The World's Desire (1890)

I'm not going to claim that Haggard even at his best is the same order of classic as the best by Charles Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. But like fellow Victorians Arthur Conan Doyle or Robert Louis Stevenson or Rudyard Kipling, Haggard really could spin a good yarn, and the fantasy genre in general owes him a great debt. Ten of his books are on my bookshelves. I gobbled those up in my teens and most I remember very, very well even decades later. My favorite of his novels involve Ayesha, especially the book Wisdom's Daughter, which is also set in Ancient Egypt and like The World's Desire, could be seen as historical fantasy. This is my second favorite of the Haggard books I've read, and is actually a collaboration with Andrew Lang, and other.

The back cover bills this as "the third Odyssey" and involves Odysseus, Homer's hero. At the end of The Odyssey we know that Odysseus must undertake another journey to placate Poseidon. In Haggard's novel, he returns only to find Penelope slain and his home burned to the ground. He then undertakes a new quest--to find his true love Helen under the auspices of Aphrodite. In a way that irked me a bit. Goodness knows Ancient Greek literature isn't perhaps the place to find strong female characters, but I always loved Penelope, a great match for Odysseus, noted for her cunning (remember her unweaving of the shroud to fool the suitors.) Helen on the other hand, is noted for physical beauty. And certainly this isn't a classic on the order of Homer! But taken for what it is, a crackling adventure yarn and fantasy, this is a lot of fun, as long as you aren't put off by Victorian prose or political sensibilities. ( )

Haggard and Lang undertake a great task with this book, to write a fitting sequel to 'The Odyssey', one of the greatest tales ever told. To their credit they succeed quite well although the book drags in part when talk dominates events.

Returning from his second wandering as prophesied during his visit to The Underworld, Odyssey finds Ithaca a barren island. His wife Penelope and son Telemachus and all his people have fallen victim to a plague and those few left alive have deserted their home.

The only sign of life is in the temple of Aphrodite where she berates Odysseus for only worshipping Pallas Athene the goddess of War rather than herself, the goddess of Love.

She sends Odysseus a vision of his one true love, Helen of Troy and instructs him to leave Ithaca forever in search of her. His search takes him to Egypt where an ineffectual pharaoh and his domineering wife/sister are under siege from two fronts: from a mysterious goddess who has taken residence in Tanis luring men to their deaths and from a series of plagues brought down on Egypt by two unnamed conjurers in support of a slave revolt.

Students of Homer may find this book an enjoyable diversion. Old Testament scholars may be less impressed. ( )