Customer Reviews

Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain

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This is one of the best works by H. Rider Haggard that I've read, and I've read a good number of them. This is the tale of how Allan Quatermain, hero of 14 of Haggard's books, including "King Solomon's Mines," met his first wife. It is set against the time of the Great Trek in the 1830s, and is jammed with action, adventure and romance. There are two terrific villains, Dingaan (brother of Chaka) and a Portuguese who's trying to not only kill our hero, but rob him of his wife in the bargain. The book starts out with a thrilling battle scene, and ends with a scene of tremendous emotional intensity. In between there is so much colorful action and movement that you find yourself zipping through the chapters as quickly as you can. The book is a true "page turner," with great sweep and drive. The supporting characters are either colorful, comedic or memorable. Hans--Quatermain's Hottentot sidekick from many of the other books--is featured here, too, and his is always a welcome presence. What a shame that this book has been out of print for so many years, along with the great preponderance of the other works of this wonderful writer. Haggard has been called the greatest adventure fantasist of all time, and I would tend to agree with that assessment. So do yourself a favor and go to the trouble of seeking this book out. It will reward your efforts!

Henry Haggard, author of KING SOLOMONS MINE is a largely forgotten writer and these are great stories in and of themselves and even greater if someone is interested in Africa.

Free classics on Kindle have exposed many readers to timeless authors whose stories are unsurpassed to date. Haggard is one of those authors. The excitement, storyline, characters, scenery, and historical background is completely captivating in every book Haggard has written. If you like reading you will love all of HR Haggards books. If you like adventure you are in for stories that cannot be compared.

Though I read incessantly, this is the first time I have felt compelled to write a review of a product for Amazon. But I have so enjoyed reading H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain series that I thought I would share my thoughts about it, in hopes that a new generation of readers (in particular those who are likely to discover him through the Kindle at the astronomically wonderful price of "free") might be compelled to give these wonderful tales a try and perhaps become lifelong fans.

The first Allan Quatermain book written, and the most famous of the tales, King Solomon's Mines is also the first one I read. It was absolutely wonderful, exciting and fun and humorous in all the right proportions, and when I was done I decided to find out a little more about Haggard and the Allan Quatermain series. As such I soon found out that while "King Solomon's Mines" was the first Quatermain story to be written, in 1885, it was chronologically one of the last in what would become the Allan Quatermain series, and decided to read the rest of them in the chronological order of the character, rather than the order in which they were written. This book, "Marie", is chronologically the first book in the series, though it was actually written in 1912.

In "King Solomon's Mines" Quatermain is already an older man, having lived a hard life in Africa as a professional big game hunter, the book taking place right around 1880. "Marie", on the other hand, takes place over the years of 1835-1838, and tells the tale of Allan's first love, Marie Marais, the "Marie" of the book's title. While I have no interest in ruining the tale for anyone who hasn't yet read it, Allan tells us right in the beginning of his narrative that this was to be a tragic and star-crossed love, so epic and poignant and formative to the young Allan that it would shape the remainder of his life to come. The rest of the book certainly lives up to that promise.

Despite ostensibly being a tragic love story, this is also an Allan Quatermain story and written by H. Rider Haggard, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that it has more than its share of action and drama (and melodrama, though not so much as other writers of the time indulged in, or, indeed, as much as Haggard indulged in himself in other books, such as HEART OF THE WORLD: MACDONALD ILLUSTRATED EDITION (Macdonald Illustrated Edition)). There is a desperate and nearly tragic stand against enraged native warriors. There are shooting contests against mad despots with dozens of lives on the line. There is a mad dash across South Africa in hopes of saving the woman he loves from death by starvation and illness due to the pride and mad arrogance of her father and the cruel and haughty man that he chose for her. So yes, while it is a love story, it is one where Allan Quatermain is constantly testing himself against man, nature and fate in order to make himself worthy of the woman he loves and win a place for them in the world. I doubt even the most jaded of adventure hounds could fault this "mere" love story, or be bored by it. This tale comes to a conclusion that is so poignant and tragic that is almost Shakespearean.

