Reading "King Solomon's Mines" reminded me of the joke about the guy who sees his first Shakespere play, and when asked what he thought of it, said, "real good, but so many cliches". So it is with this classic adventure story: so much of the action and plot devices were similar to what I remembered from other adventure stories (and comic books and movies), yet Rider Haggard came decades earlier. Here is one of the prototypes (along with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island", written just a few years earlier) of the modern adventure-action story. There is lots to admire in this well crafted story: great action, excitement, characters, and exotic locations. If there's a kid you know that only wants to watch television or play video games, read this book with him or her. It shows what words on a page can do in the imagination of the reader.
It is also interesting to see the book in its historical perspective. "King Solomon's Mines", 1885, records European ignorance of and fascination with Africa, which was still partly (as Joseph Conrad later called it in "Heart of Darkness") a blank area on the map: The source of the Nile had been discovered only two decades earlier; Henry Stanley and Richard Burton were still living, the memories of David Livingstone and John Speke were still fresh; and the Berlin Africa Conference was taking place just as the novel was going into print. If that's not of interest to you, skip it. Want to curl up with a good book? Here's one for you and your kids.
