- Paperback: 672 pages
- Publisher: David R. Godine; Reissue edition (Dec 1 1994)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0879238712
- ISBN-13: 978-0879238711
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 15.4 x 4.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 975 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #871,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
John Buchan is the father of the modern spy thriller. This is so even though the Hannay books are not, strictly speaking, about spies at all in the professional sense of the word. They are about penetration of the enemy, about lonely escape and wild journeys, about the thin veneer that stands between civilsation and barbarism.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mr Standfast,
By DJ McMahon (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Four Adventures Of Richard Hannay (Paperback)
Having just finished Mr Standfast I felt it a good time to review my thoughts and emotions stirred by the book.Mr Standfast, the third Buchan novel in the General Hannay series, is a fascinating study in the era in which it was both set and authored. Being published in 1919, the events of WW1, the topic of the book, were no doubt fresh in the authors mind. The book is not easy for the 21st Century reader with many words not frequently in current use. Keep a dictionary handy. It is however a stimulating read with a great historical backdrop. Whilst at times farfetched and Biggles like in it's gingoistic tone, the reader is drawn into Hannay's affection for his cause. Overall, a thoroughly recommended read.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic adventure yarns,
By
This review is from: The Four Adventures Of Richard Hannay (Paperback)
As my title says, the Four Adventures are real classics that spawned a whole library of imitators. Written as they were during the First World War and immediate post-war period by someone who both hob-nobbed with the political movers and shakers of the time & may have participated in some intertesting Intelligence work on his own (see Peter Hopkirk's LIKE HIDDEN FIRE for some of the "facts" behind GREENMANTLE) they capture a time a place and a people at the height of British global dominance. Given that the first three tales were written during some of the most desperate days of World War I it is no accident that there is some pro-British propaganda, but as the excellnt introduction to this edition points out, Buchan is remarkably kind to both friends and foes, and while the Bad-Guys are truly Bad, they also have their redeeming qualities. THIRTY-NINE STEPS has been made into a number of movies, none of which do it justice. GREENMANTLE is my personal favorite & reading it again for the umpteenth time last year I was struck by how remarkably prescient Buchan was as to the problems we now face with an Islamic Middle East. Mr. Standfast actually wraps things up nicely, with some excellent descriptions of fighting on the Western Front, and I always felt that THE FOUR HOSTAGES was a bit of a tag-on that really wasn't needed (the same can be said of the fifth and long out of print Hannay adventure THE ISLE OF SHEEP, which has been sensibly left out of this volume). If you like adventure stories with a strong male hero, a nice mystery, clearly defined Good and Evil, an appealing heroine (in the last three Adventures) and a good sense of history by someone who actually made part of it, this volume is for you. Readers of Alan Furst & the like will see where contemporary authors got their ideas & timing. This is a wonderful look into a now vanished world that still has clues to our troubled present.
5.0 out of 5 stars
39-steps: Buchan wrote the book, on the classic adventure,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Four Adventures Of Richard Hannay (Paperback)
'Nuff said about the 39-steps; read the book. If I had written the 39-steps, I could have died without regret.Buchan delved the emotional depths of strong, silent men, in the wild mystical motion of Greenmantle & in the static unshaken forces of endurance & will of Mr. Standfast. In these two tales, he brought the irresistible force & the immoveable object, the two opposing forces of nature, the storm & the rock, the Yin & the Yang, into being, in his writing. Strangely, it is another, black, South African, the great Nelson Mandela, who typified in real life, the qualities of Buchan's fictional Boer, Peter Pienaar. The three hostages was a cop-out, an afterthought, the dabbling of an artist who had reached the top of the mountain and was now relaxing & drawing pretty pictures for his grandchildren.
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