If ever I get the opportunity to safari in Africa, I’m gone like a shot. Have to admit though that my wife has a point: To really do the safari I dream of, I’d need a time machine c. 1920s-30s.
Lucky for me, I have the novels of Bartle Bull.
Bull compiled the classic “Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure,” an exhaustive history of the African safari, combining history, contemporary reporting and pop culture exposition. He also wrote three novels featuring the White Hunter Anton Rider.
The best of them is “A Café on the Nile.”
The action centers around a 1935 safari imperiled by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. It’s a cracking tale, with just the right amount of pulp sensibility, elevated by some really strong writing and Bull’s first-hand knowledge of the African bush.
It’s an old-fashioned tale in a very good way — a true and unapologetic adventure story. Yet it is also quite modern in its gritty depiction of violence and raw sexuality.
Anton Rider is the flawed yet fundamentally sound hero, and there is a vast cast of vivid characters, many of whom were introduced in “White Rhino Hotel,” which, while entertaining, does not measure up to “Café.”
Olivio Fonseca Alavedo, a manipulative, scheming Goan dwarf, proprietor of the titular Cataract Café, is a central instigating character. Rider’s estranged wife Gwenn is an aspiring medical doctor who is involved with Col. Lorenzo Grimaldi, an officer in the Italian Air Force.
Bernadette and Harriet Mills are Kentucky heiresses who have contracted Rider’s safari services. Rider’s friend Ernst von Decken is a German soldier of fortune who has stolen a fortune in Italian silver.
It all adds up to a ripping yarn that serves as the next best thing to going on safari c. 1935…
The rugged terrain of Abyssina is the setting for savage action in “A Café on the Nile.”
Lane Batot says
Some of my FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME are also good ripping novels of Africa(South Africa and the Kalahari, specifically), by the author who was light years ahead of the rest of us(may he rest in peace) Laurens Van Der Poste–his two novels “A Story Like The Wind”, which sets things up for the sequel, “A Far Off Place”–about a boy growing up in the South African bush with his Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, who secretely befriends a Bushman, and learns all manner of African tribal lore and animal knowledge, and then, with the Bushman and his wife’s aid, along with his dog and another(female) settler friend, must escape ruthless terrorists pursuing them across the Kalahari–incredibly exciting, enlightening, and beautifully written! SUPER HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Fairly cheaply obtained used off’n Amazon. That is, if you’ve not already read(and reread and reread and reread, as I have!) these books. Disney made a movie of the 2nd book(“A Far Off Place”) by the same name–not a bad movie(despite numerous changes and deletions of characters) IF you haven’t read the books! By all means, see the movie FIRST, enjoy it, then read the splendidly superior books! Otherwise, the movie will greatly dissapoint….well, it IS the only movie I know with a Rhodesian Ridgeback in it, at least!
JimC says
Wonderful stuff.
Lane Batot says
So, does that mean you’ve read these books, or maybe are going to now? And if or when you’ve read them–definetely fodder for a future post! And on the subject of fodder for “Frontier Partisans”–I just rewatched my own cheapo DVD copy(acquired for me by a brave and foolish person that risked their life to get it cheaply at a Wal-Mart Black Friday sale) of “Cowboys And Aliens”–gawd, I LOVE that movie! Such a HOOT! Every old Western cliche’ represented and turned upside down! Despite critics and general public cynical comments about the movie(which I tend to not see eye-to-eye with the critics or general public anyway), I thought it was a GREAT idea for a movie–and very well done! Probably just too outside-the-box fer most folks, though……
JimC says
No, I haven’t read them — but I did see the movie. I’ve heard from several people that the books are wonderful — I’ve tossed em in my cart at the Behemoth.
Lane Batot says
Excellent–you are proceeding in the correct order, then! You most definetely have a couple of books to enjoy, when the Behemoth(?) delivereth them……