Customer Reviews

Mr. Standfast,

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For those who like good, clean spy-type fun, this is a SUPERLATIVE work. Part three in the adventures of Richard Hannay (which started with Buchan's well-known "Thirty-nine Steps"), this is a first-rate thriller set on the eve of World War I, with plenty of atmosphere and hair-breadth escapes, plus an excellent dogfight climax in the skies over France. Along with everything else, it has some sound theological reflections (the title being a character from "Pilgrim's Progress") about courage and fortitude. Highly recommended.

Many spy novels follow the formula set down by John Buchan at the end of WWI - exotic locations, powerful and dangerous enemies, damsels in distress, and secret plots to dominate the world. Buchan's fictitious protagonist, South African Richard Hannay, once did a job for His Majesty's gov't before the war. Now, they've asked for his help again.

Hannay is tasked with going undercover to penetrate a nest of peaceful war objectors to ferret out its suspected German ringleaders. Before long, thanks to Hannay's speaking skills, he is accepted into their group as a persuasive, but simple, speaker. Trailing mysterious figures across the English and Scottish countrysides, literally running into war movie film sets, and escaping on the wings of the wind are just part and parcel of being a secret agent deep undercover. Wanted by both German agents and the local police forces, Hannay may be the hunted, but he is still their hunter as well. However, despite busting the ring and foiling their plan the evil ringleader, Gresson, gets away.

And so Hannay returns to his job in the army rising to brigadier general when he receives the call to secret service again. This time Gresson lurks much closer behind the French lines, but remains carefully hidden. Only his saboteur agents seem to be leaving their mark. Hannay amazingly encounters Mary - his true love - breaking into the same suspicious looking chateau as he. Together they join forces to break up Gresson's fiendish plot before it is sprung. However, Hannay is tricked and Mary is captured. Again, like many spy novels after it, the hero is imprisoned in a diabolical way with the villain leaving the hero unattended. However, like always the hero manages to break free, just. In the mountains of Switzerland there still remain a few twists and turn yet to remain.

The action in the book is fairly fast-moving, but the characters are purely two-dimensional and the plot is highly predictable. Just like a 007 movie. Reading the book, though, I wasn't able to really get into it, except for a few of the scenes in the first half of the book and the Swiss episode in the last half. A much better series that takes place in the same era is Reilly: Ace of Spies, who is a British spy working in Wilhelmine Germany. Overall, this is a decent book, which serves as a prototype of many spy novels thereafter, especially the sexier James Bond series.

This is my favourite Buchan book of them all! Although not as tightly-plotted as Greenmantle and The Thirty-Nine Steps, its predecessors in the series, it's still a nail-bitingly exciting adventure story sure to have you hooked for most of the first half and the whole second half. In Part One, Hannay spends some time with artistic types very familiar to those of us who enjoy 'lowbrow' fare, and then spends some time in radical political circles in Glasgow. Although it can be slow, there's lashings of satire to keep you chuckling. Then the plot begins to move--through the Scottish Highlands in a sequence akin to The Thirty-Nine Steps, but with far more characterisation and philosophy than the earlier book. During this time, Hannay realises that he's in love, pretends to be drunk, and impersonates a movie director. (No, it's not one of those spy novels with miserable characters and a depressing plot, in case you were wondering.)

The second half, however, is peerless. The stakes rise, the scene shifts to the battlefields of Europe, and the adventure is non-stop. Hannay must outwit a foe far more intelligent and ruthless than himself, try to pick up the courage to propose to lovely, clever young Mary Lamington, and manage to survive a brutal war. The climax is breathtaking and actually has you fearing for the outcome; moreover, it shows that Buchan was not in fact blissfully unaware of the horrors of trench warfare as many people, reading his optimistic work today, would think.

Well, here we have the 1918 predecessor to John Le Carré and company, and how different was the "spy thriller" then! Much of the charm of this period piece consists in its evocation of a different world. As the hero, Richard Hannay, dashes about the UK (not that it had that name then) his journeys are mostly by train or on foot, the times of the (frequent and ubiquitous) trains no doubt looked up in the "Bradshaw" that was the bible of travel for every household.

In Switzerland, there is indeed a "great car" which he was happy to see was a Daimler "a type with which I was familiar." So he "lit the lamps, started the engine, and ran it out to the road." "You'll want an overcoat" he was told, but refuses - hardy fellow. And there's a sea trip up the western coast of Scotland, and a spur-of-the-moment air trip (in the observer's seat behind the pilot) with an "aviator" friend - no ATC or formalities in those days.

Above all, notice how unpopulated and quiet the countryside is. Before motorways - even before A and B roads, I think - people moved around much less, in Britain (and in Europe)and there were of course far fewer of them to move. This encouraged Buchan to focus on the beauty of places: I don't think he gets enough credit for his powers of description. Even when France was undergoing the hell of the Great War, he could still pause to note:

"It was calm, bright weather, the long curves of ploughland were beginning to quicken into green, the catkins made a blue mist on the willows by the watercourses, and in the orchards by the red-roofed hamlets the blossom was breaking."

There are many, many other such gems studding the pages of his books.

