Without armor,

by James Hilton

WITHOUT ARMOR was published in America six months after LOST HORIZON, yet before LOST HORIZON began to win popularity--thus it missed the wider appeal it might otherwise have had. Set in Russia, it is the story of Ainsely Fothergill, an Englishman who served as a British spy and was exiled to Siberia for eight years. The book reminds us that James Hilton was one of the best storytellers of our era, and that a good story never loses its appeal.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Classics, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Russia

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1934

About the author

James Hilton was an English novelist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his novels Lost Horizon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest, as well as co-writing screenplays for the films Camille (1936) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), the latter earning him an Academy Award.

Reviews

[Dorcas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cant take any more of this, I'm halfway through so I think that's a long enough test for reader/author compatability.

The story itself is good. Its the telling of it that crosses my eyes. That, and the male protagonist. He just doesn't seem to care much about, well, anything. You know, I can take just about any kind of character. The good, the bad and the ugly; but don't give me someone who has no passion or direction. that I find unacceptable in a novel.

As for the telling. Well, there are no chapters, just "parts" (like maybe 4 parts) . That's a little hard on the eyes. There's not enough dialog and there are far too few characters. I mean, the guy is ALONE practically the whole book! Give him a drunk friend, a stray dog, someone to communicate with! But its not much use if you did... he doesn't care much about people and when you come right down to it, he really has nothing to say.

What a shame! The sub themes are fantastic. Russian revolution, British spy, multiple identities, exile in the Arctic Circle.... in the hands of the right person this could be amazingly good.

But as it stands, the hero's apathy was highly contagious and as a result, this book does nothing for me

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH: An Englishman leaves his country to be a war correspondent in the Russian-Japanese war, integrates in the Russian pre-war society, becomes an informer for the British Foreign Office, takes a Russian identity, and ends up in Siberia as a political prisoner.

After the Revolution he becomes free, takes a new Russian identity, and gets involved with a former Countess whom he must take to Moscow to be subject to trial, and probably executed.

Along the novel, his character changes. At first, his bad experiences make him become a man with almost no feelings, scarcely concerned even with his own benefit. Later, especially after his relationship with the ex-countess, his character mollifies.

Divided in five unequal parts, this novel becomes sometimes frenetic adventure, especially while the protagonist tries to save the ex-countess from many dangers during their journey across Siberia and Russia. It's somewhat like Michel Strogoff, but in the opposite direction.

ESPAÑOL: Un inglés deja su país para ser corresponsal de guerra en la guerra ruso-japonesa, se integra en la sociedad rusa de la preguerra, se convierte en informante del Foreign Office británico, adopta una identidad rusa y acaba en Siberia como preso político.

Después de la Revolución queda libre, adopta una nueva identidad rusa y se enreda con una ex-condesa a quien debe conducir a Moscú para ser juzgada y probablemente ejecutada.

A lo largo de la novela, su carácter va cambiando. Al principio, sus malas experiencias le convierten en un hombre casi sin sentimientos, que no se preocupa casi ni por sí mismo. Más tarde, especialmente tras su relación con la ex-condesa, su carácter se va suavizando.

Dividida en cinco partes de desigual longitud, esta novela se convierte a veces en una aventura trepidante, sobre todo cuando el protagonista intenta salvar a la ex-condesa de muchos peligros durante su viaje por Siberia y Rusia. Es un viaje como el de Miguel Strogoff, pero en dirección contraria.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Soviet Odyssey

A mild mannered Englishman, a product of the late Victorian Era, apparently undistinguished with a mediocre degree from Oxford, has just died. This is related in the novel as little more than an obituary in the local newspaper. But in retrospect a life is revealed that, propelled by accidents and events, is nothing short of an odyssey that might have been written by some 19th century Russian novelist.

In an attempt to establish a career as a journalist (for which he has no aptitude) he travels to Russia to cover the Russo-Japanese war in 1903. Not particularly wanting to return to England he allows himself to be carried along by several acquaintances who give him the opportunity to extend his stay in Russia. Another chance encounter--and I won't divulge it because it is part of the unexpected nature of the plot--leads to his surrendering his English identity and becoming a Russian. Not only does he succeed in establishing a new career but a new life as well. The bulk of the book follows this life to its conclusion.

