King Leopold's Ghost -100

Reading up to page 100 seemed to be very short when I started reading King Leopold's Ghost. But after getting into the book, it proved to be a great stopping point. Starting the book off with a man running away from himself was very admirable. I found myself liking this "John Rowlands" or later known as Henry Morton Stanley, for this reason. People in his situation have rights to make their lives better for themselves and because of his expedition Stanley did just that. Stanley was definitely the hero of the book, traveling, sightseeing and living his life the way he saw fit. His writings are what I enjoyed most. He seemed to like writing about his journey's, historical facts and current news, but his passion was rooted in fiction. To every account he wrote there was some sort of passage or elaboration that he added to make his writing even more juicy and intriguing. His tales of the war, and especially his journey to find Livingston were elaborated but reading them I fully enjoyed his tales. Apparently people on the American shore liked his writings too, because he soon became a "must read" section of the papers in New York. Later in the book the character King Leopold came into the story.

From the very beginning I didn't like this boy. The way the author described him made me want to skip over that chapter and continue on with Stanley. However further reading into the book proved that Leopold was a very imaginative character with many mysterious characteristics. His obsession with Africa had me wondering what he was really capable of if he had put his effort elsewhere; like ruling his country. His desire for these African colonies was ruining everything in his life. He had no relations with his wife, except the birth of his two daughters and no relationship with them either. He didn’t seem too concerned with the well being of his home country, everything was focused on his “Congo.” I thought it was interesting the way he fed off of Stanley’s emotions and skills to get him to explore for his small country. He had a peculiar way of playing with this famous explorer to get exactly what he wanted.

Later this characteristic comes up again when he is fighting for land rights of the Congo. He plays with the minds of England, France and Germany, hoping that they all fall victim to his master scheme. Unfortunately for them, it works and they all go along with his rise to dominance.