Résumé
Résumé de Quand le monde trembla
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who enjoy lost worlds, shipwrecks and secret caves, and those who like friends who argue warmly. It also suits anyone drawn to stories about love, faith and doubt, and what might wait beyond death.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
When the World Shook is a romance of adventure by H. Rider Haggard, published in 1919 and dedicated to his friend Lord Curzon. It is told by Humphrey Arbuthnot, a wealthy, restless Englishman who has lost his wife and wants to know whether anything lies beyond death.
He takes two old friends with him on a yacht bound for the South Seas. One is Bastin, a devout and tactless clergyman. The other is Bickley, a brilliant surgeon who believes in nothing he cannot touch. Their quarrels give the book much of its humor, and they never stop even when the world around them turns strange.
You get a shipwreck, a cannibal island, a lake with a forbidden mountain, a tomb, and a story of lost wisdom and ambition. You also get a love story that reaches beyond a single lifetime. The first key point begins in a Devonshire village, where Arbuthnot sets out to explain who he is and why he has failed at so much.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A rich man who has lost his purposeFree
- 2Two friends who share nothing but affection
- 3Natalie, and a promise at the edge of death
- 4A dream calls him south
- 5A cyclone and a ruined ship
- 6Gods by courtesy of a lump
- 7The idol, the oven and the mountain
- 8The cave, the statue and the glowing coffins
- 9What the story is about, and how it is told
Point clé 1 sur 9
A rich man who has lost his purpose
Humphrey Arbuthnot opens his story in the Devon village where he was born. His father, a learned and gentle High Church vicar, taught him at home until he went to Oxford. Humphrey is clever and handsome, yet he calls himself a failure. He blames two faults: a fastidious nature that finds flaws in everything, and a lack of perseverance.
He tries the law and wins a will case for a man he believes is a forger. The two women he ruins haunt his conscience, and he leaves the Bar. His first book is a great success, but his second is torn apart by critics, and a false charge of plagiarism is pressed against him. His father dies before the two can make peace after a quarrel.
He then turns to money. Working for a stockbroker cousin, he rises quickly to partner, and a boom makes him a millionaire. Uneasy at the ruin speculation brings to others, he sells out, leaves his partners a large sum, and buys the Priory at Fulcombe, where his father once served.
Yet wealth does not cure his boredom. Like the weary king in Ecclesiastes, he finds all of it vanity. His neighbors distrust him for his radical views. He is thirty or so, rich, healthy and without any aim.
This opening shows a man ready for something larger than comfort. It also shows his habit of judging himself with sharp honesty, which makes him a trustworthy guide.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Quand le monde trembla
What is When the World Shook about?
It follows three English friends who are wrecked on a Pacific island in a cyclone. They find an ancient sleeping king and his daughter, and are drawn into the secrets of a vanished civilization and a plan to reshape the world.
Who are Bastin and Bickley?
Bastin is a High Church clergyman with simple, unshakable faith, and Bickley is a skeptical surgeon who trusts only evidence. Their friendly quarrels frame the novel, while Arbuthnot sits between them.
Who are Oro and Yva?
Oro is an ancient king and astronomer who claims to have slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years. Yva is his daughter, a gentle woman of vast learning who becomes close to Arbuthnot.
When was When the World Shook written?
H. Rider Haggard wrote it in 1918, as the dedication shows, and it was published in 1919. The war appears in the story, and the book is a work of fiction with a fantastic plot.
What is the main message of the book?
The book suggests that love and self-sacrifice are stronger than knowledge or power. It also presents faith and doubt side by side, leaving readers to weigh what to trust.