The Great War indeed plays a huge role in the story, but Buchan is a little disingenuous in talking about its impact. We hear nothing of the millions of ghastly deaths in mud, hanging on barbed-wire fences, choking on poison gas: the conflict is almost relegated to a sporting event, where one side gains, the other pushes back. I think he assumed that his readers could fill in the terrible background reality for themselves: the book was published in 1918. (For modern readers, a corrective might be to read some of Wilfred Owens' poems: "Dulce et Decorum Est," or my personal favorite, "Strange Meeting" with its wonderful half-rhymes.)

Most reviewers have not mentioned the huge disconnect between the social and personal attitudes of 1918 and today: be prepared to encounter the n-word, and in passages about South Africa, plenty of mentions of "natives" and "savages." The Germans, as usual at that time, were "the Boche" or "the Hun" though he is willing to praise individuals, and phrases from Goethe play a part in the context of passwords. Then too, this was an age when the upper-middle classes still "dressed for dinner:" he prepares us to look down somewhat on a fellow who comes to dinner still wearing "flannels" (read Dockers today) - but you can be sure the man was wearing a tie, and probably a sports jacket. "Clothes made the man" then much more than now.

The story has strong ties to "Pilgrim's Progress" and indeed some chapter headings are straight from the book. If I read it (I think I've only ever read parts) I could probably match all Buchan's characters to Bunyan's - did anyone try that game?

All in all, if you can enjoy the time-shift, it's an enjoyable tale.

By chance, I just finished re-reading this entry in John Buchan's Richard Hannay thriller series, using three different versions, a text edition, a kindle robot-read edition, and David Case's reading for Books on Tape. While, of course, each form of communication provides a different experience, all were eminently satisfactory. For those unfamiliar with Richard Hannay, save, perhaps, in the first rate film by Hitchcock, it suffices to say that in each novel, he is engaged in counter espionage for the British government. (In the first novel he is an innocent caught up in a bewildering and dangerous situation),, While somewhat more "talky" than the earlier works, as well as displaying our hero on the battlefield, while others are playing the primary roles in digging out the deadly plot to vitiate the efforts of the troops on the line, this book is still necessary for anyone seeking fully to explore Buchan's ability to enthrall, entertain and enlighten. I recommend it to any aficionado of the Spy or combat novel.
There is one caveat for younger readers with a "modern" outlook. Whether or not it represents Buchan's own views, or are simply an accurate portrayal of characters, who would be playing the roles I have mentioned, in the period during which this action takes place, most of the "good" guys (and the lady folk as well) express attitudes many contemporary readers will find irritating. Some of the words used will be offensive. No doubt, however, that this is how people, with their background, thought and spoke.

Mr. Standfast, John Buchan

This novel is the sequel to "Greenmantle", written a few years later but set in 1917, so Buchan writes with the advantages of hindsight. The first part echoes the "39 Steps". Hannay is on a secret mission and travels through Scotland. The description of people and places shows Buchan's attitudes and views of other people. Buchan knows that a story can be made more interesting and provide action when the hero travels to places. "Mr. Standfast" (a character in "Pilgrim's Progress") is a reference to friend Peter Pienaar, now a prisoner in Germany. Hannay works undercover to discover the German agents behind the people working for a peaceful end to the war. He discovers this man only to have him escape the country. Was he also involved with the German spies of "39 Steps"?

In Part II Brigadier Hannay is back at the front lines. The story describes the events as he sees them. Hannay meets his friends and they work to catch the "Wild Birds", the code word for German spies working against the Allies. Were all the troubles due to their deviltry? Buchan is free in his comments and descriptions on various groups of people, more than in his earlier novels. [Was there something eating at him?] There are references to various battles that most modern readers won't understand after ninety years. Chapter XXI provides a description of the battle as experienced by Hannay. Chapter XXII finishes the story as the British hold the line against the German attack.

"39 Steps" was the first and best of this series. It inspired other films whose stories used the idea of an innocent fugitive who tries to solve a crime and evade the police. This book tells how protest movements are riddled with government agents. [Still true today?] It notes how the military tactics didn't change much since 1914, until Foch and Pétain adopted better tactics before America entered the war that Russia left. Was the world made safe for democracy?

Buchan talks against those who wanted a peaceful end to the war. Yet that is what happened in 1918. The German Emperor was forced to abdicate by the revolts of the German soldiers and people, but the rest of the aristocratic ruling class stayed in power. They soon began to plot for another war to conquer Europe, and nearly succeeded due to the policies in other countries. [In 1935 Poland and France talked about removing Hitler from power, but Britain vetoed the idea, and France would not act alone.] This next war saw an end to the colonies of France and Britain, and the rising power of America. Will this neo-colonialism lead to a decline and fall? Some claim it will, as in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers".

In the first quarter or so of this book, I was afraid I had been duped. I found myself grumbling about how the definition of "thriller" had changed over the last 90 years. Then, somehow, mysteriously, I fell under Buchan's and Hannay's spell. I realized what a wonderful period piece this book is, and how well it captures the tense situation of the Great War. Furthermore, Buchan's writing has true literary value -- he was extremely well grounded in classical literature, English literature, and the Bible, and they all shine forth in this book. This thriller of Buchan's has deserved to stand the test of time. Now, ask yourself, do you really think that will be true of Tom Clancy?