''Mad White Giant: A Journey to the Heart of the Amazon Jungle'' is a 1985 semi-autobiographical adventure novel by British explorer and author Benedict Allen. It details Allen's travels between the mouths of the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

and the Amazon rivers. In the United States, the novel was published under the title, ''Who Goes Out In The Midday Sun?''

Plot

''Mad White Giant'' begins with Allen recounting the role of Amazonia in his childhood fantasies. The novel then describes the author's travels between the

and the Amazon rivers, a trip of over 1500 miles. During his travels, he befriends natives who refer to him as "Mad White Giant", or by his preferred nickname Louco Benedito. Allen is later abandoned by his two Carib companions, Yepe and Pim, who go to work for Brazilian miners. Allen also adopts a dog, named Cashoe (meaning 'dog' in one of the Indian dialects), whose actions capsize Allen's canoe and leave him stranded in the Amazonian jungle. After a grueling period of starvation, recounted as a series of diary entries (actually written in one sittingAllen, B. (1992) "Preface", ''Mad White Giant,'' Flamingo: Hammersmith, London, UK), Allen decides to shoot and eat Cashoe to survive.

Reception

The publication of ''Mad White Giant'' was greeted with some controversy. Allen was visited by two RSPCA inspectors who inquired about the welfare of his family pets. Several commentators doubted that Allen could have travelled his reported route within three months, leading to the cancellation of a lecture he was to give to the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. Allen admits that ''Mad White Giant'' is "unreliable" in terms of factual detail, a deliberate bid to distance his novel from the traditional travelogue genre. He also attributes any potential inaccuracies to the loss of his notes in a canoe capsizing, and in changes made to protect a travelling companion. Allen stated of his novel's integrity:

I think of myself as a very truthful person and it upsets me if people think I'm a fraud. The book wasn't meant to be a scientific document. It was an adventure story which veiled an angry cry against what the white man has done and how we are going about exploiting these places. ..I felt I was being criticised for writing about a very real journey as if it was a standard travelogue, which it quite clearly wasn't.

Douglas Ivison considers ''Mad White Giant'' to be written "within a tradition of British writing, in which boys had to venture out to the colonies in order to learn to become men."Ivison, D. (2003
"Travel Writing at the End of Empire: A Pom Named Bruce and the Mad White Giant,"
''English Studies in Canada'', 29.3–4 (2003), 200–19 He further argues, however, that Allen achieves a "transcendence" that distances his writing from the " imperialist and capitalist, even

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...

, discourses in which it is embedded."

References

{{reflist 1985 British novels British adventure novels Novels set in South America Macmillan Publishers books