King Solomon's Mines by H. R. Haggard

Nothing works perfectly the first time you try it out, right? Doesn’t matter if you’re fumbling with a girl in the backseat of a Fiesta or shooting at a lion in the African svelt, the first time you do it, you probably won’t get it quite right. Such is the case with King Solomon’s Mines, the famous first ‘lost race’ novel. Written by H. R. Haggard in 1889, it features his hero Allen Quatermain, who would go on to star in a number of other tales of high adventure set in Africa. While an entertaining novel, Mines features many devices and tropes that have had their effectiveness blunted by years or re-use.

Things get started when Quatermain meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good on board a steamer leaving Cape Town. He learns that they intend to locate Good’s brother, who went searching for the legendary mines of the biblical King Solomon. The mines are supposedly located in an interior kingdom never before seen by white men. Trouble is, it’s surrounded by treacherous mountains and an impassable desert, and anyway, nobody really knows exactly where it is located. Except that Quatermain then reveals that he knows where it is, because some time ago he came into possession of a map made by a Spaniard called Jose da Silvestre two hundred years earlier. Silvestre died upon finding the exact spot, and in a nice dramatic touch by Haggard, the map is written in his own blood. Being a sensible man, and by nature no seeker of dangerous adventure, Quatermain has thus far had no reason to test the map’s accuracy for himself. But being a poor man, he agrees to accompany the two on their trek upon securing a handsome payment, with which he intends to pay for his son’s education. Decent chap, Quatermain.

The three Englishmen pick up a Zulu named Umbopa to accompany them, and all four brave the terrors of the desert and the mountains and eventually discover a new country, Kukuanaland. There, they become embroiled in intrigue that climaxes in a civil war.

It’s hard to imagine the reaction this book must have provoked in its day, as so many of the tropes it uses have since become standards. The mere idea of white men going off into uncharted Africa and having adventures was a groundbreaker for the literature of the time (though not, I note, for real life). Haggard lived in South Africa for six years, and was present during the British takeover of Bechuanaland. He even read out the declaration of the takeover, as the officer who ought to have done so was sick on the day. His love for Africa, its landscape and cultures, shines on every page, but his writing style is so plain that it often does not overcome the familiarity modern readers will have with almost every situation in the book. In terms of style, he’s certainly a full step down from the likes of Wells and Conan Doyle. There are some great touches, such as the map written in blood, and the dying man who presents it to Quatermain, pointing to the far-off mountain top as the sun goes down. The perilous trek through the desert is also suitably hair-raising. But there are also some childish ‘humorous’ parts that have aged badly, such as the Kukuanas’ awed reaction to John Good’s lack of trousers.

Quatermain himself is quite a likeable character. While no coward, he’s genuinely humble (instead of just continually saying that he’s humble, like some fictional characters I could mention). He’s certainly not afraid to admit when he’s quaking in his khakis, and though he usually swallows his fear and does the right thing (he is a Victorian gentleman, after all), he indulges in heroics and violence with a certain reluctance that makes him far more realistic than the likes of, say, John Carter. He’s pretty much the first and archetypal ‘great white hunter’ character in fiction. As for the rest, they’re a distinctly more forgettable bunch than their counterparts in the later Lost World. Apart from Umbopa, who’s got his own plot-o-matic storyline going on, they simply exist to provide a bit of banter for Quatermain to indulge in.

The Kukuanas in particular are a perfect example of the totally generic ‘African tribe’ in literature. They live in huts, they have a corrupt king who needs to be deposed, and they worship the white men as gods because of their superior weaponry. Yawn. Haggard heavily based them on his own experiences with the Zulus, but their culture is never really explored in any more depth than the plot calls for. Umbopa, to the surprise of no reader over the age of ten, turns out to be the true king of Kukuanaland, precipitating the inevitable climax. Surely, this kind of thing was already old hat in 1889. Also, the lack of any truly fantastic elements make the novel less dramatic than those that followed it (including even Haggard’s own novels). The Kukuanas are, really, just another tribe.

Haggard has often been complimented for his comparatively progressive attitude towards race. For the most part, Quatermain recognizes a ‘gentleman’ whatever his colour, and he respects the pride and bravery of many of the natives he meets. He knows the different tribes of South Africa well, and differentiated between them in terms of character based on experience, not prejudice. As I said above, he’s a pretty likeable guy. But, like most ‘lost race’ novels before and since, the Kukuanas live in the shadow of a distinctly white civilization that scored pretty much all the major achievements in the kingdom. In particular, there is a long, wide Roman road running through their valley, lined with impressive statues. Now, one of the real-world inspirations for Mines was the discovery of the ancient city of Zimbabwe in what was then Rhodesia. At the time, it was unthinkable to European archaeologists that a black civilization could have built such a grand structure. Right up until the independence of Zimbabwe, great leaps in logic were employed to convince the populace that a white or even Arab civilization was responsible. It seems that even Haggard was not immune from this kind of thinking. But compared to other literature of the period, his books still provide a refreshing and humane depiction of black Africa.

