When I began to reread Green Mansions recently I instantly remembered why it impressed me so much. More than most other authors Hudson is able to instill the sense of wonder through his protagonist Abel who, while living by the Orinoco river in Venezuela, is drawn to the forest lands by strange bird-like singing. There he discovers a young girl named Rima and it is her story that takes up much of the remainder of the novel. Hudson based Rima and her lost tribe on persistent rumors about a tribe of white people who lived in the mountains. Temple paintings often showed light-skinned people, and Spanish Conquistadors were at first thought to be gods. I first read this novel when I was in high school and the memory of its' evocative and lyrical prose has lingered over the intervening decades. The story is one of people who are almost in an original state of nature, a romantic, if flawed, view that suggests their world may be better than civilization.
Green Mansions is one of the few novels ever to become an undisputed classic during the author's lifetime. It is a book I found to be truly enthralling and full of romantic magic making it a great read. ( )

Be warned there are some spoilers in this review.

I read Green Mansions ages ago, and always remembered two things from it. The first is the rather profound image of the ethereal jungle-girl being burned out of her tree and hurtling earthward like a beautiful white bird, to die in the fire. The other is far less profound — it was the drinking binge among the Indians, and the description of how the drink was made by the women of the tribe masticating the cassava bread (ugh!). I find it amusing that these two disparate scenes should be the defining points for me in this book, but so it is. They are the images that impressed themselves upon my thirteen-year-old mind.

This is the story of a young man named Abel de Argensola, who is a political refugee from Venezuela who makes his way into the jungle to escape the party in power. There he meets a tribe of Indians, and lives with them for a time. He is intrigued by their tales of an evil Daughter of the Didi, who will not allow any animals to be killed in her parts of the jungle. Legend says that she can catch any poisoned dart blown at her, and throw it back at the man who blew it. The Indians hold her in fear and hate her. But Abel has no such superstitions, and when he ventures into the heart of the jungle he finds that Rima is no malevolent spirit, but a beautiful girl of an unknown race. She lives alone with her grandfather, old Nuflo, and has a strange power over all living things.

Abel soon falls under Rima's spell, and is consumed with the desire to learn more of her. From where does she come? She is not like the Indians of that part of the jungle. Old Nuflo is not telling the whole truth, and it is only under pressure of his superstitious fears that he finally reveals the whole to Abel. The three set off on a journey to find Riolama, the place Rima's mother came from, but Abel divines the sad truth: all of Rima's people are gone. Killed by a disease or dead by the hand of an enemy, they are nowhere to be found, and Rima is bitterly disappointed. Her motive in searching for her people had been to speak to them in her own language about her feelings for Abel, which confused and frightened her. Her confusion ceases when Abel speaks to her of what those feelings mean, and she is transported with joy. She hurries off to their home, leaving Abel and Nuflo to follow more slowly. Abel imagines their wonderful life to come as he travels back — but is not to be.

The story is told in Abel's own words, and the style reminded me a great deal of Lorna Doone. The romantic relationships are certainly similar: the beautiful, almost otherworldly girl whose origin is shrouded in mystery, the strapping young man who loves her and helps to uncover the secrets of her past, and the physical danger posed by a group of hostile men. Abel was less self-demeaning than John, and Green Mansions is far less humorous as a result, but the similarities remain.

My edition is the Bantam Pathfinder paperback, and I should note the illustrations by Sheilah Beckett. Some of them were absolutely wonderful, capturing the intensity of the mood and the stylized beauty of the characters perfectly. But others seemed rather over the top and even inaccurate. I do love the cover illustration, in gold and black.

Sensitive souls may quail at some of the comments Hudson makes about race. This certainly wasn't written in an era of political correctitude! But if you can get past that, this is really an enjoyable and memorable story. I knew the end because of that image I remembered of Rima crashing down from a burning tree — but the story was none the less riveting because of that. I recommend it. ( )

A hunting tale about the complications of peoples' first contacts. I read this when I was a teenager, so the details are a bit foggy now, but I still find the story haunting and the ending shocking. ( )

This is a classic, beautifully written, ultimately tragic story of love, and then revenge, in the South American jungle. Does Abel represent civilized man, who, when his ultimate desire - a higher level of consciousness - is taken from him, reverts to the savages with whom he originally consorts? The story is described as a "romance" but it's not the heaving bosom/throbbing manhood type, and the ending is rather shocking. ( )

The tale of GREEN MANSIONS is set within the frame of memoir narration. The narrator and purported "author" of the "Prologue" claims to be publishing the story, told to him by Mr.
Abel, in order to illuminate the mystery of Mr. Abel's identity and the discovery, on his death, of a closed room in his house containing a decorated funerary urn.
As a young man, Mr. Abel had participated in an failed coup d'etat in Venezuela. Fleeing into the wilderness of Western Guayana, he takes up residence in a remote Indian village where he hopes to find peace in communing with nature.
The Indians warn Abel that the pristine woodland area he has discovered is a dangerous place haunted by a daughter of the
Didi. Scoffing at their superstitions, Abel continues to frequent the forest and becomes intrigued by a warbling sound which follows him and seems almost to communicate with him. One day he chances upon a young girl playing with a bird. Her iridescent other-world like appearance enchants him.

When one of the Indians discovers that Abel has seen the girl, he is delighted and offers his sister as a wife in return for the
death of the dread daughter of the Didi who has thwarted the Indians' hunting in the forest. Abel is appalled at the suggestion of any violence touching the pristine apparition he has seen. He continues to haunt the forest and is teased by the warbling voice, but he does not catch sight of the girl again until she stops him from killing a deadly coral snake.

