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Allan Quatermain
Allan Quatermain
Book Excerpt
eeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp fellow who is not to be taken in.
Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short, dark, stout -- very stout -- with twinkling black eyes, in one of which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but it is a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good has been running to fat in a most disgraceful way. Sir Henry tells him that it comes from idleness and over-feeding, and Good does not like it at all, though he cannot deny it.
We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow dreary, as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope of one's life. Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and water. I always like to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to have somebody continually at my elbow, as though I were an eighteen-month-old baby. All this
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I quite enjoyed listening and reading of this book. Good book for practicing of English.
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The last adventure of Allan Quatermain. Save its somewhat extended reflexions on life, friendship, love, death and other essential matters, the story didn't age at all, and the adventures are imaginative, tense and appealing.
Curiously enough, neither did age the movie based on another Quatermain novel, The mines of King Solomon.
Some may see its hunting and war episodes as ecologically and human-rigths criminal but if you pay attention, you'll note that the author doesn't make an apology for the gratuitous killing, and if you eat the meat from cows slaughtered in the slaughter-house, what is the difference with killing an animal to feed hungry expeditioners?
Haggard is clearly a must-read classic unjustly overshadowed by Jules Vernes, a writer of a very similar approach to these topics though ornamented with an exaggerated mysterious/esoteric aura.
Curiously enough, neither did age the movie based on another Quatermain novel, The mines of King Solomon.
Some may see its hunting and war episodes as ecologically and human-rigths criminal but if you pay attention, you'll note that the author doesn't make an apology for the gratuitous killing, and if you eat the meat from cows slaughtered in the slaughter-house, what is the difference with killing an animal to feed hungry expeditioners?
Haggard is clearly a must-read classic unjustly overshadowed by Jules Vernes, a writer of a very similar approach to these topics though ornamented with an exaggerated mysterious/esoteric aura.
01/06/2015
This is a great book. I have read it when I was in secondary school and it depicts a great control of writing skills which we no longer possess today. I reveal to us the mind of man and how we tend to relate with each other. I wish I can get it to buy again. I recommend this book for young writers to read and to emulate.
10/29/2013
Too archaic and out of time. The author eulogizes slavery and killing of animals for sport. Ecologists and animal lovers will squirm reading some anecdotes describing cold blooded killing of elephants just for pleasure. I do not recommend this book which is to be preserved in a museum rather than reading.
09/29/2010
An excellent adventure novel - imagine Indiana Jones in more genteel Victorian times. The idea of a lost civilization of white people in the middle of Africa must have seemed like a British Colonial dream. The author, however, gives a voice to the idea that too much civilization is not always such a good thing.
I gave it a 4 because there are a few long descriptive passages that might seem a bit tedious to the modern reader.
All in all, though, a great read.
I gave it a 4 because there are a few long descriptive passages that might seem a bit tedious to the modern reader.
All in all, though, a great read.
02/21/2010
I have read Allan Quatermain in the past in a library more than 2000 kilometer away from my present location, i had been trying to buy it for long but i did not found in in bookshop araound here. It is a great pleaure for me to download and read the book again on PDA. I really love the book it is facinating and make me laugh again and again. i can never forget Alphonso, Umughala the Zulu man,Sir Henry Curtis, Good and Quatermain himself they depict various character ranging from strenght,boldness,coward and conqueror.
10/31/2007