Greenmantle (Richard Hannay #2) in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 11, 2011 Kay rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, world_war_i, espionage, ripping_yarns

The Ripping-est of Ripping Yarns

I've got a special shelf, "Ripping Yarns," set up here at Goodreads devoted to this sort of tale. The salient feature of a ripping yarn is that once you're well into the book, despite whatever flaws there might be in plot, plausibility, or characterization, it's damn near impossible to put down.

John Buchan's four tales featuring hero Richard Hannay fall squarely in the ripping yarn tradition, and they're particularly remarkable as examples of early spy novels. He The Ripping-est of Ripping Yarns

I've got a special shelf, "Ripping Yarns," set up here at Goodreads devoted to this sort of tale. The salient feature of a ripping yarn is that once you're well into the book, despite whatever flaws there might be in plot, plausibility, or characterization, it's damn near impossible to put down.

John Buchan's four tales featuring hero Richard Hannay fall squarely in the ripping yarn tradition, and they're particularly remarkable as examples of early spy novels. Here are the badder than bad villains and resourceful, patriotic, man's man of a hero that we encounter later in the novels of Ian Fleming, for example. Then there's the perennial theme that pits one worldview against another, with the fate of civilization hanging in the balance. The exotic settings (in Germany, Hungary, and Turkey) add another layer of intrigue. The plot is too convoluted -- and, to be honest, a little too hocus-pocus -- to recap, but it doesn't really matter. Once the reader has gotten by some of the initial artifice of the premise, it's a sleigh ride.

One thing that I found slightly difficult was the dated parlance of the WWI-era soldier. Germans, for example, are almost always referred to by Hannay as "the Boche," while frequent references to the Boer War, the Turkish campaign, and other contemporary events make the book at times heavy going. I have a fairly good grounding in the history of this period, but still at times I found passages such as this opaque:

"I watched the figures in khaki passing on the pavement, and thought what a nice safe prospect they had compared to mine. Yes, even if next week, they were in the Hohenzollern, or the Hairpin trench at the Quarries, or that ugly angle at the Hooge."

Well, clearly those refer to places of heavy fighting during WWI, but I've no idea where they were. The point is, these sort of references pepper the narrative and the reader is advised to just sail on by and not too worry too much about it.

Another thing that is more worrisome, though, are the frequent lucky chance encounters. Hannay is forever running across one or another of his fellow adventurers at opportune moments -- in an obscure town on the banks of the Danube, for example. It seems more than a little contrived to the modern reader.

Finally, there's one more hurdle for contemporary audiences: the "stiff-upper-lip," "jolly-good-show" British warrior ethos that pervades the book. Here's a representative passage from near the end of the book, when Hannay and two of his companions are trapped and face almost certain death:

"We're the lucky fellows," said Sandy; "we've all had our whack. When I remember the good times I've had I could sing a hymn of praise. We've lived long enough to know ourselves, and to shape ourselves into some kind of decency. But think of those boys who have given their lives freely when they scarcely knew what life meant. They were just at the beginning of the road, and they didn't know what dreary bits lay before them."

I won't give away what happens next, but let's just say the phrase deus ex machina springs to mind.

The remarkable thing is that in spite of all these shortcomings, I could scarcely put this book down. Buchan's prose, however laden with WWI jargon, sings. His heroes bound larger than life from the pages. And those villains... oh those villains! Rosa Klebb and Ernst Blofield have nothing on them. Heady stuff indeed.

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Oct 28, 2019 Tony rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: adapted-for-film, novels, setting-europe, espionage, war-ww1

My grandfather was a huge fan of adventure fiction, from the swashbuckling pirate tales of Rafael Sabatini to the Cold War heroic brutalism of the 007 novels. He died more than a decade ago, but while sorting through his old books recently, I came across this book with a stamp from the bookstore in Athens where he bought it in 1945. Having inherited some of his taste for ripping yarns, I thought I'd read it in his honor.

This second book in five to feature British adventurer-spy Richard Hannay fi My grandfather was a huge fan of adventure fiction, from the swashbuckling pirate tales of Rafael Sabatini to the Cold War heroic brutalism of the 007 novels. He died more than a decade ago, but while sorting through his old books recently, I came across this book with a stamp from the bookstore in Athens where he bought it in 1945. Having inherited some of his taste for ripping yarns, I thought I'd read it in his honor.

This second book in five to feature British adventurer-spy Richard Hannay finds him recuperating following the events of The 39 Steps. With World War I raging, he is eager to get back into action, but this time he is recruited to suss out a German plot to inspire a jihad in Allied-held territories in the Middle East. As the book was originally published in 1916, this is real ripped from the headlines stuff, as Germany was really trying to engineer something along those lines.

The story joins Hannay with his old British soldiering pal and master of disguise Sandy (a character based on the real-life Sir Aubrey Herbert), and an outsized American named Blenkiron. This unlikely trio is tasked with making their way to Constantinople to decipher the plot. Along the way, Hannay's South African hunter/tracker pal Peter joins the team. There's some solid cloak and dagger fun to be had following them from London across Europe and deep into Germany, including some rousing chases and narrow escapes. A cartoonish German villain is introduced.

Alas, when they actually do get to Constantinople, the story bogs down a bit and requires perhaps more background knowledge of Ottoman and Turkish politics of the era than the contemporary reader is likely to be able to draw upon. Eventually, they leave and head to the eastern front, where the Russians and pressing, and the action picks up again.

All in all, the book has it moments of fun, but it's also casually racist and imperialist in the way you would expect of something like this written a century ago -- so be forewarned about that. The book also has a weird male insularity to it not uncommon to the genre -- the sole female character is a evil siren arch-villain. Another glaring defect is that the story relies multiple times on major characters simply running into each other in the most improbable ways. Probably best approached as something to read more anthropologically than for the story or characters. ...more

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Jun 10, 2014 Wes F rated it liked it

Second time to try to read this book-and this time I was successful! An interesting book, with some interesting characters, though nothing like a thriller. Set up WW I era, with the Germans trying to stir up a jihad amongst the Muslims of Turkey & other places against the Allies.

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