This book stands well with Lost Horizon even though the latter overshadowed it. Hilton manages to capture the "Noir" of Russia that reminded me of Dostoyevsky, only without the multitude of characters and with far greater economy. In the space of a few pages one becomes an intimate in the pre-Revolutionary current of anarchism and the Socialist Clubs that will soon topple the regime. He makes one feel the cold and privation of exile in the Artic tundra. A dozen randomly selected books and a Samovar are all the hero has for almost a decade; one becomes almost convinced that is where things will end. Yet fate intervenes again and the exile is dragged from the tundra into the October Revolution. But not as himself but as yet another identity! In the course of following this third life, Hilton captures the tumult of the Revolution with the vividness of Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago--including a love story. The hero comes to a soft landing, after so many decades of turmoil, as a wealthy man and a convert to Roman Catholicism and to an uneventful death; almost the way many would like to live their own lives but with the control over the ensuing drama and reassuring outcome that our helpless hero lacked.

And that marks the difference between Hilton's fiction and today's. Ours is comic book and we know in advance that, even after "ultra-violence" everything will turn out good for the principals. But Hilton's hero is no product of modern affluence and entertainment culture. The reader is in nowise reassured that at any juncture in his life things will turn out well and, in a manner, they don't.

Having read four Hilton novels now, I find his grasp of subjects and locations truly amazing. The books give one the sense that if they have not been actually experienced then at least thoroughly researched. Yet the writing style is light. It propels the reader giving the impression that one is listening rather than reading.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so good as expected...

3* Lost Horizon (1933)
3* So Well Remembered (1945)
5* The Passionate Year (1924)
4* Terry (1927)
4* Catherine Herself (1920)
4* Good-Bye, Mr. Chips (1934)
4* The Meadows of the moon (1927)
4* Morning Journey (1951)
5* Random Harvest (1941)
4* Nothing So Strange (1947)
4* Time and Time Again (1953)
2* Knight Without Armor (1935)
TR The Dawn of Reckoning (Rage in Heaven) (1925)
TR We Are Not Alone (1937)
TR To You Mr. Chips (1938)
TR Twilight of the Wise
TR Storm passage (1922)

[Leslie Reiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Banishment, revolution, persecuted countess, hapless Englishman, love story ... This was a terrific book! The story is actually almost entirely unrealistic, but placed in a realistic setting that lets the reader get much more out of it than just the melodrama. It reads like a classic movie from the 1930/40s (and I love that sort of thing.) James Hilton actually became a screen writer later in his career. This was originally published as Knight Without Armor in 1934.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stumbled across this book, originally published in 1933, and what a fascinating and epic spy/love/survival story! By the author of the more famous 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' it's a story of a young Englishman who gets caught up in the Russian revolution. Superbly written, harrowing and heartbreaking in places, but ultimately hopeful. Superb.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was in a collection of my grandparents old books. But for the most part read like it could have been a modern novel, surprising. The depiction of the revolution in Russia has intrigued me.... I need to read more.

[Izzie Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, i wept and fell in love. James Hilton is a pleasure.

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Knight Without Armour, by James Hilton.
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This is one of those rare books we, as a couple, both read almost simultaneously, enjoyed, loved and remembered, and it was soon after we married - within a couple of years or so - but well over a decade, nearly two decades, after I had read and loved most works of Hilton.

Most serious intellectuals and authors of the era were not only unable to ignore events in Russia but fascinated with them, and mostly sympathetic with the revolution. One finds a mention in their work, however oblique or slight, and this work of Hilton is his acknowledgement, to say the least, of the events.

Largely, it was the extensive descriptions of Siberia that fascinated us, remaining thereafter as a longing to traverse the land. But it was just as strongly off-putting, to put it extremely mildly, to go through some of the descriptions, not limited to Siberia.

Beginning it a second time, one notices Hilton mentions Carigole again, but this time he's set it in county Cork, not near Galway uphill beset by Atlantic gales as it was in his So Well Remembered.