King Solomon’s Mines is a largely enjoyable read, but its now-common tropes and somewhat childish tone marr it somewhat. It provides an interesting base from which to compare his later, better novels.

(check out this here comic while you're at it...)

Big Game

Here's a silly little cartoon I did this morning. Been reading King Solomon's Mine's recently, and there's an awful lot of gratuitous hunting in it, so I had this little idea for a comic about conservation-minded 19th century hunters. I had to use a really bad pen for most of the inking though, and it shows. You'll have to click on it to view- I'm working on making it full-size on this page.

The Great Work Of Time by John Crowley

At the end of this novella is a brief editor’s note in which John Crowley lists the history book Pax Brittanica as a reference, and thanks its author, Jan Morris, for ‘many hours spent dawdling in a world more fantastical than any he could himself invent.’ It’s a quote that reminds how much the British Empire is a perfect setting for sci-fi. With that in mind, I’ll delve into The Great Work of Time.

The narrator is unsure exactly when to begin his tale, being that in this convoluted universe, everything he describes has both already happened and is yet to happen. He finally settles on one Caspar Last, a quirky American genius who discovers time travel in 1983. Little interested in the practical applications of what is, to him, an idea only interesting for its theory, Last concocts a scheme to make himself rich after only a single use of the machine. He travels to British Guyana in 1851, and returns to the present carrying a stamp that is now worth millions. He then destroys the machine, hoping that his trip will have had no other consequences.

But Last’s venture into the Empire’s past has unwittingly caught the attention of the Otherhood, a secret organization created by Cecil Rhodes. Their goal is to ensure the stability of the Empire by whatever means possible, and in Last’s Apparatus, they have found their most powerful tool yet…

The Great Work of Time is a deeply strange piece. It’s a time travel story that really rises to the challenge of presenting a complex but consistent set of rules for its chronological meddling. It’s a warning about the nature of chaos and stability. But for me, its most powerful attribute is its affecting description of longing for a world now lost. This is most clearly expressed through the character of Denys Winterset. Winterset has lived in a peaceful world shaped by the Otherhood- a world in which the Empire never fell and the world wars never occurred- but he has also lived in a world much closer to our own.

The contrasts between the two are constant yet subtle. When Caspar Last travels to Guyana in 1983, he does so by a suffocating and cheap package-tour flight full of noisy tourists. Arriving at his destination, he finds it a rotting tropical backwater kept afloat only by the shoddily-built American facilities that cater to tourists.

When Denys Winterset travels to Khartoum in the alternate 1954, he does so on the luxurious Cape-to-Cairo railway. Designed by Rhodes to pass right through the spray of Victoria Falls, it is magnificent, efficient and proud. It turns out that in a 20th Century without world wars or a powerful America, the development of technology has been somewhat slowed by the dominant British Empire-

-a great beast without predators, and naturally conservative; it clung to proven techniques and could impose them on the rest of the world by its weight.

This is a little whimsical fantasy on Crowley’s part- in real life, the British Empire greatly hastened the modernization of the world throughout its time by spreading steam power, electricity and the telegraph everywhere it went. The fact that the Empire happened to be on the way out just as the motor cars and telephones became ubiquitous is, I believe, slightly off the point. I guess Crowley is thinking of a world without a dominant USA and its drive towards a world of Model T’s and assembly lines. It’s a fantasy that allows Crowley to make his alternate Empire one in which airships and trains still dominate transport by the 20th Century- a common enough trope in Empire-themed science-fiction.

It’s also part of what makes the alternate 1954 so pleasant. Everything is more laid back than in our own world. People who work for the Empire have pride and purpose. It’s all fantasy of course- little is said of how native peoples feel about this Empire, for example- but some throw-away lines indicate that the English have become more enlightened about their inherent ‘superiority’ than they were in the 19th Century.

Ultimately, it is slightly frustrating that, having created this fascinating world, it is not explored in much detail. The novella is short, and much time is spent on other worlds. Some of them are interesting, such as a well-researched section on Cecil Rhodes. Others are so distracting that it feels as if they belong in a different book, such as a future London that is inhabited by several non-human species. The ultimate result of all the Otherhood’s meddling is a far future that is puzzling but visually memorable.

