MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - MobileRead Discussion - "King Solomon's Mines" by Sir Henry Rider Haggard

ShortNCuddlyAm · 06-20-2009, 08:15 PM

I'll start with saying I've loved this book since I first read it, although it has been quite a few years now since I last read it and I was a bit worried it would be suffering from rose tinted glasses. In particular, given the period in which it was written, I was wondering how racist it actually was as opposed how I remembered it being.

So, ignoring that concern for the moment, I'll start with it as an adventure story, of which it is a classic - it would seem to have influenced everyone & everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Indiana Jones. It's a rip-roaring, boys-own adventure, what with long lost kings, winning battles against all odds, finding untold treasures and escaping certain doom.

On to the other aspects. Yes, there is a degree of racism - which given when it was written is not surprising. But... it's very clear that Rider-Haggard didn't have the blanket view that all non-Europeans were inferior that seemed to be prevalent then. He seems to have been concerned about the effect that European exploration and exploitation of Africa would have on the continent and the native people. (Moving slightly away from King Solomon's Mines, this becomes even more obvious in the book "Allan Quatermain", in which there are some very scathing comments about Western "civilisation").

06-20-2009, 08:15 PM	#2
ShortNCuddlyAm WWHALD Posts: 7,879 Karma: 337114 Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Mitcham, Surrey, UK Device: iPad. Selling my silver 505 here	I'll start with saying I've loved this book since I first read it, although it has been quite a few years now since I last read it and I was a bit worried it would be suffering from rose tinted glasses. In particular, given the period in which it was written, I was wondering how racist it actually was as opposed how I remembered it being. So, ignoring that concern for the moment, I'll start with it as an adventure story, of which it is a classic - it would seem to have influenced everyone & everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Indiana Jones. It's a rip-roaring, boys-own adventure, what with long lost kings, winning battles against all odds, finding untold treasures and escaping certain doom. On to the other aspects. Yes, there is a degree of racism - which given when it was written is not surprising. But... it's very clear that Rider-Haggard didn't have the blanket view that all non-Europeans were inferior that seemed to be prevalent then. He seems to have been concerned about the effect that European exploration and exploitation of Africa would have on the continent and the native people. (Moving slightly away from King Solomon's Mines, this becomes even more obvious in the book "Allan Quatermain", in which there are some very scathing comments about Western "civilisation").