Haggard's trademark humor also makes the trek into Allan's past more or less intact. Since this is a tragic love story you can't expect it to be the laugh-riot that the much more light-hearted "King Solomon's Mines" was, but it does have more than its share of humor, mostly in the form of Allan's delightfully amoral Hottentot companion Hans. Hans is nearly brimming with advice that is logically sound and morally questionable, not to mention wanting nothing so badly as to find and consume mass quantities of alcohol as often as possible. But there is a sort of Zen-like wisdom in the simplicity of Hans' worldview, such as the time that Hans' suggests that Allan and Marie's lives might be simplified immeasurably if Hans' gun should "accidentally" go off and kill Hernando Periera, Allan's rival for Marie's affections. Allan dismisses Hans too often as a savage, but one is left wondering if Hans' simplified native worldview isn't preferable to Allan's ultimately damning adherence to his British pride and honor.

Does the tale have its flaws? Of course, and much more so than were apparent in "King Solomon's Mines" or others of the earlier-written-but-chronologically-later Quatermain stories. For one thing, everyone except for Marie's father, Henri Marais, and Allan's rival for Marie's affection, Hernando Periera sing his praises so often and so valuably that you occasionally want to yell "we get it! He's a hero!" at your book, and Periera is portrayed as a creature so cowardly and dastardly that he does everything except twirl his mustache and tie Marie to the train tracks. In "King Solomon's Mines" and other books, before Quatermain had become Haggard's consummate hero and gravy train he was portrayed much more realistically and less saintly; he is occasionally cowardly, quite vocal about being cowardly, not to mention tired, cautious and somewhat ugly, with a scraggly beard and hair that sticks up every which way. His two redeeming features are his old man's wisdom and his extraordinary shooting ability. The young Allan of "Marie", however, is clever, brave, honorable to the point of fault, heroic and almost messianic. Either the old Allan writing the tale of the young Allan's exploits or H. Rider Haggard himself in writing the book have started to believe a bit too much of the hype surrounding our intrepid hero, and have lost some of the perspective that showed us Allan's flaws, making him more quirky, realistic and likable. The only other complaint I can think of is that people expecting another "King Solomon's Mines" might be disappointed that this is a different kind of tale; there are no lost treasures, princes in disguise or deadly Indiana Jones-style traps. But that only makes sense, as Allan couldn't be expected to have experienced similar remarkable adventures in his youth. If he had it would have cheapened the events that happened to him later in his life. But the adventures that he DOES have in this book are interesting and deadly enough in their own right to keep just about anyone happy.

Since this book was written in 1912, long before the struggle for Civil Rights or Political Correctness came into their own, I won't beat a black horse to death. But I must at least mention that Haggard's portrayal of the native people of Africa was, for the most part, honorable, respectful and refreshing. While he does occasionally refer to them as "savages" or the like, and he does use the term "Kaffir" often, which is now considered a racist pejorative, by and large Haggard treats the Africans with as much dignity and respect as he does any other people. Which is to say some are honorable, some are dastardly, and some are just people, but Haggard refuses to categorize them as a people or use them as a foil against valiant white heroes. Some are good and some are bad and some are heroic and some are horrid, just as it is amongst the British, the Dutch, or anyone else. He writes and describes the natives as individuals and humans above all else, which is no mean feat considering the time he was writing in. Despite the prevalent racial nastiness of the time, Haggard manages to treat the black African characters with as much honor and respect as he does anyone else, even while his characters are repelling attacks from angry mobs of native "Quabies" and "Zulus".

All in all "Marie" is an excellent addition to the Allan Quatermain series, a beautiful story of love of survival, and a pulse-punding story of action and adventure, even in a sea of tragedy and melodrama. Above all this book is entertaining, poignant and riveting, well worth the time of any fans of romance, adventure or even pure action. Haggard is one of the largely forgotten gems of English adventure literature.