Indiana Jones and The Hollow Earth
- Thread starter Lord Excalibur
- Start date
IndyBr
Member
Joosse said:
Yes, indeed.
I read this one before Philosopher's Stone ( I was in a hurry when i found the novels, didn't knew they were related, so I just picked the ones with the most interesting titles), and it was very confusing.
Now, I have all the novel, and now I understand the parts of the book that were related to the other ones.
It's a nice read, very good. The character is great here, McCoy does an excelent job in writing Indy.
And the "Indianapolis Jones" is very funny.
And Dinosaur Eggs is also one my favorites.
Johnny Jones
New member
I was a little confused about the part where Indy and the Nazi assassin go into the movie theater, and the Nazi jumps on a balcony and yells "Heil Hitler" and someone says "Excuse me, THIS is America," and then, although it isn't exactly explained, apparently all the blacks in the theater beat him up. Later the sheriff says something like "Only a lunatic would be crazy enough to salute Hitler in a theater full of [racist epithet]" (and Indy, to his credit, says "I don't like that word. Don't use it again." My hero!).
It just strikes me as odd. I know the Nazis were the most racist people alive and would have hated blacks but, probably because there were very few in Germany, as far as I know never devoted much effort to persecuting them. In fact, I was reading recently that when Jesse Owens, the black Olympic champion, went to Germany for the Berlin Olympics he was treated much better than back home in the good old USA. He could take any public transportation and go into any public place he wanted. The German spectators all cheered him when he won medals and sought out his autograph in the street. His German competitor in the long jump, Luz Long, gave him advice that catapulted him from barely qualifying to first place, and embraced him when he won right in front of Hitler. Now, I know average German citizens were not synonymous with Nazis but my point is he got treated like a human being, while in our country he had to ride a freight elevator to his own reception at a hotel. So, I'm wondering why the Nazis would have such a terrible reputation among blacks in 1934 that they would unanimously beat this guy up.
It just strikes me as odd. I know the Nazis were the most racist people alive and would have hated blacks but, probably because there were very few in Germany, as far as I know never devoted much effort to persecuting them. In fact, I was reading recently that when Jesse Owens, the black Olympic champion, went to Germany for the Berlin Olympics he was treated much better than back home in the good old USA. He could take any public transportation and go into any public place he wanted. The German spectators all cheered him when he won medals and sought out his autograph in the street. His German competitor in the long jump, Luz Long, gave him advice that catapulted him from barely qualifying to first place, and embraced him when he won right in front of Hitler. Now, I know average German citizens were not synonymous with Nazis but my point is he got treated like a human being, while in our country he had to ride a freight elevator to his own reception at a hotel. So, I'm wondering why the Nazis would have such a terrible reputation among blacks in 1934 that they would unanimously beat this guy up.
Montana Smith
Active member
Johnny Jones said:
Black people were treated similarly to white Jewish people in Hitler's Germany and occupied territories. This web site ( http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479 ) records isolation, persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. "However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups." The Jews were originally made a special case for political gain. Whereas black people were just another example of a non-Aryan race, and thus inferior in Nazi ideology.
During the Olympics (both Summer and Winter) Germany put on a show for the rest of the world. They took down anti-semitic posters, and people were warned to be 'welcoming' towards all foreign visitors, whatever their skin colour. Hitler didn't want the world to go home with the impression that Germany was xenophobic.
This was Hitler’s great chance to prove to the world the positive nature of the ideology. He said later, "…the Olympic Games afforded us a unique opportunity to amass foreign credits, and at the same time a splendid chance of enhancing our prestige abroad." According to the International Olympic Committee, he succeeded.
Nevertheless, Hitler still refused to shake Jesse Owens' hand.
The German leadership was deeply concerned about how foreign non-white athletes would be treated, and there was actually fear that darker skinned Europeans, such as the Spanish athletes, would be subjected to abuse.
I researched the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a history of the 1st Gebirgs Division. It mainly concerns the attitudes towards Jews, but it also explains why Jesse Owens found better treatement during the Berlin Summer Olympics, than he would have experienced in America:
The President of the Organizing Committee for the Garmisch-Partenkirchen IV. Olympic Winter Games 1936, was International Olympic Committee member Dr. Karl Ritter von Halt. On 14 May 1935 he wrote to Reich Ministry Under-Secretary of State Pfundtner.
