The Thirty-Nine Steps

Shockingly, it has taken me many weeks to read the book I'm going to discus this week. Far longer, as I'm sure you'll all agree, than it ever should have. Why?

Well, it's certainly not because of the page count; the things barely more than a pamphlet.

And it isn't due to the somewhat over egged, melodramatic language used (which I'm aware is a product of both it's time and the genre the author was attempting to emulate), because if you can get through as many Terry Goodkind books as I have, you lose all fear you may once have had of impenetrable language.

It isn't even the somewhat elitist, racist and unsympathetic central character, although he is all of those things.

In truth, the reason it took me so long to conquer the scant 98 pages that comprise The Thirty-Nine Steps, is that I lacked the motivation to do so.

The flaws I mentioned above are all real. They are also, in large part, understandable. John Buchan was a product of his time and of his class; he crafted, in Richard Hannay, a character every inch the 'hero' figure of the day.That we look upon him slightly less kindly is more a problem with our understanding of the historical context, than with Buchan's writing. Similarly, in attempting to emulate a particular genre (the disposable 'Dime' Thriller), Buchan found himself following the conventions of said genre; conventions which perhaps didn't survive their trans Atlantic journey in particularly good shape. There are, after all, some very good reasons why we don't make 90210 in Britain, and why Darren Starr never attempted a remake of Crossroads.

So those issues aside; as I was more than willing to overlook them; what did affect my motivation to finish The Thirty-Nine Steps? Put simply, once you get past the initial set-up, which moves like a freight train (a murder in chapter one, the hero on the lam by chapter 2, all done in 17 pages combined), it quickly settles into a formulaic rut, so that urge, that need, that all the great books give you, to know what happens next; that unputdownable, pageturner element; is totally missing. You don't need to read on, because you know what'll happen next; a few pages of Hannay describing the scenery, a hint of danger from a circling plane that just misses spotting him, a close call with his pursuers on the ground and a vaguely comical encounter with a passing civilian.

In all fairness, the pages that describe the scenery are undeniably well written and infused with a genuine affection by the author (perhaps unsurprising given Buchan's background), and the implacable, relentless nature of his pursuers allows for a degree of tension, if not to the extent that the author intended (and certainly not to the extent implied by the hype). As far as the supporting characters go, however, they verge so closely on caricature as to render the suspension of disbelief impossible.

What then, was my final analysis of this book, once I did finally bite the bullet and trawl through the closing chapters? Well, I didn't enjoy it; let's get that out of the way first, although I doubt it comes as a surprise after the preceding paragraphs. Honestly though, everything I said in those comments would have been forgiven, had the book built to a satisfactory conclusion. Give a story a good ending, and that is what people will often take away from it; all earlier sins, if not forgiven, then perhaps forgotten. Buchan, in perhaps his biggest failing of them all, doesn't do that here.

Hannay manages, by some pretty lucky guesswork (we're told that Hannay has a history of making assumptions that turn out to be correct, so he's willing to accept his own guesswork as fact; OK), to figure out where the bad guys are, heads up there, confronts his suspects, thinks he might be wrong, decides he isn't because one of them does a distinctive hand gesture, and then there is a bit of a perfunctory scuffle before the bad 'uns are all arrested. The end.

It's strange, given how fast the first couple of chapters moved, but once Hannay goes to the villains house to confront them the story, which should be accelerating to it's conclusion, slows down dramatically and grind tortuously through one of the dullest hero/villain conversations ever, before resolving itself in two pages once the action finally does start. The pacing, to be frank, is all over the place.

So there you go; my first attempt to write up something regarded as a 'classic' on this blog. It didn't go well, did it? Sorry. Although I do genuinely think that this is one of those books that s called a classic because a few people decided it was, a few others didn't want to rock the boat, and it just snowballed from there. It really is nothing special.