Allan Quartermain - H. Rider Haggard

I’ve kept this book waiting on my shelf for the better part of two years.  I’d bought the copy out of sheer curiosity, and because it was being sold quite cheaply.  The curiosity began in 2003 when they came out with the movie “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”  At that time, I didn’t know that Allan Moore had made a graphic novel series on which the movie was based.  But the idea of putting together several central figures from beloved and memorable literary classics in one highly commercialized mash-up of a Hollywood cash cow seemed quite intriguing to me.  So I saw the flick, was sufficiently entertained, and left with an itch to read or reread the books where those characters came from. 

H. Rider Haggard wrote “King Solomon’s Mines” and “Allan Quartermain” in the late 1800’s.  I don’t know much about this period, but I assume that Haggard was one of the founding fathers of the adventure genre (correct me if I’m wrong).  There have been so many stories, movies and TV shows that featured the character of Allan Quartermain over the years.  He is a very popular example of the British gentleman-adventurer.  In these two books, Quartermain takes the voice of the narrator as he tells the stories of the many challenges and daring adventures that he undergoes. 

Surprisingly, Allan describes himself as a coward, preferring to run away and confronting only when there is no other recourse.  In the books, his actions are often motivated by financial needs, but in Allan Quartermain he set out adventuring for a deeper reason and well, just for the heck of it.  He has plenty of respect for the Africans – calling them brave and noble.  I never encountered a line that seemed derogatory towards them.  The book has what you could only expect from the genre – perilous quests, girls in need of rescuing, battles against hostile tribes, near-deaths by starvation and being eaten by monstrous crabs, underground rivers and deep-sea volcanoes, falling off of cliffs and waterfalls, being sucked by whirlpools, war and battle, jealousy and betrayal, and (of course!) a long lost kingdom of riches with stunningly beautiful princesses to fall in love with.  Allan Quartermain has it all.  But this wouldn’t be a classic if it didn’t have anything meaningful and timeless to it, and there were plenty of these.  Here are some of my favourite lines from the book:

At the very beginning, he grieves for his lost son. “December 25.  I have just buried my boy, my handsome boy of whom I was so proud, and my heart is broken.” I love how simple and honest this sentence is.  It being unembellished all the more adds to its emotional impact, knowing that this grief comes from a man you assume to be a hardened, heroic adventurer.

“Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.”

“Man’s cleverness is almost infinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like an iron ring.  You can go round and round it, you can polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you will make it bulge out on the other, but you will never, while the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference.”

“So when the heart is stricken, and the head is humbled in the dust, civilization fails us utterly.”

“Although she was at an age when in England girls are in the schoolroom and come down to dessert, this ‘child of the wilderness’ had more courage, discretion, and power of mind than many a woman of mature age nurtured in idleness and luxury, with minds carefully drilled and educated out of any originality or self-resource that nature may have endowed them with.”  As a teacher, I cannot ignore this line.  I have a niggling feeling that it is TRUE – that we are essentially educating our children OUT of their creativity and originality, turning them merely into what we think society deems “productive.”  The fact that the author observed this and wrote about in the 1800’s is just wow.

This is a beautiful description of a sunrise: “…till at length the east turned grey, and huge misty shapes moved over the surface of the water like ghosts of long-forgotten dawns.  They were the vapours rising from their watery bed to greet the sun.  Then the grey turned to primrose, and the primrose grew to red.  Next, the glorious bars of light sprang up across the eastern sky, and now between them the messengers of dawn came speeding upon their arrowy way, scattering ghostly vapours and touching the distant mountain-tops, as they flew from range to range and longitude to longitude.  Another moment, and the golden gates were open and the sun himself came forth gloriously, with pomp and splendour and a flashing as of ten million spears, and covered up the night with brightness, and it was day.”

If you are into this genre, or you happen to like adventuresome characters like Indiana Jones and others like him, reading H. Rider Haggard’s stories and getting to know Allan Quartermain will prove worthwhile.  Enjoy!