The letter warned about the high levels of anti-Semitism in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In summary, he referred to Kreisleiter Hartmann’s speech of 1 May which called for the removal of all Jews from the town; Halt’s witnessing first hand of Hartmann removing a Jew from the Garmisch post office; the immense number of anti-Jewish signs which were going up in the town and along the entire length of the main road to München; the German Labour Front leader’s warning to local hoteliers that anybody accepting a Jewish guest would be excluded from the Nazi Party. Halt writes that he was bringing all these incidences to the attention of the Reich Ministry because the town would be the scene of the Olympic Winter Games in 1936. The danger as he saw it, was that any "Jewish-looking" visitor might be attacked or insulted. That visitor might well be from the foreign press. If the slightest disturbance occurs, then "the Olympic Games cannot be accomplished in Berlin." The telling lines then occur:
"I express my concerns to you not therefore, in order to help the Jews, they exclusively concern the Olympic idea and the Olympic Games..." (Dr Karl Ritter von Halt, 14 May 1935. Printed in Olympische Karrieren ohn Knick, June 2003).
Halt feared that an international backlash would be a propaganda disaster for Germany, and would cost them the Summer Games. Anti-Semitism was worryingly widespread and very public in the area. It was worrying for the National Socialists, and police and political reports at the time repeatedly commented on the number of anti-Jewish signs that kept reappearing even after orders for their removal. Dr. Carl Diem, Secretary General of the German Olympic Committee, a confirmed anti-Semite since before the First World War, mirrored Halt’s fears. His personal diary records on 24 April 1935, that local hoteliers were adamant about refusing Jewish guests to the extent that they threatened to throw them "out the window onto the road."
The Nazi Government took measures to prevent such embarrassments from occurring. On 3 December 1935, Reich Minister for the Interior Dr. Frick announced that:
"On the express instruction of the Führer I request with consideration of the pending Olympic Winter Games you see to it that on the roads and railway line between Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen and their proximity all placards, banners and signs that concern the Jews, are removed." (Jugend of the World - The Film of the IVTH Olympic Winterspielen Garmisch Partenkirchen 1936, H. Bernett, (Göttingen, 1980).)
One such poster, stating "Jew admission is forbidden", had even been put up at the Olympia Tourism Office. The circulation of Julius Streicher’s pornographic and anti-Semitic Der Stürmer magazine was also temporarily banned in the area. The Stürmerkasten, the newspaper vending machines, were nowhere to be seen either. Hitler seemed prepared to go to all lengths to present Germany as a friendly, decent nation. International pressure on Germany over the question of Jewish athletes, forced Hitler to allow the half-Jewish Rudi Ball to play for on Germany’s ice hockey team. Even the appearance of too many military, or even military-like, uniforms was perceived to be threatening to the foreign media, who reported that the number of troop movements at Garmisch-Partenkirchen made the place look like a barracks. Word quickly came down from the Party that uniforms should not be the order of the day for soldiers not on duty.
So, the treatment of Jesse Owens in 1936 was for propaganda purposes. Both 1936 games were propaganda events for Germany. Black people were treated harshly in Germany, as they were treated harshly in many other countries, including America.
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Yea...It was just a matter of time before the ugly racist card was dealt.
Anyway, 'Hollow Earth' story was o.k. Read it last month.
I enjoyed it, but I agree, it sometimes went off tangent story wise.
I guess I'm the only one who 'liked' the part where they had to track down the cannister in the artic, and it was explained being there because Indy's French arch nemesis had 'put it there', probably trying to profit off both Indiana Jones & the Nazi's.
[he sold that information to Dr.Jones, in the Hotel in New Orleans ]
I liked the 'Sky Pirates' better.
Anyway, 'Hollow Earth' story was o.k. Read it last month.
I enjoyed it, but I agree, it sometimes went off tangent story wise.
I guess I'm the only one who 'liked' the part where they had to track down the cannister in the artic, and it was explained being there because Indy's French arch nemesis had 'put it there', probably trying to profit off both Indiana Jones & the Nazi's.
[he sold that information to Dr.Jones, in the Hotel in New Orleans ]
I liked the 'Sky Pirates' better.
Randolph Carter
New member
I enjoyed this book. I've always liked speculative fiction on hollow earth theories, and mixing that with Indy made for a pretty good story.
AnnieJones
New member
The person who died at the beginning of the book I was happy to learn was a real person.His name was Evelyn Briggs Baldwin.
