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Read King Solomon's Mines (2002)

King Solomon's Mines (2002)

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Rating
3.79 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0812966295 (ISBN13: 9780812966299)
Language
English
Publisher
modern library

King Solomon's Mines (2002) - Plot & Excerpts

The original Indiana Jones3 September 2013tI remember watching a movie based on this book starring Richard Chamberlain. I actually quite enjoyed the film, though one of the major differences that I discovered between the film and the book is the inclusion of a beautiful white female. I guess that is what one really has to expect from Hollywood, particularly since there have been a lot of Hollywood movies that have been based on books of old and they have thrown in a girl because, well, a Hollywood movie just isn't a Hollywood movie unless there is a girl for the protagonist to fall in love.tAs for the book, well, it was clearly an adventure story written for the younger audiences and certainly not a post-colonial commentary in the vein of books such as Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. In fact there is pretty much no social commentary in this book at all, rather it is designed to appeal to people's lust for adventure and exploring the deep and unknown areas of the world as they were at this time.tWhen Haggard was writing, much of the world had already been mapped, though there were still large sections of the African, South American, and Asian interior that remained places of mystery. However, despite them being unexplored, the general attitude of the colonial powers at the time was to simply claim those areas and explore them later. I believe, at least with Africa, that the land that was claimed along the coast pretty much extended inland until it pretty much hit the centre, which is why you basically see a patchwork of countries in Africa which are not necessarily divided along tribal lines. As the colonial powers began to penetrate the interior of the continent, they would then set up their own claims on this land.tHowever, as I advised, this book has nothing to do with colonial expansion, and everything to do with the exploration of a dark continent in search of a mythical gold (or diamond) mine. The story of King Solomon's mines goes back to the Old Testament (and it is interesting that these early stories still have Christian references attached to them) where there is reference to mines in the land of Ophir from which great wealth was brought to Jerusalem to establish Solomon's rule. Personally, I have no idea where Ophir is supposed to be located, though I suspect modern scholarship has more understanding of it than did Haggard.tThe book itself was okay: not that great and not that exciting. In a way I preferred the movie because, well, it was an Indiana Jones style adventure movie. I guess the book was trying to be like that as well, and I suspect that Spielberg was influenced somewhat by the writings of Haggard when he created Indiana Jones. It is also interesting to finally read the book that ended up inspiring that movie that I quite enjoyed watching.tHowever, if you are expecting Richard Chamberlain (and I simply cannot picture Alan Quartermain not being picture Richard Chamberlain):to go hacking through jungles, running away from giant boulders, and solving puzzles in an ancient mine, well, you do get some of that, but the bulk of the book seems to be sent in the land of some lost African tribe and how Quartermain and his cohorts act to change their entire culture and to establish a king that will be more British than barbaric. In fact they seem to go to war against those members of the tribe that will not accept and adapt to the British way of life. In a way it is reminiscent of the colonial era when the colonists would come along and force the inhabitants of the land to become British, and if they did things that the British found repugnant then they would be forced to stop.tIn fact, that still happens today in our enlightened culture. These days this is called human rights. For instance, if a culture, who has been doing things a certain way for hundreds of years (such as forcing women to wear veils) is seen by the enlightened academia of the Western World as being oppressive, then the enlightened academia believes that it is their right to go in there and stop them from doing that. Look, I am very much in favour of human rights, and very much against the oppression of women and other minorities, however, let us not criticise the British for interfering in the culture of the colonised and claim that they were being imperialist when we on the left are doing exactly the same thing ourselves.

Perhaps my earliest enjoyable memory of reading (at first in translation). The exotic, other-worldly descriptions here- of places and people both, were utterly entrancing, and the presence of the map and the key it presented for the plot's progression kept my young self fascinated (and not because there were mountains on it called Sheba's Breasts... at least I hope not- there's some Freudian imagery now that I think about it). It's my feeling sometimes that I've come to overuse the term 'mythic' for being too lazy to explain that I mean central patterns and symbols which deal with the unknown in narrative form (if that attempt at succinct explanation makes sense), but one must invoke it here again- the scenery, references (contemporary curiosities and mysteries oftentimes; like Dickens or Conan Doyle were apt to provide) and even subplots and the bases for conflicts have a definite mythic potency about them.I'm curious to know how King Solomon's Mines holds up now that I claim more years, and am infinitesimally displaced (which way, who can rightly say?) from whatever wisdom I would have had on first reading. What remains in memory most clearly is the spirit of adventure which gained a noble aura for being undaunted by the strange setting. The protagonists were resourceful, and honourable- often in that old mould of men possessed of patriarchal responsibility (a better face, and the more acceptable one to show in fiction, than that of privilege, which is very modestly incidental in such cases), though they do actually learn and develop from their journey and the interactions and relationships they have with the natives, instead of the story being a uniform series of chances for the party to show off a European's or Englishman's sense of what is right and proper. This humanist lean is what transcends the historical setting of dealings in Africa chronicled here and makes this a deserving classic of adventure literature.There seems to be the idea that this book is somehow dated or possibly harmful somehow because it was written with a colonial mindset, but anyone who reads it will see that the attitudes Haggard displays through his characters, whatever their skin colour, are not those that would uphold colonialism, but are likely exactly those that were to pioneer the way towards better in freedoms and equality among races. It's a very forward-looking novel in this sense of attitudes, as befitting an adventure. This is very clearly a product of its history, and to deny such literature when its outlook is so commendable is a revisionist attempt to deny historical advancement for the blemishes rather than anything that can 'undo' racism. We are better for knowing what historical perceptions were, not because we would stupidly emulate them, but to know to avoid missteps as we venture into the future's unknowns. As a story for children there's the case that some identification and drawing of simplistic distinctions is unavoidable, but again, the novel's display of attitudes conducive to changing what are admitted as wrong and objectionable impressions, and moreover the very human and often noble characterisation of some of the natives themselves, can only suggest good caution for a reader to make up their mind.Certainly one to try reading again.