Abel is so enthralled with her presence that he forgets about the snake, which bites him when he treads upon it. While trying to
return to the Indian village for help, Abel loses consciousness. When he awakes, he is in the hut of an old man named Nuflo, who says that he and his granddaughter, Rima, had brought Abel to the hut. Abel finds it hard to believe that the demure girl speaking Spanish is the same creature who warbled him through the forest. But as he recovers, she joins him in his rambles in the forest, where she again becomes the elusive warbler. Nuflo
finally reveals to Abel that Rima is not actually his granddaughter but was given into his care by her dying mother.

Although Rima appears and disappears at whim, she spends more time with Abel, and a bond between them begins to grow. Finally she asks him what is beyond the land that is visible
from the top of the mountain, Ytaioa. In an improvised geography lesson, Abel mentions the Riolama mountain range on the border
of Guayana. The name brings immediate recognition to Rima: "Riolama! Riolama!...That is the place I am seeking! There was
my mother found--there are her people and mine! Therefore I was called Riolama--that is my name!" She is determined to go to
Riolama and convinces Abel and Nuflo to accompany her on the long and difficult journey.

When they reach the spot where Nuflo had found Rima's mother, it becomes apparent to Abel that she must have been the lone survivor of a disaster. He convinces Rima to return to the
forest and live with him. She agrees, but insists on going ahead of the slow-journeying men to ready a place for them.

When Abel and Nuflo finally return, they find that his hut has been destroyed. Searching for Rima in the forest, Abel finds
an Indian hunting and returns with him to the Indian village to find out what has happened to Rima. Kua-ko' tells him that the daughter of the Didi had returned to the forest and found them hunting there. When she climbed to the top of a tree to frighten them, Runi ordered the tribe to set fire to the tree and Rima was killed.

Bent on revenge, Abel flees to Managa's village and subsequently leads the enemy tribe in a raid on Runi's village.All in the village are killed. His revulsion and horror at what
he has done leaves Abel half-mad and scrabbling in the forest for mere survival. Among the ashes of the burnt tree, he finds
Rima's charred bones and gathers them together. His last act of devotion to Rima is to make a pot, decorated with forest
motifs, in which to carry her remains back to civilization.

After a delirious journey, he finally reaches the coastal Georgetown; there Abel finally reaches some peace with himself and with the spirit of Rima.

As an allegory, GREEN MANSIONS explores humanity's search for meaning in relationship with the natural world. Abel, as
everyman, flees from civilization into the wilderness where he encounters both the idealized and brutal aspects of the natural
life. Rima, who communicates with the animals and will allow none to be harmed, represents an Edenic harmony between humankind
and nature. The Indians, on the other hand, exist in a fallen nature from which they must violently wrest the means for survival. Abel yearns to join with the golden-age vision
represented by Rima, but he cannot communicate on her level, and the relationship is doomed. When he loses his vision, Abel regresses to the brutal level of the Indians and further to the level of an animal hunting for grubs to eat. It is only when he gathers up Rima's ashes and remains, that he begins his long road
back to a human consciousness. He must absolve and forgive himself in order to regain the grace offered by Rima.

Beyond the allegorical aspects of GREEN MANSIONS, Hudson's strong naturalism and evocative descriptions of the landscapes
and wildlife of the South American forests underline a contrast between the pristine wildernesses encountered by Abel and the
Europeanized civilization from which he originally fled. The Indians seem to fall somewhere in the middle -- they are by no
means idealized savages, and the civilized Abel finds them brutal and degraded. The only human connection he makes in the Indian village is with the old woman, Clacla, whom he patronizes and humors. But these Indians too have been touched by the intrusion of the Europeans. There is a subtle warning implicit in Abel's rhapsodizings on the scenery; he senses the ongoing and impending destruction of the wilderness. That which is about to be lost is most precious.

W.H. Hudson considered himself not a novelist but a "field naturalist who writes down what he sees." Born in Argentina of American parents, he was from his earliest days fascinated by nature. His expertise in the local flora and fauna led to a contract with the Smithsonian Institution to collect bird skins and to correspondence with Zoological Society of London which published his letters on the birds of Argentina in the Society's
”Proceedings." In 1874 he moved to England hoping to support himself by writing about nature. Finding it difficult to obtain work as a naturalist in England, he turned to writing novels. His first, THE PURPLE LAND THAT ENGLAND LOST(1885, relates the adventures of a ”gaucho" on the Argentine pampas. A CRYSTAL AGE(1887) chronicles the difficulties of a modern man coming into contact with a utopian society which lives in harmony with
nature. Although both novels were unfavorably received initially,each anticipates some of the themes of GREEN MANSIONS.

Turning back to naturalistic writing, Hudson successfully published a number of essay collections including: ”The Naturalist
in La Plata" (1892), ”Birds in a Village" (1893), ”Idle Days in Patagonia" (1893), ”Argentine Ornithology" ( 2 volumes, 1888-89) and ”Birds and Man" (1901).

GREEN MANSIONS was published in England in
1904 to critical acclaim but no popular success. Not until its publication in 1916 in the United States did Hudson achieve
financial success. Hudson transports the reader into the great South American forests that even in his lifetime were fast disappearing before the inroads of civilization. Undoubtedly the exotic
locale is one of the enduring attractions of the novel. The elusive character of Rima, while reminiscent of European woodland
sprites, also evokes the fragile purity of nature untouched by human incursions. The romantic appeal a lure to earlier generations of readers, is, however, underpinned by a strong ecological consciousness in the novel. Hudson's adventure story is a tale prophetic of the ongoing dangerous incursions into the South American wildernesses.

Rima's fiery death anticipates the fiery clearing of the South American forest land for development. The elegiac tone of the novel underlines not only Abel's failure to attain union with the pure animistic spirit of Rima, but also the failure of modern humanity to comprehend the crucial role that nature plays in the survival of humankind itself. ( )