"Green Mansions [was made into] a 1959 American romantic adventure film directed by Mel Ferrer. It is based upon the 1904 novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, the film starred Audrey Hepburn (who at the time was married to Ferrer) as Rima, a jungle girl who falls in love with a Venezuelan traveller played by Anthony Perkins. Also appearing in the film were Lee J. Cobb, Sessue Hayakawa and Henry Silva. The score was by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Bronislau Kaper." (from Wikipedia) .

I loved WH Hudson's "Purple Land." This flight of fancy , though, was unutterably turgid rubbish.
When 23 year old Abel is involved in a political coup, he flees retribution to the most distant parts of southern Venezuela.
Living with Indians, exploring the local forests, he encounters the girl/ wood nymph Rima....a magical, saintly, otherworldly creature of an unpleasingly fey, irrational and unknowable demeanour.
Oof...by golly it dragged on... ( )

4/26/22

One of those wonderfully quirky fictions that would never, ever be printed today. Worse luck. From the experience, years ago, of reading slush piles, I know that such books are around-- just not in print. Maybe the rise of ebooks will make them once again available, these eccentric and magic imaginings. ( )

Well that was disappointing. This is a sort of supernatural romance, kinda, maybe preternatural would be more apt. Anyway its about a man who finds a forest in Guyana said by locals to be haunted. I can't say much more about it without spoiling the story, especially since there is so little plot.
I was really into it at first burning quickly through the first 9 or so chapters. It seemed really compelling, but after a while i realized the reason i was reading so quickly, was because of the thin plot. I felt compelled to read a lot because that was the only way to get any sense of accomplishment story-wise as so little was actually happening.
Overall its well written but far too verbose and i was disappointed with it after a good start.
Also the romance in it became a little uncomfortable for me at times. Modern sci-fi often points out the dubious morality of Kirk's romances in the 70's Star-Trek show and those opinions came into my mind several times during this read. ( )