John Buchan- The Thirty-Nine Steps

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Pan Books

John Buchan

1915

“If you’re going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing”  

I have to begin by admitting my ignorance; I started reading John Buchan's adventure novella The Thirty-Nine Steps without knowing anything about it, save from the fact I found it in the 'crime' section of the bookshop, that I'd vaguely heard the title (a very good title) somewhere before, and that the cover of the edition I bought were so evocatively pulp in style that it added to the aura of the whole thing before I'd even opened it. One hundred and forty pages later, and I was left ruminating over a well-regarded piece of genre fiction that stands out through helping to define a developing style of action story, but which lacked enough quality of its own to be really worth recommending.

John Buchan

Alhough Buchan would later become known for expanding the adventures of the lead character of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Richard Hanney, into a series with four sequels, the author's dedication essentially explains his intended purpose of replicating the style of a typical US 'dime-novel', or a 'shocker', where almost-unbelievable drama drives the reader on, often at the expense of any kind of quality prose. Yet looking back at the book one-hundred years later it's now offered far greater gravitas than that, as a dual pioneer of both the classic twentieth century spy novel and what I suppose we now call the modern day thriller novel.

I only took a certain amount of pleasure from reading it, thanks to its simple design. Buchan quickly introduces Richard Hanney shortly after his move to London upon returning from colonial Africa- during a time where tensions across Europe are high and war seems inevitable. As these things go, Hanney meets a panicked American named Scudder who claims to be a spy, and who tells the apparently very trustworthy-looking Hanney about a plot to assassinate the Greek Premier on his upcoming trip to London. Hanney allows Scudder to hide out at his place, but a few days later finds him dead with a knife through his heart... with Haney set-up to seem the most likely suspect. He flees the scene (though not without an ingenious plan) and heads for the safety of the Scottish highlands, with his only evidence an encrypted notebook left by the victim, but determined to clear his name and avert the assassination.

Penguin

Essentially the novella is a series of dramatic set-pieces, where Hanney must use his wits and his fists to escape difficult odds, investigate the murderous cabal who're quickly on his trail, and clear his name with Her Majesty's finest. Behind all this is the insinuation of a much bigger political plot, of course now known to us in real life as this little thing called World War I; causing Hanney to quickly morph from an unfortunate victim of circumstance to a highly-capable, self-motivated patriot, all within a very short page span. With so much plot, including a lot of travelling around, and so little page-count, stylistically Buchan's prose is quite minimalist; not like Charles Bukowski and his powerful, punctuating statements, but like an author too eager to rush to the finish line.

Not that I particularly wish to downplay Buchan's talent; he's clearly a decent writer with an eye for creating a certain mood, and his speedy pacing does help create the lasting impression of a breakneck thriller... but to me it still absolutely needed an extra fifty pages. Not for extra plot, simply to expand upon the events already here, particularly towards the conclusion of the story. It felt to me as if Buchan put less and less detail in as he progressed further, sacrificing meaning for pace, and as a result the supposedly dramatic conclusion culminating in Hanney's final escalation into a deadly super-spy (he's surely a heavy influence on Fleming's Bond) is given so little detail it felt of little importance.

As a specifically experimental type of storytelling though, it clearly was a great success as portrayed by its lasting cultural impacy (helped of course by Alfred Hitchcock's famous adaptation, which I haven't seen but will look for). It was mostly enjoyable, easily read in one sitting, and Hanney's character sits nicely between the classic adventure style and the more exciting spy fiction set to develop with the aid of landmark books such as this. Very much worth reading, but perhaps only once.