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Allan Quatermain Zulu Trilogy

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Plynkes:
Occasionally we get folks asking for fiction recommendations of a colonial sort, so I thought it was time to open a Colonial annexe of Björn's Book Corner to share with you some of the stuff that I have enjoyed. Today I'm talking about a set of Henry Rider Haggard stories that have been overshadowed somewhat by the more famous King Solomon's Mines, some comic or other that folks are always nattering about here, and a horrid pile of dreck with Sean Connery in it.

They are three stories which detail the adventures of famous big game hunter Allan Quatermain in Zululand over the span of about forty-five years. They are sometimes referred to as the Zulu Trilogy, or the Zikali Trilogy (after the character whose actions really drive events). The broad story arc concerns the long-planned, slow-burning vengeance of the Zulu Dwarf Wizard Zikali (AKA The Opener of Roads and The thing-that-should-never-have-been-born) against the Zulu Royal House of Senzangakhona. Quatermain finds himself time and again dragged into Zikali's schemes as an unwilling pawn. Also, he shoots lots of wild animals, and more than a few Africans, too.

Surprisingly enough the trilogy consists of three books: Marie (1912), Child of Storm (1913) and Finished (1917).

They are something of a departure from most of the Quatermain stories, which usually have some kind of fantastical, you might even say VSF element. He normally ventures off discovering lost cities, lost white tribes, immortal beauties and even weirder metaphysical shit, but these three tales are firmly grounded in history rather than fantasy. In the same way that George MacDonald Fraser inserts Flashman into historical events in his novels, this saga is woven into Zulu history and the fictional characters are present and participate in situations that actually happened. I rather like this approach, and it makes a nice change from the usual nonsense Quatermain gets up to (though I do love that too). The stories do contain African witchcraft, spirit magic, ghosts and the like, but it is portrayed in such a way that a sceptical person could dismiss it as trickery and hallucination (which is precisely what Quatermain does), but we are never really sure about this.




Marie.
Historical background and events: 1830s. Sixth Cape Frontier War. Abolition of Slavery. The Great Trek. Dingane and Piet Retief.
Plot: The teenage Allan Quatermain's first love. He falls for the beautiful daughter of a Boer farmer with tragic results. Oh, and he shoots lots of animals.

May seem like I've dropped a spoiler in your lap there, but I don't think so. The tragic ending isn't so much foreshadowed, we are pretty much told about it outright on Page One. It is a story so painful to Allan that he has refused to discuss or set it down on paper for many years, and it is only discovered after his death (the Quatermain stories are portrayed as if they were his memoirs, occasionally with inserts from other people's recollections).


"Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind, but no top tenors, that's for sure."

The action takes us from Cape Colony to Mozambique, Zululand and finally Natal. Early on Allan gets his own personal miniature Rorke's Drift (which is lots of fun), and for the rest of the book battles for his love of Marie to be accepted by her bigoted father; who rabidly hates the English and won't have his daughter marry one of them. Allan's evil rival for her love constantly plots his downfall, and Allan finds himself dragged into terrifying events at the court of Zulu despot Dingane. The Zulu Dwarf Wizard Zikali (Zulu Dwarf Wizard? Isn't that a World of Warcraft character class?) first appears in this story, though we don't actually even see him, and his scheming doesn't really get going until the second book.

I enjoyed this book, as I like a good tragic Shakespearean romance, and there is enough action and drama to keep you interested. The atmosphere of sheer terror living under the whim of a tyrant whose very word is death, and who distributes it arbitrarily, is well conveyed. The ending is (to my modern sensibilities anyway) the only slight let-down, but more of that in a minute in the spoiler section below.


Racism. Well, I think if you met H.R. Haggard today you would probably call his attitudes towards Africans a bit racist, but I think that for his time he was pretty progressive. Quatermain angrily condemns use of the n-word in one of the books, though it must be said that all the characters; black, white and in between, throw the nowadays-extremely offensive term Kaffir around like confetti. But you will find that the virtuous and the vile, the heroic and cowardly, and the honest and treacherous are spread fairly evenly across all the races and nationalities in the Quatermain books. It is certainly a refreshing change from some of the Victorian and early 20th Century's writers, with their idiotic ideas about Africans and barely concealed white supremacism. I'm looking at you, John Buchan.

Haggard likes to portray the Zulus, among other things, as a nation hopelessly addicted to gossip and scandal-mongering, rather than just a one-note "savage-yet-noble" warrior people.  I actually find that quite endearing, as they seem not so different to our society today in that regard. It is clear however, that either Quatermain, Haggard or both don't think all that much of the Boers. Even so there are plenty of sympathetic Boer characters. But the devilishly handsome main villain, just to emphasize what a moustache-twirler he is, is half-Boer/half-Portuguese. You do get the impression that his fiery yet mysterious "latin-ness" is what makes him a bad 'un. Naughty Haggard. I soon got over this stumbling block by imagining him as a winking, cheating Cristiano Ronaldo to Quatermain's dopey but dependable Wayne Rooney.  ;) lol

Next: Things get hot and steamy in Child of Storm.

After the next picture is a short spoiler section. Skip it if you don't want to be spoiled.


Allan shoots some local wildlife dead. Get used to it: this is what Quatermain does.



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Spoiler ahead
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The Ending. This was the only part where I wasn't totally convinced.  Our pal Ronaldo has spent the entire book cheating, lying, and even repeatedly trying to murder Quatermain in order to get the girl. At the end he manages to frame Allan for a treacherous crime which he actually committed himself. But his scheme comes undone and he himself is mortally hurt. The Boers are still going to lynch Quatermain, and only the testimony of Ronaldo can save him. If he keeps his gob shut he takes Allan with him, twrling his moustache and cackling as he goes. Instead he goes and confesses everything. Either it is supposed to show him to be redeemable, or he suddenly fears eternal damnation, but it seemed so out of character compared with how he acted for the rest of the book that I found myself in a "What the fuck...?!!" moment. I suppose the deathbed confession is a staple of older fiction, but I didn't really buy it. Do people really do this? To casually cast aside the villainy that has defined everything about him like that. What was the fucking point all this time? You could have saved everyone a whole lot of bother, and a lot less people would be dead! You could have at least carried it through to the end, you fucking idiot! Oh well, at least it makes him a more interesting character to ponder, and gives you something to think about.  :)




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Heldrak:
Thanks, Plynkes. I confess to having been a bit confused as to how all the various Quatermain books fit together and this helps.

Plynkes:
The edition I have suggests this as a chronological order for the stories (quite different to the order they were written in, though):

Marie
Child of Storm
Allan's Wife
A Tale of Three Lions
Maiwa's Revenge
Hunter Quatermain's Story
Long Odds
Allan and the Holy Flower
Heu Heu or The Monster
She and Allan
Treasure of the Lake
The Ivory Child
Finished
Magepa the Buck
King Solomon's Mines
The Ancient Allan
Allan and the Ice Gods
Allan Quatermain

But I chose to read the Zulu Trilogy together as they form a broad story arc, which the other books don't really do.

Gluteus Maximus:
I'm surprised there are that many Quatermain stories  :o

Definitely worth hunting them down, starting with this trilogy!

Gluteus Maximus:
This is an absolute no-brainer for those who can cope with reading e-books.

"The H. Rider Haggard Omnibus: 68 Novels and Short Stories (Halcyon Classics) [Kindle Edition]"

£2.23 including VAT!

From: http://www.amazon.co.uk/H-Rider-Haggard-Omnibus-Classics/dp/B002WPZV7S/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284219434&sr=1-9

Wish I could handle reading lots of e-text  :'(

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