Scan barcode
A review by rosseroo
Greenmantle by John Buchan
2.0
My grandfather was a huge fan of adventure fiction, from the swashbuckling pirate tales of Rafael Sabatini to the Cold War heroic brutalism of the 007 novels. He died more than a decade ago, but while sorting through his old books recently, I came across this book with a stamp from the bookstore in Athens where he bought it in 1945. Having inherited some of his taste for ripping yarns, I thought I'd read it in his honor.
This second book in five to feature British adventurer-spy Richard Hannay finds him recuperating following the events of The 39 Steps. With World War I raging, he is eager to get back into action, but this time he is recruited to suss out a German plot to inspire a jihad in Allied-held territories in the Middle East. As the book was originally published in 1916, this is real ripped from the headlines stuff, as Germany was really trying to engineer something along those lines.
The story joins Hannay with his old British soldiering pal and master of disguise Sandy (a character based on the real-life Sir Aubrey Herbert), and an outsized American named Blenkiron. This unlikely trio is tasked with making their way to Constantinople to decipher the plot. Along the way, Hannay's South African hunter/tracker pal Peter joins the team. There's some solid cloak and dagger fun to be had following them from London across Europe and deep into Germany, including some rousing chases and narrow escapes. A cartoonish German villain is introduced.
Alas, when they actually do get to Constantinople, the story bogs down a bit and requires perhaps more background knowledge of Ottoman and Turkish politics of the era than the contemporary reader is likely to be able to draw upon. Eventually, they leave and head to the eastern front, where the Russians and pressing, and the action picks up again.
All in all, the book has it moments of fun, but it's also casually racist and imperialist in the way you would expect of something like this written a century ago -- so be forewarned about that. The book also has a weird male insularity to it not uncommon to the genre -- the sole female character is a evil siren arch-villain. Another glaring defect is that the story relies multiple times on major characters simply running into each other in the most improbable ways. Probably best approached as something to read more anthropologically than for the story or characters.
This second book in five to feature British adventurer-spy Richard Hannay finds him recuperating following the events of The 39 Steps. With World War I raging, he is eager to get back into action, but this time he is recruited to suss out a German plot to inspire a jihad in Allied-held territories in the Middle East. As the book was originally published in 1916, this is real ripped from the headlines stuff, as Germany was really trying to engineer something along those lines.
The story joins Hannay with his old British soldiering pal and master of disguise Sandy (a character based on the real-life Sir Aubrey Herbert), and an outsized American named Blenkiron. This unlikely trio is tasked with making their way to Constantinople to decipher the plot. Along the way, Hannay's South African hunter/tracker pal Peter joins the team. There's some solid cloak and dagger fun to be had following them from London across Europe and deep into Germany, including some rousing chases and narrow escapes. A cartoonish German villain is introduced.
Alas, when they actually do get to Constantinople, the story bogs down a bit and requires perhaps more background knowledge of Ottoman and Turkish politics of the era than the contemporary reader is likely to be able to draw upon. Eventually, they leave and head to the eastern front, where the Russians and pressing, and the action picks up again.
All in all, the book has it moments of fun, but it's also casually racist and imperialist in the way you would expect of something like this written a century ago -- so be forewarned about that. The book also has a weird male insularity to it not uncommon to the genre -- the sole female character is a evil siren arch-villain. Another glaring defect is that the story relies multiple times on major characters simply running into each other in the most improbable ways. Probably best approached as something to read more anthropologically than for the story or characters.