H. M. Tomlinson (1873–1958)
Author of The Sea and the Jungle
About the Author
Works by H. M. Tomlinson
Gifts of Fortune 8 copies
South to Cadiz 4 copies
All hands! 3 copies
A brown owl 2 copies
The Derelict 1 copy
The Haunted Forest 1 copy
Marejada en el Atlántico 1 copy
Gallions reach: a romance 1 copy
Associated Works
Wild: Stories of Survival from the World's Most Dangerous Places (Adrenaline) (1999) — Contributor — 65 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Tomlinson, Henry Major
- Birthdate
- 1873-06-21
- Date of death
- 1958-02-05
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- journalist
war correspondent (WWI)
literary editor (of the Nation and Athanaeum)
travel writer
novelist - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary, Literature, 1943)
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- London, England, UK
Members
Reviews
This book was a revelation to me about the lyrical writing of travel writer Tomlinson. I really enjoyed his vivid metaphor and effective telegraphing of the awe and wonder he felt in his first-time venture at sea travel and the Amazon with its rivers, life, and pioneering rubber plantations. Rather like Exit the Rainmaker, this is a story of someone who rather suddenly left all behind in civilization to drop out and get way. From the tramp steamer, Tomlinson heard the call to jump into the show more unknown
Below my rock, on the land side—to which I had turned my back—was a monstrous cesspool. It was in the centre of the village. It was the capital of all flies, and the source and origin of all smells, varying smells which reposed, as I had found when below in the hot and stagnant street, in strata, each layer of smell invisible but well-defined. Among the weeds in the roads were many derelict cans. Over the empty tins, and the garbage, pulsed and darted hundreds of Brazil’s wonderful insects.show less
But I was above all that, on my high rock. Its height released me to a wide and splendid liberty. I cannot tell you all that my vantage surveyed. But chiefly I was assured by what I saw that I was more central even than my eyes showed; they merely found for me the intimation. Here was all the proof I wanted; for faith is not blind, but critical, yet instantly transcends to knowledge at the faintest glimmer of authentic light, as when an exile who is beset by inexplicable and puissant circumstance among strangers whose tongue is barbarous, is surprised at a secret sign passed there of fellowship, and is at once content. Yet I can report but a broad river flowing smooth and bright out of indefinite distance between dark forests to the wooded islands below; and by the islands suddenly accelerated and divided, in a slight descent, pouring to a lower level in taut floods as smooth, noiseless, and polished as mercury. Lower still was the gleaming turmoil of the falls, pulsing, and ever on the point of vanishing, but constant, its shouting riot baffled by the green cliffs everywhere. But I could escape, for once, over the parapets of the jungle to the upper rolling ocean of leaves; to the 292distance, dim and blue, the region where man has never been.
"Our mutability, like the wind which bloweth where it listeth, is subject to sorceries having the necessity of the very laws which send zephyrs or hurricanes out of the immane."
Tomlinson's thoughts are permeated with history, by ghosts of men and ships, by the lost rural landscapes of his youth; he's held by "the spell of the imponderable", "lurking shallows and unknown landscapes." This isn't to suggest a bent toward mysticism, but an indication of a deeply contemplative nature, attuned to show more vibrations and patterns most of us don't notice. Will anyone ever again experience the tingling certainty he felt, while talking to a 110 year old man, that he was talking to a wizard?
"When I looked up, the forest across the creek regarded me with the large composure of a guardian of the unrevealed...".."It knew that it's aspect was sufficiently repressive."
On a steamy island in the South Pacific he stands at the dark edge of a mangrove forest and easily imagines a labyrinthodon rising from the muck.
On the stern deck of a steamer he watches a barque silently pass in the moonlight: "a gracious apparition in a delusive hour.".
The vastness of things forgotten troubles Tomlinson very much. The progress of civilization -- telephones, radios, talking pictures, automobiles -- inevitably involves the destruction of individuality and the loss of communal memory. Many things, he fears, will have to be learned over and over.
