Inspiring Older Readers
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Buchan wrote his first thriller (or ‘shocker’ as he called them) in 1914 in something of a rush before the start of the Great War and while he was getting treatment for a painful stomach ulcer. It would be the first of four books to feature his ultra-patriotic everyman hero, Richard Hannay – a man tempered by his time in the colonies and someone capable of feats of endurance and derring-do that are, in reality, probably beyond the average man in the street. It’s not surprising that Hannay is often referred to as the prototype for later heroes such as James Bond – although Hannay, would, I suspect, rather fight for King and country than for the girl.
Since its publication The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of that illustrious band of books that has never been out of print. It was immediately successful with a readership craving escapism with thrills – it was, for instance, hugely popular with the men in the trenches as they waited for their turn to go over the top. Presumably following the travails of Hannay as he tried to elude a deadly band of international conspirators was diverting enough to stop them thinking too much about their own dreadful futures. In the comfort of a relatively safe 21st century living room, I have to admit that it’s quite hard to see just what it was that so transfixed readers in such peril – or even those who weren’t.
The book is really a loosely bound series of scenes and set piece adventures that are predicated on the need for the hero, Hannay, to go on the run from the villains of the piece, a motley bunch of German spies who want to steal British military secrets. By far the most famous scenes in the book are those that see Hannay using all his skills to avoid capture as he goes on the run across the wilds of Scotland. He has plenty of narrow squeaks and gets the chance to use some high grade disguises as he ties the blundering spies in knots – although it has to be said that his pursuers seem so astonishingly inept it’s hard to believe the Empire had much to fear from them. The comparisons between Hannay and the admittedly more sophisticated James Bond are understandable when you consider just how remarkably fortunate both are in escaping capture. Who else, for example, when trapped is likely to find a handy supply of explosive inadvertently left lying around?
The denouement and the solution to the mystery of the thirty-nine steps is, in my view, the real let down. To be fair, Buchan’s breathy, even hurried, writing works pretty well in the chase scenes where he needs to build tension and a sense of the helter-skelter nature of the pursuit but it serves him far less well when Hannay is no longer on the run but instead dashing to stop the German spies from leaving the country. The final confrontation feels rather contrived and anti-climactic – although it does at least set Hannay up for the sequel of adventures that follow.
I wanted to read this book because it’s one that slipped past me when I was younger and the fact that it almost always appears in lists of the best thrillers made me feel that I should check it out. I also stumbled on the reprint pictured above and I thought the book jacket image was simply irresistible for the few pounds I paid for it. I’m glad I read it but I’m also a bit puzzled by its reputation – maybe this is a case of being rewarded for helping to define a genre rather than for creating something finely crafted and beautifully written.
Terry Potter
September 2016