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Mary Kingsley: Imperial adventuress
302
Book Reviews
women the often-cited “discourses of femininity” were absolute determinants. In doing so Mills overlooks her texts’ intriguing complexities. For instance, Mills observes correctly that the witty Mary Kingsley “subverts the position of the narrator figure, [and] also the stability of straightforward colonialist statements in general. For example, [Kingsley’s] humour is directed at the male narrative voice of the genre which needs to keep every situation firmly under control when she says: ‘I have seen at close quarters specimens of the more important big game of Central Africa, and with the exception of snakes, I have run away from all of them’ . Not only is [Kingsley] making fun of herself as a woman and as a westerner, but also she is mocking the type of statement made by male writers, where bravery, courage, and not losing face are seen as paramount virtues” (p. 164). The emphasis on “with the exception of snakes” is mine; through that phrase, characteristically ignored by Mills, Mary Kingsley breaks out of and subverts one of those “discourses of femininity” that Mills apparently believes prohibits Kingsley as a woman from making the kind of “colonial traveler” statements of personal bravery expected of men. On this occasion, as on others, Mills presents conclusions far less ambiguously than her texts warrant because she overlooks their subtleties. But if it is crucial-and it is- to notice how women writers conform to limitation, it is equally important-perhaps even more so-to notice when and how they effect an escape. Although Discourses of Difference is not the book it might have been, I trust it will prompt continuing attention to its fascinating subject matter. LINNEAB.VACCA SAINTMARY'SCOLLEGE NoTREDAME,IN,USA
MARYKINGSLEY:IMPERIALADVENTURESS, byDeaBirkett, 213 pages. Macmillan, London, 1992. Since the advent of poststructuralism, writing a biography has become a problematic enterprise. In academic literary circles, biographical criticism has more or less disappeared, and biographers have hedged around their accounts with introductions drawing the reader’s attention to the fictional status of their texts. Feminist critics have always displayed ambivalence about ‘death’ of the author and the fictionality of biographical accounts, since they are aware that women’s texts are treated in a very different way to male authored writing. For many, it feels as if the deconstruction process has started before women’s writing has been accorded the status which the process of critique aims to destabilise. Dea Birkett’s biography of Mary Kingsley, a 19th century traveller in West Africa, takes on board some of these critiques of biography by presenting the life in a narrative where there are two clearly demarcated modes: wellresearched, footnoted statements about Kingsley gained from analysis of her writings, letters and contemporary writing about her, and more novelistic musings about Kingsley’s motives and actions. In her introduction, Birkett addresses this problem of constructing a life, and foregrounds the fact that there are many different Mary Kingsleys, all of them constructed by different interests. Birkett discusses the fictionalising process involved in writing a biography and considers some of the problems
of overreliance on documents to provide the information necessary to construct a coherent life. She herself draws attention to the problems involved in writing a biography about someone who said that she had ‘no personal individuality of my own whatsoever.’ Birkett questions the assumptions which generally underlie the writing of women’s biographies: that women are restricted to the private, domestic sphere and are concerned primarily with relationships and that those women who have active public lives must experience conflict with their ‘real’ feminine self. Birkett details the way in which Kingsley was a being constructed out of a range of disparate and contradictory discourses and modes of behaviour, yet she is very careful to present that as an aspect of selfhood in general: she says “Mary Kingsley was a staunch imperialist and an anti-colonial, a defender of African rights and a spokesperson against women’s suffrage, vehemently anti-missionary and with deeply held personal beliefs, a socialite and a social recluse. Yet there is no contradiction between any of the parts which Mary Kingsley played. They are the organic whole of which she, like all of us, is made.” I found this attempt to write biography despite these theoretical problems admirable, particularly since it is a biography of someone as intriguing as Mary Kingsley. Her involvement in discussions of colonialism at a government level and her travels through West Africa accompanied by Fan tribesmen provide a strange contrast to the image of her as a straightlaced Victorian spinster. The sections in this biography which dealt with Kingsley in the public sphere were excellent. There are a number of minor problems with the book: first, I found Birkett’s fictionalising discussion of Kingsley’s sexual or sensual life over-interpreted, and there were moments in the fictionalising sections of the book in general where the style became a little breathless. A further problem is Birkett’s choice of a subtitle: Adventuress has negative connotations which seem to undercut the main thrust of the book. Furthermore, although I appreciated the sections where Birkett traced the way that Kingsley often carefully constructed her own version of herself for different sets of people, this sometimes began to seem like detective work and a little carping: It is quite clear that Kingsley exaggerated the time she spent in Africa and her activities there. However, this seems to have been a failing of most 19th century travel writers. This attempt to expose the way that Kingsley tried to control representations of her own life does serve a useful purpose, because it makes it impossible for a romanticised version of her life to be presented. The book as a whole is a very readable narrative of an exceptional woman’s life, which can be read as a source of inspiration to those women in the 1990s who still struggle with the constraints imposed on us and who still battle with state involvement in other countries. Kingsley was a victim of many of the discourses about the colonial situation at the time, but she tried to challenge some practices of the British government with which she disagreed. This biography demonstrates the way that an individual takes part in the construction of knowledge, but it points to inspiring ways in which even at an individual level it is possible to resist. SARAMILLS DEPARTMENTOFENCLISHANDDRAMA UNIVERSITYOFLOUGHBOROUGH, UK