The writing throughout is great, and there are plenty of treats for fans of sci-fi and Empire alike. The tortured logistics of Caspar Last's attempt to enrich himself using his machine are hilarious and thought-provoking- in Crowley's time-traveling universe, it's much harder than it sounds. Recommended.

(photo by Isabelle Grosjean)

Vathek by William Beckford

I’m going to have to plumb a bit deeper than usual into the depths of weird fiction in order to review an early example of Orientalist literature- the cod-Arabian Nights fantasy Vathek, written by the demented William Beckford in 1786.

Beckford seems to have been something of a card. At one time the richest man in England, he inherited the blood money squeezed from a slave plantation in the West Indies. This allowed him to live out his insane fantasies, most of which were influenced by the then-nascent neo-Gothic movement and the recently popular Arabian Nights. According to the introduction to the Wordsworth edition-

“…he used his immense wealth to creatc what was in essence a small kingdom in Wiltshire where he indulged himself in all the human excesses. …he exercised his love of Gothic architecture by creating a monastery-like building on his estate… One entered the building through doors forty feet high, so carefully counter-weighted that they could be opened by two fantastically garbed dwarves in Beckford’s employ.”

Sounds like my kind of guy, apart from the fact that he was eventually outed as a paedophile (it does say all the human excesses). The bastard probably even specified that he was looking for dwarves when he put up his ‘help wanted’ signs, or whatever they did back then.

Anyway, to further indulge in his passion for this kind of thing, Beckford wrote Vathek, a novella in the style of the Arabian Nights. The only version he would have had access to at that time would have been Galland’s 1776 French translation- the original document that sparked an enthusiasm for all things mysterious and Eastern across Europe. Suddenly, no dignified upper-crust European was without a hookah and a funny little round cap. For some reason, another development of this was that all Oriental tales henceforth composed by Europeans were written in French! By the time Vathek was translated into English, it was being falsely claimed as being a genuine Eastern legend, because its author was now shamed and living in exile.

The titular Vathek is the Caliph of the Muslim world and the grandson of Haroun Al Raschid. Raschid was a real-life super-Caliph who reigned during Baghdad’s glorious hey-day, but he was also famously fictionalized in the Arabian Nights. By making Vathek his grandson, Beckford shows us immediately that 1) he knows his Orientalism, and 2) Vathek is a badass. It’s a bit like writing an American novel and having your protagonist be Abraham Lincoln’s grandson, or something.

Like his creator, Vathek is a hedonist. Probably unlike his creator, he can kill men stone dead with a look from his eye when angered. He builds a tower from which he can overlook all of his kingdom, and he adds five wings onto his palace, each of which caters to the pleasuring of one of the five senses. At the beginning, he’s not such a bad guy. He’s happy to share his good living and his pleasure palace with all and sundry. But when a mysterious Indian appears at the palace selling weapons that fight by themselves and other powerful items, Vathek becomes obsessed with acquiring such power. Like Faust, he makes a deal with a demon in order to gain it. And whenever he lags in his commitment to this cause (such as when he falls in love with the daughter of an Emir), his witch of a mother ensures that he continues on his path to damnation. Soon the two of them are merrily sacrificing first-borns and stripping naked in front of pyres full of mummy bones and eyes of newt. Will it all end happily?

Despite being one of the oldest texts I’ve read for the site, Vathek is a relatively smooth read. The characters do talk in a kind of mock-Shakespeare vernacular, with plenty of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’, but by and large the prose rattles along at a pleasant rate. And like the Arabian Nights themselves, the novella is light on character and long on incident. The frequent detours the plot winds into are sometimes tiresome, though it’s hard to remain critical when each is so chock-full of dangerous journeys, wise Viziers, loyal eunachs and graveyards full of helpful ghouls. Even old Mohammad himself makes a brief late appearance- not sure if that’s the kind of twist that goes down well east of Suez.

Vathek himself is clearly a stand-in for Beckford, and an early Gothic anti-hero. Byron himself claimed to have modeled himself somewhat after him. His only weakness (and it’s a whopper) is his desire to experience all things and learn all knowledge. While I don’t advise you to emulate him completely, tracking down a copy of Vathek is recommended for those interested in experiencing what’s largely regarded as being the finest European imitation of the Arabian Nights.