No such name exists on Google maps. Why was Carigole such a favourite name for him to give an Irish town?
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Hilton has a - by now well recognised by a reader - prototype of Englishman for a protagonist, usually, with few rare exceptions. Its someone who went through a not too closeknit family life, with a - middling level - public school and a Cambridge graduation before a middling career as a diplomat or something thereabouts, serving the empire faithfully. He manages to dress this protagonist in different enough careers, in different works of his, so that not only the very different lives but the huge variety of adventures seems not incredible , despite being so. It all fits in the nineteenth century and twentieth with British empire straddling the globe, and the men pieces of the vast puzzle.

But with all his deep sympathy that brings his characters alive to the reader, he still retains his - or rather the West brand - racism, whereby he sympthises with the Russian workers but is superciliously aloof in excluding India and anything related from his sphere of consideration, and explicitly so, while retaining a modest to high regard for most other cultures far more alien - Chinese, Japanese, (but not Tibetan!), and more.

He seems to despise Asian contingent of Russia, too, and - rather surprisingly - blames not only the revolution but much more on Jews, with most small unpleasant characters depicted in this work explicitly labelled "Jew". Dangerous ones, however, are Ukrainian - and in this, most memoirs of WWII holocaust concur.
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In this work, the protagonist isn't a civil servant or a diplomat, but after short stints as a journalist, a war correspondent at the Russo-Japan war, and an English teacher in Rostov-on-the-Don, he's offered his career at the last hour before he's forced to leave St. Petersburg, which he's very unwilling to do, having acquired fluent Russian and liked not only St. Petersburg but Russian people as well.

"Briefly, Stanfield's suggestion was that A.J. should become attached to the British Secret Service. That sounded simple enough, but an examination of all that it implied revealed a network of complication and detail."

""The danger, my friend, would be twofold, and I'm not going to try to minimise it in the least. There would be, of course, the danger you mention, but there would be the even greater danger that the Russian police would take you for a genuine revolutionary and deal with you accordingly. And you know what 'accordingly' means."

""But in that case I suppose I should have to tell them the real truth?"

""Not at all—that is just what you would not have to do. You would have to keep up your pretence and accept whatever punishment they gave you. If you did tell them the truth, the British authorities would merely arch their eyebrows with great loftiness and disown you. I want you to be quite clear about that. We should, in the beginning, provide you with passport and papers proving you to be a Russian subject, and after that, if anything ever went wrong, you would have to become that Russian subject—completely. Do you see? We could not risk trouble with the Russian Government by having anything to do with you.""

"Stanfield smiled. "Forrester's a thorough fellow," he commented. "He doesn't intend to have the Russian police wondering what's happened to you. To–night, my friend, though it may startle you to know it, Mr. A.J. Fothergill will leave Russia. He will collect his luggage at the Warsaw station, he will board the night express for Germany, his passport will be stamped in the usual way at Wierjbolovo and Eydkuhnen, but in Berlin, curiously enough if anyone bothered to make enquiries, all trace of him would be lost. How fortunate that your height and features are reasonably normal and that passport photographs are always so dreadfully bad!""

Hilton documents a common episode of the era:-

"One afternoon he was walking with Maronin through a factory district during a lock–out; crowds of factory workers—men, women, and girls—were strolling or loitering about quite peaceably. Suddenly, with loud shouts and the clatter of hoofs, a troop of Cossacks swept round the street–corner, their lithe bodies swaying rhythmically from side to side as they laid about them with their short, leaden–tipped whips. The crowd screamed and stampeded for safety, but most were hemmed in between the Cossacks and the closed factory–gates. A.J. and Maronin pressed themselves against the wall and trusted to luck; several horsemen flashed past; whips cracked and there were terrifying screams; then all was over, almost as sharply as it had begun. A girl standing next to Maronin had been struck; the whip had laid open her cheek from lip to ear. A.J. and Maronin helped to carry her into a neighbouring shop, which was already full of bleeding victims. Maronin said: "My mother was blinded like that—by a Cossack whip,"—and A.J. suddenly felt as he had done years before when he had decided to fight Smalljohn's system at Barrowhurst, and when he had seen the policeman in Trafalgar Square twisting the suffragette's arm—only a thousand times more intensely."
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The transformation comes with his arrest and exile to furthest corner of Siberia, close to Arctic Northeast, Arctic ocean easily arrived at by small boat in summer on river. There are only four Russians imprisoned there, and by the time a group of Cossacks arrived to inform them of freedom due to revolution, the four were dead.

