IN DESERT AND WILDERNESS

Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Year: 1978 (1911)
Publisher: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy
Language: Polish

It seems commonly to be so that writers of children’s books are moderately successful when targeting a mature audience, and writers of literature aimed at adults fail to capture the hearts of the young whenever they try their luck at stories for children. Many have tried. Scandinavian legends Astrid Lindgren and H C Andersen are two examples of the former. Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf two examples of the latter.

There are a few, however, who have managed to make their mark on literature for all age groups. Swedish Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf is one. German writer and journalist Peter Härtling is another. Polish epicist Henryk Sienkiewicz a third.

Although Sienkiewicz is best known for his historical epics such as “Quo Vadis” or “The Teutonic Knights”, he is equally appreciated for his young adult novel “W pustyni i w puszczy” (“In Desert and Wilderness”). Despite the fact that this was Sienkiewicz’s only attempt at writing for teenagers, the book has become a classic in Polish literature and generations of Polish students have read it before graduating from grammar school.

The plot is set in Africa during the height of the colonial era. Staś and Nel grow up together near the Suez Canal and are fourteen and eight years old respectively when the story begins. Staś is the son of a Polish engineer leading the construction of the canal and Nel is the daughter of one of the senior directors of the company running the project. The fathers, both widowers, have become great friends over the years and also taken each other’s children to their hearts.

The point in time is 1884, just about the siege of Khartoum during the Mahdist war in Sudan. Staś’s and Nel’s fathers are called away on business and promise to send for the children once they have established themselves in their new location. When they finally do, the servants tasked with bringing Staś and Nel to them betray them and carry the children off to revolutionist Mahdi instead. The young captives realise that if they want to survive, they will have to find a way to escape from their captors.

Staś, who in the beginning of the story appears both boastful and vain, instinctively takes on the role as Nel’s protector. He proves himself protective, loyal and resourceful and on several occasions risks his life in order to save Nel’s. Nel, on the other hand, despite her tender age keeps Staś in line and more than once stops him from making mistakes or taking unnecessary risks.

The novel is aimed for a young adult audience in its early teens and upward but it shows that it is written by a master of the epic proportion and colourful characters. It is beautifully written, full of life and rich in flavour. The sentences, although suitably simple, are carefully crafted and contain much of the powerful yet gentle language that Sienkiewicz was world famous for during his lifetime.

But it also shows that he did not find it mandatory to spend his otherwise trademark attention to detail and facts on children. For although the historical context of “W pustyni i w puszczy” is largely correct, and the geographical descriptions are mostly accurate, his depictions of people and animals are bordering on fantasy. Vindictive elephants, oversized dogs that successfully fight lions and hyenas, one-dimensional representations of the local population and almost ludicrous dialogue where natives can barely put together a sentence in one moment, use elaborate vocabulary in the next, are all caricatures of what I assume someone born in the end of the 19^th century might imagine Africa to be. It is hard to believe that Sienkiewicz actually spent time there before writing this book, but he did.

Particularly the Muslim antagonists are portrayed not only as cruel and single-minded, but at times almost intellectually challenged (I believe the word Sienkiewicz’s contemporaries would use is “imbecile”). Furthermore, the relationship between Staś, the decision-maker and protector, and Nel, the damsel in distress, is all too well-known, although Sienkiewicz avoids some of the fiercest criticism by introducing a significant age gap between them.  

Modern critics have rightly questioned whether “W pustyni i w puszczy” should remain on the school curriculum provided its inaccurate and essentially racist content. Seeing as the book is intended for adolescents, this question is valid. However, as a reasonably well-educated adult, one should be expected to be able to identify these as relics of a past worldview no longer supported by society, and enjoy the novel for its remaining qualities.

Qualities of which there are many. There is no doubt that Sienkiewicz was a sublime storyteller. His environmental descriptions are enchanting and the main characters relatable and likeable. The storyline is simple but engaging and the pace is steady, although I suspect that a teenager in the 21^st century might find it too slow. We need to accept that an elephant simply does not make the same impression on the tiktok-generation as it did on the pegtop-generation.  

SPOILER ALERT

There are three random observations from my side that were probably unintentional from Sienkiewicz’s side but were all too obvious to me as a 21^st century reader.

The first is that Staś’s and Nel’s fathers appear to be very close friends, to the point of creating a family together for their children. To be clear, there is absolutely no trace of any romantic feelings between them, but short of that, they would make a remarkable same-sex couple.

The second observation is that Staś’s servant, Kali, is repeatedly quoted still to this day as a symbol of primitive morality when he concludes that stealing a cow from Kali is a bad deed, whereas if Kali steals a cow from someone else, it is a good deed. What people who quote these lines from the book as a way to make fun of non-European cultures fail to remember, and which I did not know until reading the book, is that Staś when he heard Kali’s reasoning thinks to himself that it sounds very much like high level politics is done in Europe at the time. Sienkiewicz 1, racists 0.

The third observation is that Staś and Nel, after surviving the ordeals in Africa, return to Europe and do not get together again until they are adults. To my disappointment, in the epilogue, Sienkiewicz decides to wed them in holy matrimony which shakes my image of them as brother and sister and is completely unnecessary for the ending of the novel.

All in all, even though I mostly enjoyed “W pustyni i w puszczy” my recommendation to someone who is curious about Henryk Sienkiewicz would be to read “Quo Vadis”, and someone who is curious about old young adult novels with adventure in them to read “Treasure Island”.