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A review by quirkycynic
Greenmantle by John Buchan
3.0
We've all got guilty pleasures, and one of mine is for things of the "foreign intrigue" type of fiction -- spy stories set in far-flung lands in the first half of the twentieth century, usually between the world wars, and with focus on high adventure rooted in antique global politics (and with extra points for references to names of places that don't exist anymore like Constantinople or Yugoslavia). Usually I indulge this in video games, Sydney Greenstreet movies, and Eric Ambler novels, but thought I'd have to at some point dip into something by John Buchan, who is basically the inventor of this entire style.
I imagine readers of the 1910s devoured this book in the same way that Victorian readers gobbled H. Rider Haggard and the reading public of today buy Daniel Silva by the kilo. A blockbuster is a blockbuster, and it was genuinely interesting to read a book from way back in 1916 that felt so incredibly modern in style and pace; moreso probably than any other book from this era I've ever read.
So in an anthropological sense, yes, reading the clearest forerunner to the modern commercial spy thriller was a fascinating exercise, even if the book itself I wasn't super impressed by. I know, shocker -- a 25 year old in 2021 found a 105 year old book not quite to his taste. But my reaction is actually kind of split on these factors, which is what I find more interesting than if I simply liked or disliked it as a whole: I admired its sheer scale, even if I found the narrative too loose and uninteresting at times, and I admired too its steadfastness to the tone of its era, even if I disagreed on a moral level with its implicit devotion to British imperialism.
I'll for sure read The Thirty-Nine Steps at some point but probably not much else by Buchan. I like old-fashioned adventure, sure, but I'm not such a huge fan of reading superheroes as protagonists, which this author never makes any bones in pretending that his Richard Hannay isn't. And in the meantime, I dunno -- I'll play The Last Express or watch Foreign Correspondant again?
I imagine readers of the 1910s devoured this book in the same way that Victorian readers gobbled H. Rider Haggard and the reading public of today buy Daniel Silva by the kilo. A blockbuster is a blockbuster, and it was genuinely interesting to read a book from way back in 1916 that felt so incredibly modern in style and pace; moreso probably than any other book from this era I've ever read.
So in an anthropological sense, yes, reading the clearest forerunner to the modern commercial spy thriller was a fascinating exercise, even if the book itself I wasn't super impressed by. I know, shocker -- a 25 year old in 2021 found a 105 year old book not quite to his taste. But my reaction is actually kind of split on these factors, which is what I find more interesting than if I simply liked or disliked it as a whole: I admired its sheer scale, even if I found the narrative too loose and uninteresting at times, and I admired too its steadfastness to the tone of its era, even if I disagreed on a moral level with its implicit devotion to British imperialism.
I'll for sure read The Thirty-Nine Steps at some point but probably not much else by Buchan. I like old-fashioned adventure, sure, but I'm not such a huge fan of reading superheroes as protagonists, which this author never makes any bones in pretending that his Richard Hannay isn't. And in the meantime, I dunno -- I'll play The Last Express or watch Foreign Correspondant again?