Here is a website about a book he wrote: The Franz Josef Land Archipelago: E. B. Baldwin's Journal of the Wellman Polar Expedition, 1898-1899
Here is a website about a book he wrote: The Franz Josef Land Archipelago: E. B. Baldwin's Journal of the Wellman Polar Expedition, 1898-1899
Johnny Jones
New member
btw it's a bit late but thanks Montana for doing all that research. I realize it probably sounded like I was making an argument for the Nazis not being racist but I just was confused about why their racism towards blacks would come so quickly to an American's mind in 1934. Here's another to add to your comment though: In 1937 they sterilized over 400 people of German-African descent living in the Rhineland territory. I didn't know this until recently and found it very disturbing. Apparently lack of resources is the only reason they didn't do this to all of them.
HovitosKing
Well-known member
indyt said:
Read Secret of the Sphinx. imo, it's the best.
AnnieJones
New member
Here are some other websites I found:AnnieJones said:
The Franz Josef Land Archipelago, E. B. Baldwin's Journal of the Wellman Polar Expedition, 1898-1899
VISIONS OF THE NORTH: Baldwin: Hero or Villain?
Famous Folks
The only major and obvious historical inaccuracy I have been able to find about Evelyn Briggs Baldwin is he died in 1933 and in the Hollow Earth book he died in 1934.
I also found this website: Evelyn Briggs Baldwin Wikipedia(in Swedish)
I put it through an online translator and came up with basically this:
Evelyn Briggs Baldwin Wikipedia
Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, born July 22, 1862 in Springfield, Missouri, died October 26, 1933 in Washington, DC, was an American meteorologist and Arctic explorer.
Baldwin was a school inspector in Kansas, 1887-91 and member of the U.S. meteorological office from 1892 to 1900. He accompanied such meteorologist Robert Edwin Peary on his expedition to northern Greenland, 1893-94 and in 1897 traveled to Spitsbergen to offer Andree expedition-his service, but arrived too late. Between 1898-99 he accompanied as meteorologist Walter Well's polar expedition to Franz Josef Land, during which he discovered and explored Graham Bell Island.
In 1901 he became the leader of one of the American millionaire W. Ziegler North Pole Expedition expense, which the steamer "America" volunteer at the Franz Josef Land, where Baldwin meant at first open water penetrate to the north and passes through a slädexpedition reach the North Pole. Since the introduction of several food stores, he must be because of the heinous nature of conditions to return in August 1902.
He was later known as a lecturer and held minor posts in the U.S. Government, 1918-33. He was nearly destitute when he died in a traffic accident 1933.
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fenris
New member
I just found the book in a bargain bin yesterday and bought it. Finished it today.
The problem for me was I haven't read the "prequels" to the book so I never understood the connection to the crystal skull and had no idea who the girl Indy was trying to rescue. Nonetheless, it was a nice story. I think this is my first Max McCoy novel as I have always been partial to Rob McGregor.
The problem for me was I haven't read the "prequels" to the book so I never understood the connection to the crystal skull and had no idea who the girl Indy was trying to rescue. Nonetheless, it was a nice story. I think this is my first Max McCoy novel as I have always been partial to Rob McGregor.
AndyLGR
Active member
I got all the Indy novels when they came out and this is one of a handful I never read and put into storage, so after owning this book since it came out, what 15 years ago? I decided to read it this week and finished it in a couple of days.
First of all it was a mistake to read this in isolation after so long in not reading the others and I had forgotten the crystal skull and alecia threads. I need to start from the peril at delphi and read them in order again.
But that aside the deviation from the main story thread let this one down for me, it derailed the momentum by going to find the gold, or maybe the deviation was actually the journal that Indy was reading during his travels, but either way I think it got off to a promising start and sagged in the middle, whilst some of the scenes seemed out of place, like the dual and the head hunting mad man in the desert. All in all I think it meant the ending was rushed as a result.
First of all it was a mistake to read this in isolation after so long in not reading the others and I had forgotten the crystal skull and alecia threads. I need to start from the peril at delphi and read them in order again.
But that aside the deviation from the main story thread let this one down for me, it derailed the momentum by going to find the gold, or maybe the deviation was actually the journal that Indy was reading during his travels, but either way I think it got off to a promising start and sagged in the middle, whilst some of the scenes seemed out of place, like the dual and the head hunting mad man in the desert. All in all I think it meant the ending was rushed as a result.