Two Days Home from Work

Downside:

1. Not being paid for this “vacation”.

2. Don’t know if I’ll have a workplace to return to due to massive flooding.


Upside:

1. Wonderful day at the playground and the park tossing a ball around with my oldest girl in this gorgeous post-hurricane weather.

2. Lovely day with my littlest of little ones, stuffy and home from day care, watching kiddie shows, reading books, and chasing her around the living room.


Conclusion:

What a rollercoaster this life has become!

Allan Quatermain

by H. Rider Haggard

One of the most pleasant discoveries I've made since I began this blog is that I love reading this author.

Allan Quatermain is the last novel in my Haggard compendium. Last summer I put away King Solomon's Mines and the summer before that, She. You know what? They're all good, real good. Surprisingly so, 'cause they aren't really what I look for in a novel.

Why do I like them?

At the risk of extreme simplification, Haggard knows how to tell an spellbinding story. There's none of the baggage of Victorian writing in his work. No hundred-word sentences, no flustery blustery prose, no pages upon pages of analysis of a social faux pas, no women beneath flowery umbrellae. There's no fretting and soul-searching and heart-rending hand-wringing. Indeed, whenever doubt creeps into a Haggardian character, he simply loads his elephant gun and kills a hippo.

He's credited with founding the "lost world" literary genre. Perhaps that's why I like his novels so. I remember the 4:30 movie on Channel 7 as a kid in the seventies, and I fondly recall "lost world" week. Iguanas masquerading as limb-tearing dinosaurs, giant spiders, diamonds and double-crossing, these pre-Indian Jones movies riveted me as a boy. Now, three decades later, the source material has me glued to the page.

I can't rightly rank them, though I think I liked She more than King Solomon. How could Haggard top those two, I thought, as I began Quatermain. But he did. In a way, Quatermain presents even a grander vision than the ones revealed in the previous novels. [I read the novels in the order I found them in the compendium: She, King Solomon's Mines, and Allan Quatermain. In chronological order, they appeared: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Allan Quatermain (1887), and She (later 1887).]

While She gives us Ayesha, an immortal queen, and King Solomon's Mines gives us, well, the fabled treasure mines of the Old Testament's King Solomon, Quatermain's quest is of even greater scope. Tantalizing hints of a lost civilization in the heart of the dark continent bring our aged hero - now an English millionaire pining for his deceased son - out of retirement. Dare I say it is a "white" civilization without being tarred and feathered? Whether descendendants of some Mediterranean society or a splintered branch of the Egyptian empire or one of the long lost tribes of Israel - rumour says little. Only the secondhand babblings of a dying man could get Allan out of his funk and repartnered with Sir Henry Curtis and Commodore Good and on safari in Africa for more lost worlds.

Immediately the party is attacked by ruthless and terrifying Masai warriors - warriors whose memory is long and wrath insatiable. A missionary's daughter is kidnapped for a fate worse than death, should not one of our three plucky heros offer himself in her place. Then there are suspenseful natural calamaties to be overcome. An unfortunate and uncontrolled descent into an underground river left me particularly claustrophobic and on the seat of my chair (especially the crab creature attack and the lava fountain of death). It kept me up past midnight one night to experience the resolution.

Then - the lost civilization of the Zu-Vendis is conveniently discovered. Two Queens this time, Nyleptha and Sorais, though mortal and very much jealous of each other and each's natural attractions to our various men of action. War tears the kingdom asunder as Allan treads a fine path to save it, his head, the heads of his friends, and the lives of millions of innocent men, women, and children. With his noble and in many ways superior Zulu warrior-comrade Umslopagaas (I love that!) Allan pulls it off - just barely - and at the probable cost of his own very life.

I loved it! Without a doubt, it was probably my best read this year so far, LotR notwithstanding. The pages flowed, the dialogue pulled me in, the action kept me up reading long after I should have been to bed. At the very end I felt a more-than-slight tinge of regret that I would no longer travel with these characters, these men, who have become endeared companions to me.

I give Allan Quatermain an A-minus.

There's also a new tradition of sorts that I've started: reading an H. Rider Haggard novel every August. My compendium's finished, but I have a couple of his titles to put on my Acquisitions List. Now, I don't know much about them besides a name and maybe a sentence-synopsis, but I'm willing to throw ten or twelve hours of my life into the kitty. Eric Brighteyes, a somewhat effeminately-titled Viking saga, and Belshazzar, possibly about that Biblical king who saw the writing on the wall are on it, as well as The World's Desire, Haggard's retelling of the Odyssey.

