Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem

La storia di Sandokan, di Yanez il portoghese e della perla di Labuan la conoscono tutti, è una di quelle storie che attraversano come miraggi la nostra infanzia.
Se non che capita di rileggere questi libri quando si è adulti, a volte va bene e a volte no.
E purtroppo Salgari non regge il ricordo, non tanto per la storia e i personaggi, che sono vivi e vitali e si incidono di nuovo nella memoria, quanto per il linguaggio, che è quello roboante e finto colto degli annunci pubblicitari che comparivano sui giornali dei quali i suoi libri erano appendice.
Le descrizioni dei paesaggi e della natura sono chiaramente didascalie enciclopediche, e i dialoghi sono a dir poco penosi.
Tutto il romanzo non è niente altro che un libretto d'opera show more ipertrofico, nel quale il tenore (Sandokan) duetta col soprano (Marianna), in una continua ripetizione dei propri sentimenti, dell'amore, della volontà di riscatto, senza che nessuno dei due riesca mai a dire qualcosa di intelligente (le poche frasi intelligenti le dice Yanez).
Nonostante ciò, Salgari ha compiuto un miracolo, perché i suoi personaggi hanno la forza degli immortali. show less

In the seventies there was the TV-series starring Kabir Bedi which introduced me to the character of Sandokan. Maybe I had already seen the movie with Steve Reeves but am not sure of that. Anyway, the series stuck. Always had the intention of reading the books but never found them (in a language I read) until now. Maybe it all is a bit old fashioned but hey, so am I and I love this kind of books. Swashbuckling, action, adventure, a pretty girl... Sandokan maybe is too much of a macho, even Rambo would be cautious in some situations, but that surely isn't enough to temper the fun. Sandokan, Sandokan... Let's hope the other Sandokan-books soon get a (new) translation too!

A fierce and infamous pirate falls madly in love with the niece of a British captain and spends the entire book sailing back and forth to her home island, fannying about in the jungle, fighting British soldiers, and mooning over his new-found love. It's meandering and repetitive and silly, mostly. 100% Meh

Reason read, Reading 1001 botm March 2024. This book did not appeal to me at all. You would think a tale of a pirate would be fun but I found it mostly annoying. I did not like Sandokan and I did not like “the Pearl”. Some of the other pirates had some merit but all in all I did not find this book worth reading. Sandokan is a Maylasian prince who lost his kingdom because of the British and he now is head of a band of pirates that live on the Island of Mompracem. The author is Italian. The books are adventure stories.

A free spirit that falls in love and makes his life a little more complicated. The good thing is he doesn't forget his friends, they're his family, so he continues being the pirates' king! Prepare to cross the jungle and fight against the English and the mosquitoes!

I first came across Sandokan and the Tigers of Mompracem in “Prowl Unceasing” by Chris Roberson in the masterful anthology of swashbuckling SpecFic he published, Adventure Vol 1. Well, is it any wonder that a guy who has published Jess Nevins’ encyclopedias of pulp heroes & penny dreadfuls would know about Italy’s most famous dime novels? Is it any wonder that when I heard about a series of novels about dashing Malay pirates doing battle with James Brooke, one of Victorian Britain’s actual swashbucklers, I had to get a hold of them?

http://fireandsword.blogspot.com/2007/09/sandokan-by-emilio-salgari-i-first-came...

8484471934