King Solomon's Mines

King Solomon's Mines
by Henry Rider Haggard
read: 2012
Guardian 1000 Novels

I'm writing a story for a pulp publication some friends are creating (details to follow!).  I've settled on doing something in the adventure tradition, a la Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, but I'd never actually read any Haggard ... until now.

King Solomon's Mines is a really charming read.  The characters are vibrant: the vain, profane, competent Captain Good, brave and hotblooded Sir Henry Curtis, proud African Umbopa, and narrator Allan Quatermain, a wise sharp-shooter who claims to be a coward but risks his life at every turn.  The figures are larger than life, and even villains Thala and with Gagool are memorable.  The plot was probably more inventive at the time than it seems now, but the story is crisp and holds the reader's interest.  There are some passages and assumptions that would be considered racist by modern standards, but since it was written in 1885, I guess we can cut Haggard a little slack.  King Solomon's Mines will be good inspiration for my own literary endeavors.