Book Reviews
women the often-cited “discourses of femininity” were absolute determinants. In doing so Mills overlooks her texts’ intriguing complexities. For instance, Mills observes correctly that the witty Mary Kingsley “subverts the position of the narrator figure, [and] also the stability of straightforward colonialist statements in general. For example, [Kingsley’s] humour is directed at the male narrative voice of the genre which needs to keep every situation firmly under control when she says: ‘I have seen at close quarters specimens of the more important big game of Central Africa, and with the exception of snakes, I have run away from all of them’ . Not only is [Kingsley] making fun of herself as a woman and as a westerner, but also she is mocking the type of statement made by male writers, where bravery, courage, and not losing face are seen as paramount virtues” (p. 164). The emphasis on “with the exception of snakes” is mine; through that phrase, characteristically ignored by Mills, Mary Kingsley breaks out of and subverts one of those “discourses of femininity” that Mills apparently believes prohibits Kingsley as a woman from making the kind of “colonial traveler” statements of personal bravery expected of men. On this occasion, as on others, Mills presents conclusions far less ambiguously than her texts warrant because she overlooks their subtleties. But if it is crucial-and it is- to notice how women writers conform to limitation, it is equally important-perhaps even more so-to notice when and how they effect an escape. Although Discourses of Difference is not the book it might have been, I trust it will prompt continuing attention to its fascinating subject matter. LINNEAB.VACCA SAINTMARY'SCOLLEGE NoTREDAME,IN,USA
MARYKINGSLEY:IMPERIALADVENTURESS, byDeaBirkett, 213 pages. Macmillan, London, 1992. Since the advent of poststructuralism, writing a biography has become a problematic enterprise. In academic literary circles, biographical criticism has more or less disappeared, and biographers have hedged around their accounts with introductions drawing the reader’s attention to the fictional status of their texts. Feminist critics have always displayed ambivalence about ‘death’ of the author and the fictionality of biographical accounts, since they are aware that women’s texts are treated in a very different way to male authored writing. For many, it feels as if the deconstruction process has started before women’s writing has been accorded the status which the process of critique aims to destabilise. Dea Birkett’s biography of Mary Kingsley, a 19th century traveller in West Africa, takes on board some of these critiques of biography by presenting the life in a narrative where there are two clearly demarcated modes: wellresearched, footnoted statements about Kingsley gained from analysis of her writings, letters and contemporary writing about her, and more novelistic musings about Kingsley’s motives and actions. In her introduction, Birkett addresses this problem of constructing a life, and foregrounds the fact that there are many different Mary Kingsleys, all of them constructed by different interests. Birkett discusses the fictionalising process involved in writing a biography and considers some of the problems
of overreliance on documents to provide the information necessary to construct a coherent life. She herself draws attention to the problems involved in writing a biography about someone who said that she had ‘no personal individuality of my own whatsoever.’ Birkett questions the assumptions which generally underlie the writing of women’s biographies: that women are restricted to the private, domestic sphere and are concerned primarily with relationships and that those women who have active public lives must experience conflict with their ‘real’ feminine self. Birkett details the way in which Kingsley was a being constructed out of a range of disparate and contradictory discourses and modes of behaviour, yet she is very careful to present that as an aspect of selfhood in general: she says “Mary Kingsley was a staunch imperialist and an anti-colonial, a defender of African rights and a spokesperson against women’s suffrage, vehemently anti-missionary and with deeply held personal beliefs, a socialite and a social recluse. Yet there is no contradiction between any of the parts which Mary Kingsley played. They are the organic whole of which she, like all of us, is made.” I found this attempt to write biography despite these theoretical problems admirable, particularly since it is a biography of someone as intriguing as Mary Kingsley. Her involvement in discussions of colonialism at a government level and her travels through West Africa accompanied by Fan tribesmen provide a strange contrast to the image of her as a straightlaced Victorian spinster. The sections in this biography which dealt with Kingsley in the public sphere were excellent. There are a number of minor problems with the book: first, I found Birkett’s fictionalising discussion of Kingsley’s sexual or sensual life over-interpreted, and there were moments in the fictionalising sections of the book in general where the style became a little breathless. A further problem is Birkett’s choice of a subtitle: Adventuress has negative connotations which seem to undercut the main thrust of the book. Furthermore, although I appreciated the sections where Birkett traced the way that Kingsley often carefully constructed her own version of herself for different sets of people, this sometimes began to seem like detective work and a little carping: It is quite clear that Kingsley exaggerated the time she spent in Africa and her activities there. However, this seems to have been a failing of most 19th century travel writers. This attempt to expose the way that Kingsley tried to control representations of her own life does serve a useful purpose, because it makes it impossible for a romanticised version of her life to be presented. The book as a whole is a very readable narrative of an exceptional woman’s life, which can be read as a source of inspiration to those women in the 1990s who still struggle with the constraints imposed on us and who still battle with state involvement in other countries. Kingsley was a victim of many of the discourses about the colonial situation at the time, but she tried to challenge some practices of the British government with which she disagreed. This biography demonstrates the way that an individual takes part in the construction of knowledge, but it points to inspiring ways in which even at an individual level it is possible to resist. SARAMILLS DEPARTMENTOFENCLISHANDDRAMA UNIVERSITYOFLOUGHBOROUGH, UK