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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
A pre-first world war adventure/spy novel that gave birth to the 1935 Hitchcock movie of the same name, and one of Buchan’s Richard Hanney novels. I am not sure how it ever got on the list of a 1001 books you must read before you die, or was cited 42nd in the Guardian’s top 100 British novels, but it is a reasonably good read once you have gotten over Buchan’s negativity towards anyone who isn’t part of the Empire.
We’re firmly into 2021 but don’t tell me it’s too late to make a New Year’s Resolution, January ain’t over yet. With that in mind I’ve decided to read and review one book a month from the Guardian 100 Greatest Novels of All Time list, in no particular order. I’m no mathematician, but by my calculations this should take me roughly 100 months.
Because I’ve started this late in January I chose a slim one to kick it off with - weighing in at 149 pages, John Buchan’s archetypal spy novel The Thirty Nine Steps. This follows manly Edwardian era protagonist Richard Hannay, who ends up on the run from both the police and a sinister cabal of German spies after coming home to find his neighbour’s knifed corpse and a coded book of secrets.
I can imagine there’s a certain generation of men who get a kick out of Hannay’s stiff-upper-lip resourcefulness. It’s not hard to trace a line from Richard Hannay to James Bond. That said, I hold the unpopular opinion that these espionage jaunts are a little childish. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of macho-fantasy, it’s just not for me, and it’s often because the plot points in these stories are so contrived that it can seem kind of insulting to the reader.
Take Hannay, the luckiest man in the world, with the uncanny ability to inspire utmost confidence in strangers and in turn suss out the trustworthiness of others just from the look on their face:
This proves incredibly helpful to him during his travails. In need of a quick disguise? There’s a friendly milkman or road worker to unquestioningly swap clothes with him! Imprisoned in a cellar by a nemesis? Just a quick look around will reveal that that very same cellar is well stocked with explosive materials, and of course our protagonist knows exactly how to use them to make his escape, what with his background as a mining engineer. Reading The Thirty Nine Steps gave me the feeling that I wasn’t so much travelling along with Hannay on his adventures, but something more like watching somebody else play a video game. Every single character is eerily two dimensional.
Also worth a mention is the strangely inserted anti-Semitism. The first instance is put into the mouth of the character Scudders:
Yikes. Now, Scudders does seem like a crank conspiracy theorist when you first meet him so you’re willing to let this pass as a character foible. . But by the end of the book it’s revealed that Scudders was right about everything - the plot unravelled just as he said it would, the implication being that Buchan himself might have been sipping from the Elders of Zion cup.
So why is this book on the list of greatest 100 novels? I’m not sure. It’s hailed as birthing a whole genre, but is it even all that original? There were lots of stories of its like around at the same time, just serialised in magazines. I think it probably owes its enduring popularity to the Hitchcock film adaptation (which I haven’t seen).
On a positive note, the book has a decent dry wit, good snappy pacing for its era, and all in all is alright for a couple of evening’s entertainment but not much more. Taken with a tablespoon of salt, I’d give it a couple of stars.
Because I’ve started this late in January I chose a slim one to kick it off with - weighing in at 149 pages, John Buchan’s archetypal spy novel The Thirty Nine Steps. This follows manly Edwardian era protagonist Richard Hannay, who ends up on the run from both the police and a sinister cabal of German spies after coming home to find his neighbour’s knifed corpse and a coded book of secrets.
I can imagine there’s a certain generation of men who get a kick out of Hannay’s stiff-upper-lip resourcefulness. It’s not hard to trace a line from Richard Hannay to James Bond. That said, I hold the unpopular opinion that these espionage jaunts are a little childish. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of macho-fantasy, it’s just not for me, and it’s often because the plot points in these stories are so contrived that it can seem kind of insulting to the reader.
Take Hannay, the luckiest man in the world, with the uncanny ability to inspire utmost confidence in strangers and in turn suss out the trustworthiness of others just from the look on their face:
He watched me with a smile. “I don’t want proofs... I can size up a man. You’re no murderer and you’re no fool, and I believe you are speaking the truth. I’m going to back you up. Now, what can I do?”
This proves incredibly helpful to him during his travails. In need of a quick disguise? There’s a friendly milkman or road worker to unquestioningly swap clothes with him! Imprisoned in a cellar by a nemesis? Just a quick look around will reveal that that very same cellar is well stocked with explosive materials, and of course our protagonist knows exactly how to use them to make his escape, what with his background as a mining engineer. Reading The Thirty Nine Steps gave me the feeling that I wasn’t so much travelling along with Hannay on his adventures, but something more like watching somebody else play a video game. Every single character is eerily two dimensional.
Also worth a mention is the strangely inserted anti-Semitism. The first instance is put into the mouth of the character Scudders:
“The Jew is everywhere... Take any big Teutonic business concern... If you’re on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake. Yes, sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now...”
Yikes. Now, Scudders does seem like a crank conspiracy theorist when you first meet him so you’re willing to let this pass as a character foible. . But by the end of the book it’s revealed that Scudders was right about everything - the plot unravelled just as he said it would, the implication being that Buchan himself might have been sipping from the Elders of Zion cup.
So why is this book on the list of greatest 100 novels? I’m not sure. It’s hailed as birthing a whole genre, but is it even all that original? There were lots of stories of its like around at the same time, just serialised in magazines. I think it probably owes its enduring popularity to the Hitchcock film adaptation (which I haven’t seen).
On a positive note, the book has a decent dry wit, good snappy pacing for its era, and all in all is alright for a couple of evening’s entertainment but not much more. Taken with a tablespoon of salt, I’d give it a couple of stars.
I found this a wonderfully readable bit of spy fiction, and surprisingly timeless. Written and published just before WWI, in 1914/15, there is an innocence to the plotline and the character of this Scottish colonial returned to London from Africa only to fall into a spy adventure that from today's post 9/11 world is just too unbelievable. I rather enjoyed it, actually.
While the bones of the plot are much like those in the classic movie and recent Broadway show inspired by it, the details and many characters are often vastly different. This coupled with Buchan's brilliant writing makes this exactly what he describes here -an "elementary type of tale which Americans call the ‘dime novel,’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’– the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible."
Read for 2018 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge as my book that uus basis of a play or musical. Also for 2018 ATY #30. a short book (100 pages).
While the bones of the plot are much like those in the classic movie and recent Broadway show inspired by it, the details and many characters are often vastly different. This coupled with Buchan's brilliant writing makes this exactly what he describes here -an "elementary type of tale which Americans call the ‘dime novel,’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’– the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible."
Read for 2018 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge as my book that uus basis of a play or musical. Also for 2018 ATY #30. a short book (100 pages).
Fast-paced from the start. Good short read. Main character reminds me a bit of a common man James Bond crossed with Liam Neeson in Taken.
Una novela de espías a la vieja usanza que se acusa a sí misma de ser una novela barata ¡Maravilloso! He tenido el corazón en un puño durante todos los capítulos de la persecución. Y todo ello justo antes del estallido de la Primera Guerra Mundial.
Interesting as an example of the kind of invasion adventure story serial from the period but doesn't really hold up today. The opening chapter has a guy describe a Jewish conspiracy and then when we find out he was wrong about the Jewish part our narrator calls a Greek person a "dago" - very charming example of British upper class prejudices. Overall there's just not an interesting story and the episodes are so clearly tied to fulfilling a serial format that as a novel it's hard to take seriously. It's basically readable but it's so daft and generic with boring chases around the same tiny patch of Scottish land that there's no reason to. Just a historical curiosity. 1 star is a little harsh maybe but it's just. Not good
.
.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fast-paced adventure, but something tells me the movie was better.