FYIs:

My review of She is here.

My review of King Solomon's Mines is here.

[I wrote this review without refreshing my memory of these other two reviews I wrote in 2009 and 2010.]

Irene Aftermath

Well, I got lucky.

Irene was scheduled to hit my part of New Jersey hardest between 3 am and noon on Sunday. I started hurricane-proofing the homestead Friday evening because forecasts called for rain much of Saturday, and I had my other errands to take care of anyway. So while the girls were chowing down on Friday night nuggets, I put all the lawn furniture and trash cans in the garage, cleaned and realigned gutters, resecured doors and windows, and latched that pesky loose cable wire to the side of the house.

Saturday morning the wife cooked us all some eggs and toast (trying to get rid of perishables). I paid a pressing bill then took the little ones out with me for a few quick runs: post office, dry cleaners, recycling center, gas station, and, yes, Barnes and Noble (for a book for the big Little One: trying to turn her into a mini-Michael Dell).

It started raining - misting, rather - at 10:30 that morning.

Got back and put candles and matches on the dining room table, charged up cell phones, ran dehumidifyer in the basement. The girls packed up and left for my parent's house 75 miles away in PA, on the predicted periphery of the storm. They left amid drizzling rains at 12:30 and I did something rare for me, especially of late.

I decided to work out.

I did a couple sets of one-arm curls, some push-ups, leg dips and calf raises. Stretched. Cooked myself some chicken and had a protein-fest for lunch. A refreshing shower, and then I was ready to tackle this perfect storm.

Spent the next three hours removing the air conditioning units (we have four of 'em) and getting all the books and papers off the basement floor (I have a library down there). Nervous glances outside every now and then as the trees started swaying and the rains came down a little harder. Watched a lot of teevee that afternoon and evening interspersed with bouts of Mayor Bloomberg speaking espanol at the podium and Geraldo squeegieing horizontal rain out of his ginormous 'stache.

Had more chicken with some pasta. Watched some news and saw the big storm approaching via Doppler radar; waited for the worse to hit. Then, I got sleepy. Tried to read my Wilhelm SF novel but couldn't concentrate. I figured if I was to be baling water out of my attic (if the roof leaked) or the basement (if those concrete blocks failed me) it'd be in the wee hours of the morning. So I went to sleep on the couch at 10. On the first-floor living room couch, because I was also worried the three giant, fifty-foot oaks behind my house might overturn and crush the bedrooms on the second floor.

Twice during the night I woke up; both times I noticed power had been out from blinking clock lights. Around 12:30 and 3:30 I made the rounds, and was satisfied that the house was keeping the water out. Since there was no air conditioners running, I had a fan in the living room on me that tends to drown out outside noise. I shut it off and heard the winds and rains slamming my little abode. Truth be known, I was really surprised that no water was seeping in anywhere. I still realized the worse was yet to come, but I was so exhausted I had no trouble falling back asleep both times.

I awoke at 8 the next morning and for a third time inspected my house with pleasant results. Called the wife and girls to check up on them. Had breakfast and fiddled around all day as the storm finally began to ebb. There was actually 90 minutes of sun beginning at 10:30 on Sunday morning that dried my driveway and street! Feeling guilty, I watched mass on EWTN. Managed to read over 80 pages of the Wilhelm book. Put the dining room AC back in to cool of the house. Went out to inspect the backyard deck and nearly stumbled over Floyd. Had pasta for lunch, read some more, did my exercise bike, and watched Death Race 2000 on my laptop. Yep, it was a random, strange day.

Late afternoon brought fierce winds but no rain as the tail end of Irene swept across northern Jersey. Thank God I slept through this the first time, because it's quite scary seeing the tops of those fifty-foot oaks sway back and forth ten feet in every direction.

Though my house never lost power, my parents out in rural PA did. My wife made the executive decision to stay over there a second night, which I concurred. Sunday evening for me was uneventful. I prepared to go to work Monday morning. I read still some more (this time some Ouspensky, of which I must blog about soon). Watched some more bad 70s cinema. Went to bed early again, exhausted again.

But the house survived unscathed! O ye of little faith, why didst thou doubt!

[PS - Though it kept out the water, the roof gave up a few shingles to the storm goddess. I also noticed some buckling up there that was not there before. Oh well. That is for the roofers to address as they make their pilgrimmage here later in the week.]