The Explorer

by Frances Parkinson Keyes

The Explorer is the rich, compelling story of Nicolas Hale, a transplanted Vermonter, as persevering as he is personable, whose inspiration is the great discovery of the Machu Picchu in Peru by Hiram Bingham. Nicolas makes no claim to being a great scientist himself, but he knows "the meaning of clouds and mist, rain and streams and waterfalls," and can follow their lead - all the way to a lost city submerged in a lake high among the Andes.

although he is extremely attractive to women, Nicolas has avoided marriage until his desire for a son to inherit his name and carry on his work impels him to propose to Margaret Porterfield, a lovely and aristocratic young Virginian whom he visualizes as the type of woman he would choose for his son's mother. Margaret's restricted means have obliged her to live so quietly on her beautiful ancestral estate, Hill' End, that she has become almost a recluse and has largely withdrawn from the social and official circles of Washington which were her natural milieu. Nicolas has long been her beau ideal and she readily consents to a hasty marriage, five days before his departure on a fresh exploratory venture in Peru.

He tells her candidly she can never share his life there, that exploring is his only great passion and that she will always be obliged to face protracted separations from him. But he then falls unexpectedly and deeply in love with her.

During the next five years, Nicolas is only intermittently at Hills' End; most of his time is spent in the Andes searching for the submerged city whose discovery, if his hopes are fulfilled, will bring him lasting fame and fortune. But one disaster after another -= a landslide, an infected wound, and finally an earthquake - cause repeated delays and discouragements.

His determination to reach his goal never falters, but meanwhile, almost inevitably, the separation from his wife has serious consequences as far as their personal relationship is concerned. It has been said that there is "always a touch of fever in the Washington scene," and Margaret is not immune to it, nor indifferent to the admiration of a charming young Frenchman who becomes the director at East Lawn, the plantation which adjoins her estate. The outcome - of both love affair and exploration - will hold Mrs. Keyes' readers spellbound to the last page.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Frances Parkinson Keyes was an American author who wrote about her life as the wife of a U.S. Senator and novels set in New England, Louisiana, and Europe. A convert to Roman Catholicism, her later works frequently featured Catholic themes and beliefs. Her last name rhymes with "skies," not "keys."

Reviews

[Deborah Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved this book when I read it as a teenager, and found myself horrified by the themes as an adult looking back, especially as of all the books I read then, this one stuck out and influenced my views of marriage, sexuality, and relationships in ways it was not equipped to do, not for the good anyway.

Here's what I wrote about it in a journal a few years ago:

"The "explorer" is a man who makes a living as an heretical archeologist hunting down ruins and then incongruously selling artifacts to collectors...or maybe it was selling books about his adventures. In any case, he was a hedonist, a dashing, exciting, romantic figure, and gone for most of the book outside of the country, much less the state. The book, abnormally for a romance, opens with the man and his to-be love getting married a week after meeting at a wedding. The beginning chapters are full of dialogue between them - actually, the majority of the book is between the man and woman, with very few exceptions - about his past sexual adventures and his opinions about marriage. He is a sexual libertine, of the opinion that a man and woman who are not otherwise attached have nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying each other sexually.

The woman, meanwhile, is a repressed Virginian belle of the highest sort. She refuses to even consider sex before marriage, and finds herself incapable of even talking about sex, until she finally (you know, after a few days, given the speediness of the courtship) admits that her mother told her horror stories about abuse and is therefore petrified of sex. The man assures her that sex is much more fun than that and proceeds to tell her that he'll never hold her down again after the first time - presumably because there's no way to show her that sex doesn't have to be scary or violent and can be quite desirable and pleasurable even for women other than physically forcing her, albeit with her consent."

[Kani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because it is one of the authors I know my grandmother liked. It was written in '64 and takes place even earlier and it is a time and society I do not relate to, nor know little about. So it was interesting from a rather anthropological perspective and yet, the whole notion of a receptive woman loyally loving an absent husband (whether he's there or not!) and the whole presentation of love... well, it basically turned my stomach. As a time machine, it holds interest, but as a representation of "real life", not so much.

[Lindsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Woman marries asshole, won’t leave asshole for man she loves because of marriage vows.

[CJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

i hated the main guy.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My copy of this book had been my mom's and I had read it a couple of times when I was in my teens. But like other tales of romance from the '50s and early '60s, this one is about a hasty courtship, where the guy is just trying to find a compliant wife who fits his somewhat shallow list of criteria, and then the rest of the novel is about this unlikely relationship. The allure of Machu Pichu is what had captured my imagination, but there's not enough to that slice of the story to make this worth re-reading. It went on the donate pile.

[Desiree Chang]

Quite interesting so far .