He's not a Thoreau nor does he pretend to be, nor any sort of philosopher. He's an observer and commentator who writes beautiful, gentle prose that encourages us to be aware,
These pieces originally appeared in various periodicals 1928-1930. show less
Tomlinson's thoughts are permeated with history, by ghosts of men and ships, by the lost rural landscapes of his youth; he's held by "the spell of the imponderable", "lurking shallows and unknown landscapes." This isn't to suggest a bent toward mysticism, but an indication of a deeply contemplative nature, attuned to show more vibrations and patterns most of us don't notice. Will anyone ever again experience the tingling certainty he felt, while talking to a 110 year old man, that he was talking to a wizard?
"When I looked up, the forest across the creek regarded me with the large composure of a guardian of the unrevealed...".."It knew that it's aspect was sufficiently repressive."
On a steamy island in the South Pacific he stands at the dark edge of a mangrove forest and easily imagines a labyrinthodon rising from the muck.
On the stern deck of a steamer he watches a barque silently pass in the moonlight: "a gracious apparition in a delusive hour.".
The vastness of things forgotten troubles Tomlinson very much. The progress of civilization -- telephones, radios, talking pictures, automobiles -- inevitably involves the destruction of individuality and the loss of communal memory. Many things, he fears, will have to be learned over and over.
He's not a Thoreau nor does he pretend to be, nor any sort of philosopher. He's an observer and commentator who writes beautiful, gentle prose that encourages us to be aware,
These pieces originally appeared in various periodicals 1928-1930. show less
Never having heard of H.M. Tomlinson, and never having read a travel book, it was Time Life's meager introduction which compelled me to purchase this volume for 75 cents. I both liked that it took place mostly on a ship, the Capella, and that the Amazon was visited.
The prose of Tomlinson was not at all that which I had expected it to be. I don't understand why he isn't more recognized. His writing is hauntingly poetic, eloquent, and descriptively detailed. He is never boring. His show more personality, his most intimate thoughts, his humor, are all offered to us. He gives us the illusion that he holds nothing back from us, hides nothing.
Here is an audio sample of his prose:
http://netherletterlog.blogspot.com/2011/01/introduction-to-tomlinson-read-by-aa...
I admire Tomlinson's rebellious spirit, which was an Orwellian (Orwell wouldn't write 1984 for another 39 years) result born of his eyes being opened to the chains of modernity. I can't help but notice that Tomlinson was ready to reemerge into society with a new spirit, after having been witness to the desolation of peril-haunted equatorial forests.
He often relates to us that he felt as if within the Amazonian foliage something dark and sinister and nameless sat in wait; that it could afford to wait, being timeless. He sees the building of the railway as futile, but praises the men who carelessly sacrifice their lives in the joint endeavor.
Back in England, Tomlinson notes that the trees seem as toys to him; all greenery seems blunted in contrast to the swelling Jungle.
I felt that Tomlinson was a very empathetic man—he tells us much of animals, and their treatment. Many had "pitiful ends". He tells us too of the "pitiful ends" of many of the workers who had been duped into coming to the Amazon by "the Company". It's postmodernist puerility to think that the cruelties Tomlinson reveals to us are a thing of the past. Horror goes on daily; and unlike many 'evil philosophies', I believe they are collective horrors. It is a defensive mechanism which supposes that the world is not tragic, that tragedy can only happen individually—that the holocaust was no more significant than the event of a single Jew being tortured by the Nazi doctors. I believe that this is the reason why Nietzsche's mind snapped at the moment he saw the old horse being beaten in the street; the reason Tomlinson saw himself reflected in the terror filled suffering eyes of the mortally wounded monkey which was to be dinner. Tomlinson was a Darwinian evolutionist, but no materialist, which explains the despairing beauty of his prose. show less
The prose of Tomlinson was not at all that which I had expected it to be. I don't understand why he isn't more recognized. His writing is hauntingly poetic, eloquent, and descriptively detailed. He is never boring. His show more personality, his most intimate thoughts, his humor, are all offered to us. He gives us the illusion that he holds nothing back from us, hides nothing.
