Dear Old Alan

[poliphilo]

 Every so often- ever since I was 12- I have felt the need to have a little Rider Haggard in my life. I am currently reading Finished, the third part of a trilogy, featuring Alan Quatermain (dear old, wise old, violent old Alan) and dealing with the fall of the Zulu kingdom. I read book 1 in my teens, book 2 in late middle age and here I am rounding off the experience. There's lots of fighting, lots of tamped down sexuality and lots of lovely, lovely supernaturalism. There's not much that Indiana Jones knows that he didn't learn from Alan. The Quatermain book that is mostly read these days is King Solomon's Mines, but I think the trilogy- Marie, Child of Storm and Finished- is better, richer, fuller- with more engaging characters....