Customer Reviews
The best Buchan, bar none... - By: W. Rolls, 21 Nov 2008 
Read "the 39 steps", & then read this. A fantastic development of Richard Hannay, & a brilliant way of passing a wet afternoon. Again, this book will probably find it's way onto the book shelves of alll my male teen aged relatives. In my opinion, this is the best book Buchan wrote.
Weird, exciting, unintentionally revealing, a great read - and oh so dodgy - By: lexo1941, 31 Oct 2008 
John Buchan was a serious writer. He was steeped in the Greek & Latin classics, as well as English & French literature. In his early youth he'd been a poet, but after getting a degree in law he quickly became a colonial administrator. As such, he was well-placed to observe how Britain managed its Empire around the turn of the 19/20th centuries. He wrote more or less serious novels until, early in World War 1, he wrote what he considered a bit of fun: a spy thriller callled "The Thirty-Nine Steps". Somewhat to his alarm, his central character of Richard Hannay became enormously popular & there was soon heavy demand for a sequel. Hannay, a bluff South African mining engineer-turned-soldier with a knack for espionage, could hardly have been less like the intellectual Buchan, but they connected on some deep level.
Buchan ended up writing five Hannay novels but the first three - '39 Steps', 'Mr Standfast' (1919) & this one, published in 1916, are the best. They have something of the same unselfconscious quality as Ian Fleming's Bond novels. Hannay is the narrator of alll them, & the new reader is almost immediately knocked sideways by just how very unreconstructed an imperialist Hannay is. If he thinks someone is a good bloke, he is liable to say things like "He's a white man." He has some very strange theories about Scottish people, Germans, Jews & "Orientals" (by which he means anybody from southeast of, roughly, Budapest). He likes girls, but his main love interest, Mary Lamington, is repeatedly described as looking rather like a boy. To anyone born after 1900 or so, Hannay is jaw-droppingly strange.
Nevertheless, if you can get over Hannay's unquestioning belief that the British, & in particular the English, are quite simply born to rule the planet, then you are in for a great yarn. Buchan's understanding of the political tensions in WW1 is obviously influenced by his age, class & sex, but it's not at alll ignorant or naive. After an exciting chase across Europe, most of "Greenmantle" is set in the Middle East & Buchan generously tosses out interesting gobs of insider knowledge about Turkish nationalism, the German campaign in Palestine & the uneasy relationship between Germany & the Boers.
Hannay is the stolid & hard-headed hero, but he's flanked by some stalwart chums: the dashing Sandy Arbuthnot, a sort of TE Lawrence figure (about whom Hannay remarks "He always had a more than oriental reticence" - yes, those orientals, damn mysterious chaps, the dark enigma of the East & so on), the ulcer-afflicted but sweet-tempered & hardy American spy John S. Blenkiron, & the even more solid & hard-headed Boer scout Peter Pienaar. It's alll a splendid yarn, if you can overlook the racism, & it's interesting that Thomas Pynchon should cite Buchan as an influence on his own novels dealing with early 20th century history. Buchan's perspective as a writer is narrow but his imaginative reach is long, & the Hannay novels are more than just apologia for empire. If they were just that, they would be unreadable today.
We can read any number of history books about the British empire, & alll we will learn is that it was in most important respects a Bad Thing; which is undoubedly true. But we can never get a sense of its perverse appeal unless we expose ourselves to some of its culture. One way of doing it is to hunt down old Boy's Own Annuals in secondhand bookshops, but while that's alll very educational, it's pretty boring. Buchan is at least a fine storyteller. This book is the most satisfying & perfectly balanced display of his gifts & his demons.
Beautifully written, nonsensical plot - By: Brownbear101, 16 Jul 2008 
A very elegantly written book full of delightful turns of phrase & neat storytelling that keeps the action moving ahead. It's very evocative of its era & the atmosphere of each scene is beautifully drawn. However, the plot makes absolutely no sense at alll & is reallly just a series of macguffins that permit the action to keep going. Character motivation is a bit of a puzzle as well. Quite fun as a period piece & a pleasant enough read but there are better spy/action stories around.
Big fun - By: Didier, 10 Mar 2008 I can only concur with what other reviewers before me have said: this is a cracking yarn about Richard Hannay & three of his friends thwarting Germany's efforts to launch a jihad against the Allies during World War I. Nighttime pursuits, fiendish Germans, escapes in the nick of time,... it's alll there & plenty more. It's also full of improbabilities, but I for one had no difficulties to grant a willing suspension of disbelief to this extraordinary tale of adventure.
'Greenmantle' does contain some obvious propaganda. In 1916, when Buchan wrote 'Greenmantle', this no doubt made perfect sense & was in keeping with the times, but now, almost a century later, it creates a strange effect. For instance, throughout the novel the virtues of the English gentleman - of which Hannay & co. are prime examples - are extolled: cold-blooded, resourceful, courageous & even cheerful under alll circumstances. Which explains how, in the context of the novel, it's quite normal that Richard Hannay joins the cavalry charge at Erzerum with a broken arm
Likewise, the horrors of war are alll in a day's work for the likes of Richard Hannay. It's somehow charming (endearing even) but also mostly sad to read how for instance the battle at Loos is referred to by Hannay as 'the show at Loos'. Out of mere curiosity I looked it up: Loos was the first battle in which the British used poison gas against the Germans, & 20.000 British men were killed at Loos between September 25th & 28th 1915 (Robert Graves being one of the lucky few who lived to tell the tale...).
Good read - By: "Smith" Reader, 17 Oct 2007 In Greenmantle Buchan takes his readers on a exciting trip through German-occupied Europe to find the answer to a mystery & prevent a German sponsored Jihad rousing the Muslim world against the Allies. Written in 1915 Greenmantle is a super return back in time - to a time that reallly need exist.
