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	The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton Fawn McKay Brodie W. W. Norton & Company, 1984 - 392 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

So wrote Richard Francis Burton, while preparing for an exploration of the lower Congo in 1863. Tormented by the question of "why?", his answer "the devil drives" applies not only to his explorations, but to the whole of his turbulent life. The nature of his demon, the source of his restlessness, has baffled many biographers.

Drawing from Burton's own published works and from the few manuscripts that managed to escape destruction by Lady Burton, Fawn Brodie explains the "why?" and in doing so creates a fascinating portrait.

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Towering Individual of the 19th Century

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton would be a worthy study for anyone interested in the potentials of the human being. A man of multiple talents and achievements, to count and adequately summarize them all would be an improbable task. This man accomplished more in a lifetime than most of us mere mortals could in several. As a 19th century British explorer, he stands with the legendary - Livingston, Stanley, Baker and Speke. What set him apart from these luminaries, towers above in fact, was is scholarship. His writing talents, publishing countless volumes, his uncanny lingual gift, (twenty-five languages, including several dialects that amount to over forty) and his inroads into anthropology, ethnology, religion and archaeology, make him one of the truly great individuals of the Victorian age. Brodie's treatment of Burton is a worthy tribute to the man, and after reading over four other life histories of Sir Richard; I can say with all honesty, that it is one of the best.

I have to admit that I have a severe aversion to that sixties literary trend of applying Freudian psychoanalysis in a biographical study. It is difficult enough analysing the living, let alone the dead and gone. Brodie is guilty of this method in this biography; however, she does it without taking anything away from the subject. Most all the typical psychoanalytical symptoms are present: the Oedipus complex, latent homosexuality, and preoccupations with sex in general. Brodie's analyses, though, is not a closed shop - she remains open to her subject. In other words, her psychoanalytic musings do not cloud the uniqueness and larger than life qualities of this man. It's a side issue, and therefore can be ignored.

What is so startling about Burton was his enormous passion to know, his tireless travels and recordings of the unknown and exotic. He not only was everything mentioned above, but a poet of talent, geologist, amateur physician, expert swordsman and skilful spy. A precursor to Freud, he studied the sexual customs of many cultures and was a fierce critic of Victorian values on the subject. This man's curiosity knew no bounds and he ensured he did not waste a minute of his sixty-nine years - a relatively short life considering what the man accomplished.

There are many biographies about Burton, but this one seems to encapsulate the man's spirit and zest for life. Brodie writes an enthralling biography and anyone interested in this towering figure of the 19th century, this text is highly recommended.

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WONDERFUL BIOGRAPHY - I AM GRATEFUL FOR THIS ONE

I read this one years ago, when it was first published. This was my first expierence and admittedly my first encounter with this remarkable man. This has lead me, over the years, to read much more of Sir Richard Burton. Each work I read, each bit of information I gather, I am even for fascinated with this individual, his accomplishments and his writings. This has been a nice reading hobby for me over the past number of year and it all started with Ms. Brodie's work. I am grateful. The book is well written, well researched and is very, very readable. Highly recommend this one.

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A Fascinating Life Well Presented in this Biography

The author presents a very thoroughly researched and well written biographical book on a fascinating life of an early British explorer of East Africa (Burton was the first European explorer to report his "findings" of what is today called Lake Tangenyika). At times the presentation can become tedious but on the whole this is a book well worth reading and a life well worth knowing more about. Beyond his explorations Burton lived, wrote, fought, loved and experienced life to the fullest extent. As many of the other comments from other readers have suggested, his life and how he lived it can be a positive inspiration.

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Intriquing and Sometimes Painful

This is a captivating account of a unique and restless individual driven to observe and graphically document the often very cruel life of the Middle East and Africa in the nineteenth-century. This will not bore.


Indiana Jones in the flesh...

Richard Burton was an enigmatic, sour, oftentimes neurotic voyeur with the intention of beating his contemporaries and traveling the globe learning and exposing the cultures he came across. Ms. Brodie also has a tie with writing other biographies of sensational men (Joseph Smith, Jr of Mormon fame) and this book is an educated insight into Richard Burton's travels, motives, and surroundings. The maps included along with photographs, illustrations, and excerpts of Burton's own words help move the narrative along. It can be 'old English' tedious, but is well worth the delve into a man that went against the grain in every way.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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