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The Interpreter's House: A Critical Assessment of the Work of John Buchan
John Buchan has been respected and revered by a large following, but he has also been criticised as a Jew-hater, racist, purveyor of "snobbery with violence" and jingoist. In The Interpreter's House, the first full-length analysis of Buchan's work, David Daniell contests that such criticism is both irrelevant and wrong. He also discusses Buchan's literary development carefully and minutely, showing his progress as a novelist from his first fiction, Sir Quixote, written in his teens, to his last, the much-misunderstood Sick Heart River forty-five years later. Buchan is seen, too, as a biographer of stature, from his early work while an undergraduate at Glasgow University to the substantial, full-length accounts of Montrose and Sir Walter Scott, Cromwell, Julius Caesar and Augustus Caeser.
226 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
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June 10, 2016
John Buchan, First Baron Tweedsmuir, deserves to be taken a lot more seriously. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling, he is still remembered for his more popular works but at the price of his broader achievements being overshadowed by them.
Buchan enjoyed one of those lives that would probably be impossible in these days of extreme specialisation. A professional writer even when he was still at University, where he excelled as a scholar, he had a long entry in 'Who's Who' while he was still an undergraduate. He went on to become a barrister, a colonial administrator, a prolific journalist, director of a leading publishing house, a war correspondent, a senior intelligence officer, a biographer and historian of academic quality, author of an authoritative work on the taxation of income abroad, a Unionist Member of Parliament, a Presbyterian Elder and High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland, and a particularly popular Governor General of Canada. In terms of breadth of accomplishment, he is exceeded only by his contemporary, Sir Winston Churchill.
In one respect, as a novelist, Buchan surpasses even Churchill, whose first foray into fiction did not encourage him to attempt a second. Buchan wrote over thirty full novels and numerous short stories, essentially in his spare time. His most famous novel, 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' was basically dashed off while he was convalescing.
This habit of writing whenever he had a spare moment means that many of his novels, including some of the most commercially successful, suffer from structural problems. Yet others, such as 'The Gap In The Curtain,' are masterpieces of construction.
All have a wonderful depth of feeling, superb characterisation, and a pitch perfect sense of time and place. If he had written only 'Sick Heart River,' 'Witch Wood,' 'The Blanket Of The Dark,' 'The Dancing Floor,' 'The Free Fishers,' 'John Macnab,' 'Midwinter,' and two or three others, he would have surely have been a serious candidate for the Nobel – and his best work is certainly superior to that of some laureates.
Yet he has fallen victim to the intellectual snobbery that makes a false distinction between 'literary' and 'popular' fiction. The commercial success of what he called his shockers' – his word for what we would call 'thrillers,' not a comment on their quality – like 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' disqualified him from the respect of the literary Establishment, then and now. Sir Richard Hannay cannot be seen to win the Nobel.
Moreover, as with Kipling, simplistic assumptions about his personal politics – which were actually far more complex than his critics are prepared to understand – conflict with the prejudices that dominate contemporary academia and media.
Professor Daniell's book is therefore an attempt to set the record straight. If it contains too much 'literary criticism' to be wholly satisfactory, that is because its purpose is to take on the literary Establishment in its own language. The Professor is good at finding common threads and themes that run throughout Buchan's huge body of work. A son of the Manse himself, he is especially perceptive on the influence of Buchan's Calvinism. He defends Buchan against charges of anti-Semitism very easily, but does not engage in the more interesting debate on racism – although Buchan was a liberal on the subject in his own time, those who call themselves liberal today might contest that. Again, Buchan is more complex than many modern minds are prepared to consider.
The Professor does well to focus on Buchan's less well known earlier works, such as the precocious 'A Lost Lady Of Old Years,' but those of us who are unashamed fans of his later works, including the 'shockers,' would also appreciate a wider discussion of the numerous links between all his novels and short stories. There is perhaps a gap in the market for a 'Buchan Companion' to introduce a new generation to the full breadth of his fiction.
Buchan enjoyed one of those lives that would probably be impossible in these days of extreme specialisation. A professional writer even when he was still at University, where he excelled as a scholar, he had a long entry in 'Who's Who' while he was still an undergraduate. He went on to become a barrister, a colonial administrator, a prolific journalist, director of a leading publishing house, a war correspondent, a senior intelligence officer, a biographer and historian of academic quality, author of an authoritative work on the taxation of income abroad, a Unionist Member of Parliament, a Presbyterian Elder and High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland, and a particularly popular Governor General of Canada. In terms of breadth of accomplishment, he is exceeded only by his contemporary, Sir Winston Churchill.
In one respect, as a novelist, Buchan surpasses even Churchill, whose first foray into fiction did not encourage him to attempt a second. Buchan wrote over thirty full novels and numerous short stories, essentially in his spare time. His most famous novel, 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' was basically dashed off while he was convalescing.
This habit of writing whenever he had a spare moment means that many of his novels, including some of the most commercially successful, suffer from structural problems. Yet others, such as 'The Gap In The Curtain,' are masterpieces of construction.
All have a wonderful depth of feeling, superb characterisation, and a pitch perfect sense of time and place. If he had written only 'Sick Heart River,' 'Witch Wood,' 'The Blanket Of The Dark,' 'The Dancing Floor,' 'The Free Fishers,' 'John Macnab,' 'Midwinter,' and two or three others, he would have surely have been a serious candidate for the Nobel – and his best work is certainly superior to that of some laureates.
Yet he has fallen victim to the intellectual snobbery that makes a false distinction between 'literary' and 'popular' fiction. The commercial success of what he called his shockers' – his word for what we would call 'thrillers,' not a comment on their quality – like 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' disqualified him from the respect of the literary Establishment, then and now. Sir Richard Hannay cannot be seen to win the Nobel.
Moreover, as with Kipling, simplistic assumptions about his personal politics – which were actually far more complex than his critics are prepared to understand – conflict with the prejudices that dominate contemporary academia and media.
Professor Daniell's book is therefore an attempt to set the record straight. If it contains too much 'literary criticism' to be wholly satisfactory, that is because its purpose is to take on the literary Establishment in its own language. The Professor is good at finding common threads and themes that run throughout Buchan's huge body of work. A son of the Manse himself, he is especially perceptive on the influence of Buchan's Calvinism. He defends Buchan against charges of anti-Semitism very easily, but does not engage in the more interesting debate on racism – although Buchan was a liberal on the subject in his own time, those who call themselves liberal today might contest that. Again, Buchan is more complex than many modern minds are prepared to consider.
The Professor does well to focus on Buchan's less well known earlier works, such as the precocious 'A Lost Lady Of Old Years,' but those of us who are unashamed fans of his later works, including the 'shockers,' would also appreciate a wider discussion of the numerous links between all his novels and short stories. There is perhaps a gap in the market for a 'Buchan Companion' to introduce a new generation to the full breadth of his fiction.
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