Here is an audio sample of his prose:
http://netherletterlog.blogspot.com/2011/01/introduction-to-tomlinson-read-by-aa...
I admire Tomlinson's rebellious spirit, which was an Orwellian (Orwell wouldn't write 1984 for another 39 years) result born of his eyes being opened to the chains of modernity. I can't help but notice that Tomlinson was ready to reemerge into society with a new spirit, after having been witness to the desolation of peril-haunted equatorial forests.
He often relates to us that he felt as if within the Amazonian foliage something dark and sinister and nameless sat in wait; that it could afford to wait, being timeless. He sees the building of the railway as futile, but praises the men who carelessly sacrifice their lives in the joint endeavor.
Back in England, Tomlinson notes that the trees seem as toys to him; all greenery seems blunted in contrast to the swelling Jungle.
I felt that Tomlinson was a very empathetic man—he tells us much of animals, and their treatment. Many had "pitiful ends". He tells us too of the "pitiful ends" of many of the workers who had been duped into coming to the Amazon by "the Company". It's postmodernist puerility to think that the cruelties Tomlinson reveals to us are a thing of the past. Horror goes on daily; and unlike many 'evil philosophies', I believe they are collective horrors. It is a defensive mechanism which supposes that the world is not tragic, that tragedy can only happen individually—that the holocaust was no more significant than the event of a single Jew being tortured by the Nazi doctors. I believe that this is the reason why Nietzsche's mind snapped at the moment he saw the old horse being beaten in the street; the reason Tomlinson saw himself reflected in the terror filled suffering eyes of the mortally wounded monkey which was to be dinner. Tomlinson was a Darwinian evolutionist, but no materialist, which explains the despairing beauty of his prose. show less
Tomlinson was an official war correspondent for the British Army in France until 1917. He began writing for The Nation, where he unleashed his indignation toward the Army's obliviousness in its conduct of the war (one general, he reported, was astonished that the Germans hid in trenches and had "big guns."), and excoriated the British public for the attitude that the "Tommies" were the expendable dregs of society and their sacrifices inconsequential.
"What did they call the Nobodies? show more Slackers, cowards, rabbits and field vermin; mean creatures unable to leave their football and their drink." --- Their deaths "easily borne by Christian folk who are moved to grief at the thought of Polynesians without Bibles."
"The opinions of most civilians on the War were as agreeable as stained glass windows."
The pieces in the book run chronologically from 1914 to 1920. Most have the war as topic, but there are several descriptive vignettes which have some lovely lines such as this:
"The transient glittering of some seagulls remote in the blue was as if you could glimpse, now and then, fleeting hints of what is immaculate in heaven."
He throws shade at Ruskin: "Perhaps his language appears noble because the rhythmic pour of its sentences lulls reason into a comfortable and benignant sleepiness."
And boosts the poetry of Conrad Aiken. show less
"What did they call the Nobodies? show more Slackers, cowards, rabbits and field vermin; mean creatures unable to leave their football and their drink." --- Their deaths "easily borne by Christian folk who are moved to grief at the thought of Polynesians without Bibles."
"The opinions of most civilians on the War were as agreeable as stained glass windows."
The pieces in the book run chronologically from 1914 to 1920. Most have the war as topic, but there are several descriptive vignettes which have some lovely lines such as this:
"The transient glittering of some seagulls remote in the blue was as if you could glimpse, now and then, fleeting hints of what is immaculate in heaven."
He throws shade at Ruskin: "Perhaps his language appears noble because the rhythmic pour of its sentences lulls reason into a comfortable and benignant sleepiness."
And boosts the poetry of Conrad Aiken. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 37
- Also by
- 12
- Members
- 810
- Popularity
- #31,509
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 17
- ISBNs
- 78
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