Fantasy, Generation X and Backpackers: The Beach

Ever spent a little time away from real life? Ever lived far from home, immersed in an alien culture in which you can be a new person? In such circumstances, do you reckon you’d be attracted or repulsed by thoughts of home? In Alex Garland’s The Beach, young travelers escape from the troubles of The World by retiring to a place that, oddly, is not made to seem much more pleasurable than the world they left behind.

The novel takes the form of a classic adventure story. In a Bancock hostel, Richard, a young English Generation X-er, is entrusted with a map by a suicidal Scot who calls himself Daffy Duck. The map supposedly leads to an Eden-like island off the coast of Thailand where a group of backpackers, or ‘travelers’, as they like to be called, have set up an idyllic community. Richard hooks up with two French youths, Etienne and Francoise, and all three head off to find the Beach.

The book feels like a slight read- slighter by far than the classics to which it’s often compared, Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies. If there’s a deep lesson here about man’s endless quest for unspoiled paradise, it’s hard to spot it amid the breezy writing and endless joint-rolling. Garland’s prose fairly flies off the page, making The Beach a literal page-turner. On a sentence level, he’s an extremely skilled writer.

As narrator, Richard’s thought processes are extremely natural, and it’s easy to identify with the little mental games he plays constantly. Trailing through the jungle at night, he pretends that every snapped twig costs him a video game-inspired ‘life’. Avoiding dope-guards, he pretends that they are Vietcong soldiers. As a Generation X kid, he’s been brought up on a diet of videogames, movies and pop-culture that colours how he interprets the world. He frequently likens his Thailand adventure to the Vietnam war- not the real Vietnam of course, but the glorified cinematic version pedaled by Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick. If he can liken his own situation to a situation from movies or TV, he is likely to lose his already-fragile handle on reality. This tendency goes so far as to cause him to take serious risks and make questionable decisions. Hey, if the A-team could swim through shark-infested waters, so can Richard, right? He’s such a relatable character that it takes the reader some time to realize that he’s actually a bit of a dick.

There’s a lack of irony throughout that is refreshing. Garland has little criticism for backpacker culture, probably because he’s a fan of it in real life. I wonder how Richard and his gang would fare if they met up with the small-minded backpacker twerps from Are You Experienced (another classic 90's travel story, written by the deeply cynical William Sutclife). Much potential ridiculousness is avoided due to the lack of any of the New Age nonsense that often comes with this territory. In fact, Garland is very clear that the Beach community have no philosophy whatsoever. They just work, eat and have a good time.

A serious flaw with the novel is how the Beach itself is viewed by Richard and the others that live there. For starters, they are already all feckless travelers, having traipsed across Asia, Africa and Europe to a man. They’re not exactly buttoned-down cubicle-jockies, and even before they reach the Beach they weren’t exactly living in what might be called the ‘real world’. Little detail is given about Richard’s life in England, but we are given no reason to suppose that he is unhappy there or in need of escape from anything. Beautiful and isolated as the Beach is, there seems little contrast between the characters lives there and their lives before, making the plot escalation about the impending destruction of life on the Beach a little underwhelming. They enjoy living there, but it doesn’t seem to have changed them in any way. Swim, catch fish, eat. Meh.

They scorn what they call The World, but they have failed in any meaningful way to live apart from it. Beach life is notably non self-sustaining, as they are reliant on occasional trips to the mainland to purchase rice, as well as the batteries they need for their Gameboys and other ‘essentials’. Seriously- much of the text is given over to who has the Gameboy, what their high score is, and when they're getting their next shipment of batteries. We are meant to accept that the Beach, at least at first, is the ultimate getaway from the world, but at the same time the characters there seem not to have lost their interest in it. Richard frequently doesn’t seem too pushed about whether he continues living there or goes home, and when he finally makes the decision to leave, he convinces several others to accompany him with almost pathetic ease. So when the shit does hit the fan and the community collapses, it’s sometimes hard to feel that much has been lost.

Of course, it’s possible that this is deliberate, and that the point of the book is actually how jaded Generation X are, and how they have it so easy that they don’t really appreciate anything, and how pop culture means more to them than real life. In this interpretation, by portraying the Beach as not being completely awesome, Garland sacrifices making the book work as an adventure story in favour of providing some deep social commentary. But somehow I doubt that that’s what he meant.

The Beach is definitely worth a read. Find a battered old copy in a second-hand shop and stick it in your bag alongside Lonely Planet and some pre-rolled joints, and you probably won’t be disappointed. Millions weren't. All the same, I have some deep reservations about anyone whose ultimate fantasy island getaway-situation involves a Nintendo Gameboy.