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
