equivalent of today's twenty something that can do anything with any media devise.

Got this cool 1st ed. from Abe.

This was my first Forester foray, and I have to say that it seems like he simply got tired at the end and threw the manuscript on the floor, "done." Without the brilliance of the movie ending it is a let-down. The reading is quick and easy and makes a great companion to the movie.

Passages I like:

Forester describes Rose' approach to the next rapid. "where the hand had to be steady and strong and subtle and the will resolute."

Rose' take on "men." "She could not conceive of a man finding anything impossible in his world, as long as he was not bothered, and given plenty to eat."

The naivete of Rose is described as such: "She did not yet know she could scold; she had never tasted the sweet delights of giving rein to ill temper."

 Here we get Forester's German jab: "Allnutt's contact with the German nation had been unfortunate; the Germnas were a race it was easy to hate if hatred came easily, as it did in those days."


Forester is writing while looking directly into the teeth of the Nazi raise to power.