"Two days later eight men set out for the south. There was need to hurry, as the warmer season was approaching and the streams would soon melt and overflow.

"As they covered mile after mile it was as if the earth warmed and blossomed to meet them; each day was longer and brighter than the one before; the stunted willows became taller, and at last there were trees with green buds on them; the sun shone higher in the sky, melting the snows and releasing every stream into bursting, bubbling life, till the ice in the rivers gave a thunderous shiver from bank to bank; and the soldiers threw off their fur jackets and shouted for joy and sang songs all the day long. At Verkhoiansk there was a junction with other parties of released exiles, and later on, when they had crossed the mountains, more exiles met them from Ust Viluisk, Kolymsk, and places that even the map ignores.

"Yakutsk, which was reached at the end of July, was already full of soldiers and exiles, as well as knee–deep in thick black mud and riddled with pestilence. Every day the exiles waited on the banks of the Lena for the boat that was to take them further south, and every hour fresh groups arrived from the north and north–east. ... every morning dead bodies were pushed quietly into the Lena and sent northwards on their icy journey. Yet beyond all the misery and famine and pestilence, Yakutsk was a city of hope."

"By August the exiles were in Irkutsk. The city was in chaos; its population had been increased threefold; it was the neck of the channel through which Siberia was emptying herself of the accumulated suffering of generations. From all directions poured in an unceasing flood of returning exiles and refugees—not only from Yakutsk and the Arctic, but from Chita and the Manchurian border, from the Baikal mines and the mountain–prisons of the Yablonoi. In addition, there were German, Austrian, and Hungarian war–prisoners, drifting slowly westward as the watch upon them dissolved under the distant rays of Petrograd revolution; and nomad traders from the Gobi, scraping profit out of the pains and desires of so many strangers; and Buriat farmers, rich after years of war–profiteering; and Cossack officers, still secretly loyal to the old régime: Irkutsk was a magnet drawing together the whole assortment, and drawing also influenza and dysentery, scurvy and typhus, so that the hospitals were choked with sick, and bodies were thrown, uncoffined and by scores, into huge open graves dug by patient Chinese."
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Descriptions here of the Russian civil war, of the madness of red and white armies and their proceedings and more, are quite vivid in bringing it home to a reader several decades or a century later, across thousands of miles and in very different cultures. Why it wasn't ranked with the far better known and most famous work of Pasternak can perhaps only be explained as bias of certain cliques.
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"The most to be done is to make sure of what one loves and never to let it go."
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April 23, 2021 - April 26, 2021.
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[Paul Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Hilton was a great storyteller, if you can get past the occasional racism and casual antisemitism. Interesting detail around life in revolutionary Russia.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forgot how much I like James Hilton. Makes me want to re-read his others.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my book club’s selection. Although not a title I would usually be drawn towards, I’m glad I read it. It’s the story of a man’s life from a pressured and unloved boy in England to an unaccomplished and lost young man who ends up taking a job in Russia. The plot line becomes more interesting as the young man, in need of yet another job, finds himself becoming involved with the Russian Revolution which leads him to lots of harrowing hardships. There’s a lot of suffering and death in the novel. But in the end it’s actually about the growth of a once shallow loner who learns to love his fellowman.

[David Shapcott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended

This is an excellent read. I am surprised this novel is not more well known. It begins rather slowly, which was probably the fashion when it was written. But the action gets going at a pace once the protagonist is in Tsarist Russia and during the subsequent revolution. The setting and the myriad people he encounters are described in such a believable manner that I find it hard to credit the author wasn’t himself there. The change the terrible experiences have on the protagonist is something I can well imagine to be so. This is a novel that I will certainly read again.

[Raime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fine and pleasant prose. Adventure novel, sentimental in the end.

"Aitchison accepted, adding: “Naturally you’ll bear in mind the policy of this paper—we don’t much care for the Russians, you know."

[Paul Conder · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting story of the Russian revolution