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5.0 out of 5 stars
My favourite adventure book from all time!, Dec 13 2003
My favourite adventure book from all time... 8 November, 2003
Let's be fair, I am very biased in favor of it, so you are in for a very one-sided opinion... If you have seen the film (wathever the one, either the one with Ronald Colman (seems is good but very hard to find), the one with Gary Cooper&Ray Milland is I think the best known... and do not miss the excellent miniseries by the BBC...)OK, enough about films!
The films are good but tend to miss the point completly, I acknowledge is very difficult to adapt a novel to film, but in this special case (even if it has been done brilliantly) THEY DO NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE BOOK...
So, I must recommend to you to read the book and judge for yourself... if delighted follow on with "Beau sabreur", "Beau Ideal", "Good Gestes" and "Spanish Maine"...
Actually the prejudice shown by P.C.Wren to italians, spaniards and specially germans HAS TO BE READ IN CONTEXT, it has not in the least provoked the book to be a flop in those countries (but sure it has not help it to be a success either...).
P.C.Wren did not like very much other races (see his works set in India and you'll understand the comment...) and his prose tends to be a little "British race superior" infected, well if you are british probably THAT will no bother you at all mind... but even if not british at all YOU WILL DELIGHT IN THE DEFENSE OF THE VALUES OF BROTHERLY LOVE; HONOR, DUTY, FRIENDSHIP ETC, wich are quite international do not forget...
I am against revealing plots, there are a lot of other reviewer who do, I am just satisfied to tell you I have read this book countless times and still remains in my top one for all times...
A huge P.C.Wren fan since childhood (I think I read "Beau Geste" for the first time when I was nine years old... if not sooner, I can recall...), I have chased in secondhand bookshops and specialized dealers for the rest of his production, and happy to say I've read them all!, probably the novels set in India and his tales about the merchant navy aren't as good (or SO MUCH good) as the one's dealing with the french foreign legion but still above average.
A part from the books mentioned I found "Soldiers of misfortune" and "The Uniform of Glory" the best from the rest.
Enjoy.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as its reputation, Sep 22 2003
I don't share most reviewers' enthusiasm for Percival Wren's book. The framework story unfolds at a painfully slow pace and the adventurous part of recruitment, training and life of the Geste brothers in the Foreign Legion is not broad enough. Too bad, because the French Foreign Legion, shrouded in the myth of secrecy and adventure, fascinates many to this day (including myself) and deserves to be object of a more suspenseful novel. The Foreign Legion garrison heroically defending Fort Zinderneuf against the Arabic attacks is undoubtedly the most memorable image of Wren's story. It is at the heart of the adventure for which the book is famous and Wren deserves the credit for the idea. But he spends too much time on minor characters and inconsequential dialogue. The characters are awfully stereotypical (the cunning and deceitful Italians, the brutal and primitive Germans, the noble and chivalrous English, the lighthearted and naïve Americans and the greedy and egotistical French - oh brother). Maybe many book reviewers are influenced by the great movie from 1939 (with Gary Cooper and Ray Milland). It is pretty true to the novel but focuses on the part of the story I was looking for and is well paced. In Wren's book, you have to read through more than 100 pages of turgid story telling before the Geste brothers even get to the Foreign Legion. Its longwinded explanations and speculations on the characters' motivation and the possible outcome of the inherent intrigues seem terribly old fashioned for the 21st century reader. This shortcoming of Wren's story telling ability diminishes the enjoyment of the book. Wren is no Alexandre Dumas who can write a novel of 1400 pages ("The Count of Monte Cristo") and still make it easy reading.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Action adventure at its best, Jul 17 2003
I had seen many of the movies as a kid, so I thought I should get the rest of the story by reading the book. Well, I was delightfully surprised by the book. The book was much more mysterious and intriguing then the movies.
I liked the way the plot developed but the brothers seemed to age a lot more or maybe just matured more as the book went on. When you first meet them in Beau Geste and his band everyone comes across as if they were teenagers but within a couple of days after the disappearance of the blue water when the brothers join the legend you find out that they are all in their early 20s. The time in the legend seems longer too like almost 4 years but at the end of the story it's about half as long as that.
The one thing about the version of the book I was reading which was the one with the pictures from the 1926 film was that there were no maps. So what I did was as I followed the brothers I would go on mapquest and print a map of the area and trace their route. Then I would fold it and keep it at that point in the book. I like the fact that they kept many of the terms in the native tongue. I have word and there are these downloads free from Microsoft that you can download so that you can translate in to many different languages. Between making the maps and figuring out the translations it made the book much more adventurous for me.
I did not know much about the history of Algeria and I did not realize that the French had fought with the Arabs in Northern Africa for many generations. The Arabs are pretty stereotyped but there is the fact that the brothers learn Arabic to keep their minds sharp and this helps them down the road. I did not realize that Arabic languages were spoken all along North Africa and that it is mostly dessert. I thought that was more of the Middle East.
You will notice that all the bad guys seem to be of the same nationality either being French like Legume or Italian like Bondini as opposed to the good guys being the English and the Americans. I like the fact that the American's were Texas Rangers because I think that is how the rest of the world perceives us. Buddy and Hank might have been caricatures but they were always honest and true just like the English characters of John, Digby and Michael were proper and honorable.
The best part of the book was after the Fort at Zindernuf because you really don't see that part in the movies and you see how John, Digby, Buddy and Hank try to help each other to get to the English city of Kano in Nigeria. I really wanted to know what happened to one of the Americans but I won't give that away.
At the end of the book I thought that I had everything figured out and I would know what Michael's letter was going to say but I was pretty surprise and it made me enjoy the overall theme of the novel.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes adventure novels about far away places.
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