Greenmantle

‘A rollicking good read’ and ‘a boy’s own adventure’: two of the phrases that hung in my mind after the first chapter of ‘Greenmantle’ by John Buchan.
At Christmas, our reading group had selected a new batch of books, supplied by Sunderland Libraries Service, to see us through the forthcoming year, and I had pushed for this book after my wife and I attended a talk on Buchan as part of the City’s literature festival in 2017. I had previously read ‘The 39 Steps’, having enjoyed one of the film versions (the Kenneth Moore version, I seem to be the only person to prefer this to the Hitchcock one).
Greenmantle is an adventure story of the old school: heavily plot led, it sees the heroes cross multiple countries and encounter various characters both helpful and villainous. Its problems begin with that very plot led characteristic; this leaves little in the way of real character exposition or development, with each character feeling like a pencil sketch to support the plot. This has a further impact on the development of relationships; put simply, they don’t. There is an additional problem with character: those outside of the heroes are crude racial stereotypes. Given the period in which the novel is written and set, I suppose this is inevitable, but from a 2018 perspective it is somewhat uncomfortable. Similarly, in order to move the plot on, there are some examples of plot leaps, coincidence and irrational behaviour by supporting characters that for me undermine the credibility of the story.
I think the central problem of the book is its age. In its time it would have worked. Buchan was an established and popular author and a significant figure. The attitudes and values of the time, themselves a reflection of events, would have attuned perfectly with those of the novel and an traditional adventure story plot, crossing lands the reader was unlikely ever to visit would have appealed. Reading it in 2018 however, these are also the flaws. I am old enough to have read ‘Biggles’ stories as a child in the 60s, and Greenmantle reminded me very much of these children’s books (hence the ‘boy’s own adventure’ phrase running around in my head). I enjoyed those W. E. Johns stories as a child because they had exciting plots, but these days, I like more character development and exploration of relationships in my reading and a real sense of place to the environments in which the plots are set, so Greenmantle simply no longer works for me.
It is important to end this review by making you aware that we had copies of the 2011 Polygon edition of the novel which includes an introduction by Allan Massie. I read this introduction after the book itself and Massie addresses many of the critical comments I made and in doing so, changed my perspective of it. Ultimately while this book is not for me, I have to acknowledge it as a classic of its time; perhaps best judged by the values of that time.
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‘A rollicking good read’ and ‘a boy’s own adventure’: two of the phrases that hung in my mind after the first chapter of ‘Greenmantle’ by John Buchan.
At Christmas, our reading group had selected a new batch of books, supplied by Sunderland Libraries Service, to see us through the forthcoming year, and I had pushed for this book after my wife and I attended a talk on Buchan as part of the City’s literature festival in 2017. I had previously read ‘The 39 Steps’, having enjoyed one of the film versions (the Kenneth Moore version, I seem to be the only person to prefer this to the Hitchcock one).
Greenmantle is an adventure story of the old school: heavily plot led, it sees the heroes cross multiple countries and encounter various characters both helpful and villainous. Its problems begin with that very plot led characteristic; this leaves little in the way of real character exposition or development, with each character feeling like a pencil sketch to support the plot. This has a further impact on the development of relationships; put simply, they don’t. There is an additional problem with character: those outside of the heroes are crude racial stereotypes. Given the period in which the novel is written and set, I suppose this is inevitable, but from a 2018 perspective it is somewhat uncomfortable. Similarly, in order to move the plot on, there are some examples of plot leaps, coincidence and irrational behaviour by supporting characters that for me undermine the credibility of the story.
I think the central problem of the book is its age. In its time it would have worked. Buchan was an established and popular author and a significant figure. The attitudes and values of the time, themselves a reflection of events, would have attuned perfectly with those of the novel and an traditional adventure story plot, crossing lands the reader was unlikely ever to visit would have appealed. Reading it in 2018 however, these are also the flaws. I am old enough to have read ‘Biggles’ stories as a child in the 60s, and Greenmantle reminded me very much of these children’s books (hence the ‘boy’s own adventure’ phrase running around in my head). I enjoyed those W. E. Johns stories as a child because they had exciting plots, but these days, I like more character development and exploration of relationships in my reading and a real sense of place to the environments in which the plots are set, so Greenmantle simply no longer works for me.
It is important to end this review by making you aware that we had copies of the 2011 Polygon edition of the novel which includes an introduction by Allan Massie. I read this introduction after the book itself and Massie addresses many of the critical comments I made and in doing so, changed my perspective of it. Ultimately while this book is not for me, I have to acknowledge it as a classic of its time; perhaps best judged by the values of that time.