Review by Hereward L.M. Proops
I've been a huge fan of The Thirty Nine
Steps ever since I picked up a copy one lazy afternoon as a student and read
the whole thing in one sitting. Although I was studying English literature,
John Buchan's classic thriller wasn't a set text for any of my modules. If
memory serves me correctly (and let's remember, I was a student at this time so
much of my short-term memory underwent some serious punishment in those hazy
days) I'd only heard the author's name mentioned by some of my more engaging
lecturers as someone whose work they felt I'd enjoy. They weren't wrong.
Buchan's short novel blew me away. Sure, there are aspects of it which have
aged very badly (Buchan's anti-semitism is pretty hard to avoid) but the
frantic pacing and the brilliant build-up of tension throughout the novel puts
it in a league of its own. Small wonder that it is often cited as the first
modern thriller and the forefather of Ian Fleming's Bond adventures. In the
twelve years since I was first introduced to the dashing, square-jawed Richard
Hannay, I've read The Thirty Nine Steps three or four times and it never fails
to entertain me.
Skip forward to October 2011. A plumper,
hairier, more sober Hereward is taking a jaunt to Inverness and finds himself,
screaming toddler in arms, in Leakey's Bookshop. Those lucky enough to live in
Scotland who don't know this fantastic second-hand bookshop would do well to
seek it out. A converted church literally packed to the rafters with a
staggering range of books, Leakey's is a book-geek's nirvana. So there I was,
my daughter grizzling away on my shoulder, scanning the shelves for a bargain.
When I saw this book, I must confess that I came pretty close to dropping the
little one. TheBest Supernatural Stories of John Buchan... holy shit. Regular readers will
know that I am a total sucker for anything remotely supernatural. I had no idea
that Buchan had turned his hand to short stories of the fantastic or
supernatural but there it was in front of me.
It has taken me far too long to get
round to reading this book, but I'm very glad I did. The introduction gives a
very detailed, if somewhat dry, account of how each of the stories came to be
written. Haining provides curious readers with details of Buchan's influences
and goes into some depth about Buchan's fascination with the supernatural
world. Although interesting, the introduction is, at times, a little bit too
academic, leeching a little bit of the fun-factor out of some of the sillier
stories in the collection.
Whilst a couple of the stories are
pretty uneventful affairs and will be quickly forgotten, there are more hits
than misses. Journey of Little Profit is written with a tremendously broad
Scottish dialect and is an evocative little tale of a lawless drover's unlucky
encounter with a substantially more wicked being. The Outgoing of
the Tide is a slow moving tale about witchcraft but is a great example of how
the atmosphere of a story is just as important as the action. The Green
Wildebeest is an African-based adventure which reminded me of Rider Haggard
whilst The Grove of Ashtaroth and The Watcher by the Threshold are Lovecraftian
tales of old gods and their lingering influence on the world. The Magic Walking
Stick is a charming little tale about a young boy who finds himself in possession
of a walking stick which enables him to travel instantaneously anywhere he
desires. Clearly aimed at younger readers, this story is beautifully simplistic
but also artfully crafted. Tendebant Manus is a tale of supernatural possession
but Buchan sidesteps the cliché by choosing focus on character rather than
cheap ghostly thrills.
One tale in particular stood out above
all the others. Indeed, no-man's-land is such a brilliant story it alone makes
the book worth tracking down. Fans of monsters and things that go bump in the
night will be delighted with this stunning little novelette. The plot is pure
pulp and all the better for it. An Oxford academic with a particular interest
in Celtic history and mythology goes on holiday to the highlands of Scotland
where he encounters a race of proto-humans whose continued survival has led to
the myth of the brownies. Buchan's characteristic skill of cranking up the
tension through the course of the story is used to marvellous effect and his
descriptions of the Scottish landscape manage to capture both its beauty and
its bleakness.
The Best Supernatural Stories of John
Buchan is great fun and well worth scouring the internet and second-hand
bookshops for a copy. Fans of Buchan's thrillers will be entertained by seeing
how the writer's confident, direct writing style is well suited to other
genres. Hard-core fans of horror might find some of Buchan's stories a little
bit bloodless but those who stick with them will see that his supernatural
tales weren't exercises in the grotesque but great examples of how tension and
atmosphere can be used artfully to create stories that are both gripping and
unsettling without resorting to shock tactics.
Hereward L.M. Proops
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