Colonel Chabert Book

"Listen! What is life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner."

According to the blurb this is the first novel written in English taking place in Africa. Another and a better-known fact is that this is the first Lost World novel and H. Rider Haggard was the father of the trope. The book is told in first person - by Allan Quatermain. In the beginning of the story he is getting old, but still doing his dangerous business of elephant hunting in South Africa.

One day two English gentlemen approached him. Their names were Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good. The former's brother was lost while trying to find legendary diamond mines of King Solomon (yes, THAT Solomon - from the Old Testament). They wanted to ask Allan to join them in their search considering his experience and survival skills. It turned out Allan knew something about this business, so after lots of hesitations and pondering he decided to accept the offer. A dangerous adventure followed culminating in our party ending up in a "lost world". No dinosaurs this time though, sorry.


Now that I finished the book and had some time to think about it I realized it has great descriptions of South African landscapes. There were plenty of them, but they were short enough not to become boring. I have never been even close to that place, but I am now convinced it is gorgeous.


In case I have not made this clear before, the book is old-fashioned adventure. This means people that love the genre will love it and people trying to look at it from the modern point of view will hate it. I belong to the first category, so my vote is Yea!

I found it curious that in the books written at around this time any warm-blooded male upon seeing an elephant (or better yet - the whole herd) would immediately grab a high-caliber gun and start shooting. It seems we became more kind toward other animals since then.

I also admit that there are some Imperialistic undertones present, and no wonder considering the time the story was written was the height of the power of British Empire.

What I did not find was blatant racism that reviewers are quick to point out. Right in the beginning of the tale Allan said that there are black people that are real gentlemen and there are while people that are not. In other words, he was an equal opportunity guy. If you are still not convinced read the chapter The Last Stand of Grays and try to find anything racist in the noble stand of the black army.

In any way, my rating is 4 stars and I stand by it.