What do You think about King Solomon's Mines (2002)?

When the film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was released in 1981, more than one commentator observed that its hero owed much to another fictional adventurer introduced almost a century before: Allan Quartermain, the creation of Victorian novelist H. Rider Haggard. (And that the actor who later played Indiana Jones's father would go on to interpret his other 'father' as well creates a sort of symmetry.) It is worth noting, however, that in KING SOLOMON'S MINES, the first of 16 novels and numerous short-stories to feature him, Quartermain appears as a small man in his mid-fifties, with false teeth and a bad leg, who seems to take pride in regularly declaring himself a coward. The Jones comparisons owe more to later, adjusted depictions of Haggard's protagonist in both print and performance.The modern reader may also find discomforting the cultural and racial condescension (at best) which the character expresses as a British imperialist in southern Africa. Careful attention to the unfolding story, however, suggests that the author, if hardly immune to the prejudices of his day, sensed something of their fallacy. His native African people gradually emerge as fully developed, and fully human, individuals -- capable not only of either great nobility, wisdom, and intelligence or wretched evil, but of a complete spectrum of intermediate humours. Quartermain himself undergoes a broadening of outlook through his experience, so that for a while at least he comes to address (and perhaps truly to regard) as equals people he had previously felt should 'know their place'. Later, reflecting on his adventures, he recoils at old pejoratives which still habitually turn up in his vocabulary, and he writes to his son, 'What is a gentleman? ... I've known natives who ARE, and ... mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who ARE NOT.' Given the period in which Haggard was himself writing, this is a remarkable insight.Still, it is a mistake to read the novel as an early parable on social conscience. The author's purpose was simply to compose a rousing tale of 'derring-do' in the spirit of Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND, and in this he achieved adequate success. That he also provides a contemporary glimpse into the absurdities and injustices of a bygone era is a bonus he probably never foresaw.
—Edward Waters

Every so often I get the feeling that a good old timey adventure book would be a good thing to read. This is (hopefully) the last time I think this as the results are always dire. Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" was one hell of a struggle. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday" was dreadful. However, Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" takes the prize for most unreadable load of old toss ever. 3 Englishmen ponce into Africa on a treasure hunt. They cross romantic terrain, shoot majestic animals, patronise and insult black people, before leaving with a few pocketfuls of giant diamonds back to Blighty. What ho! Sounds a bit of a lark, what? It's not. First off, Haggard has his hero Quatermain say in the first chapter that they went to Africa, did this, did that, and made it back home with the treasure. Oh great, now I'm really on the edge of my seat. Now when Quatermain and chums are in danger and the chapter ends on a "cliffhanger" (by Victorian standards) I'll know that they make it out because this was explained in the first chapter! Also, Haggard has the annoying habit of describing every single meaningless detail in a scene. So when they cross the desert, you have endless descriptions of wind, and how thirsty everyone is, and how if they don't make it they'll die and the characters start whinging and don't stop and will they make it..? Look an oasis, we're saved! No tension whatsoever anyway, we all know they make it BECAUSE THEY SAY SO AT THE START! All this needless exposition and attempts at drama are useless if we know the characters make it. The most offending attempt at literature in this amazingly labelled "classic" is the way Haggard deals with Africans. They're all "noble savages" who for some reason speak like medieval dukes. "Thou hast", "ye", "sayest not", "hark", etc all make regular appearances in their speech but does he honestly think Africans speak like that?! The Englishmen patronise the Africans like pets and Haggard has the Africans run about like gormless children, either behaving "nobly" ie. standing around bored saying nothing, or like coked up teens with a hormone imbalance, ie. screaming, tearing hair, killing people randomly. No attempt at characterisation is made and none of the characters seem at all real. In fact they all sound remarkably the same, like a middle class educated Englishman. This is the most tedious novel I've ever read, it actually made me angry while I was reading. Haggard can't seem to accept the reader has the capacity to fill in the gaps. For example, rather than say "they went to the ridge and sat down", he has to say "they gathered up their things (items are listed and digressed), and after several parting words (list numerous mundane words), hastened up the path (description of path and weather), while we wondered about (list everything thats happened thus far) and upon reaching the ridge (list various mundane observations the characters have made while walking) we sat down and gazed at the view (list needless description of mountain range)." It's EXHAUSTING. I hurled the book away from me every time I sat it down (about every 3 chapters) and am amazed at my tolerance for poor writing. How is this a classic? It's not at all on the level of "Great Expectations" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray" or numerous other examples. There's no profundity, no great story, no great writing. Haggard is a very minor writer and his contribution to literature is very small, if at all recognisable. I am amazed this is listed as a classic when it is the 1880s version of a Lee Child novel. Give this a wide book berth, it's appalling.
—Sam Quixote

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.Opening lines:It is a curious thing that at my age— fifty-five last birthday— I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history.Quotations:I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and there.For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.But there is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it.Listen! what is life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens.Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."Our future was so completely unknown, and I think that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains.There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
—Laura

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