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Richard Hannay #3
Mr. Standfast
In this nail-biting adventure story, Hannay must outwit a foe far more intelligent than himself; muster the courage to propose to the lovely, clever Mary Lamington; and survive a brutal war. Although Mr. Standfast is a sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps, it offers far more characterisation and philosophy than the earlier book. For its pace and suspense, its changes of scenery and thrilling descriptions of the last great battles against the Germans, Mr Standfast offers everything that has made its author so enduringly popular.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
180 people are currently reading
1848 people want to read
About the author
John Buchan
1,722 books466 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
John Buchan was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a youth, Buchan began writing poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first novel in 1895 and ultimately writing over a hundred books of which the best known is The Thirty-Nine Steps. After attending Glasgow and Oxford universities, he practised as a barrister. In 1901, he served as a private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa towards the end of the Boer War. He returned to England in 1903, continued as a barrister and journalist. He left the Bar when he joined Thomas Nelson and Sons publishers in 1907. During the First World War, he was, among other activities, Director of Information in 1917 and later Head of Intelligence at the newly-formed Ministry of Information. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities in 1927.
In 1935, King George V, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, appointed Buchan to succeed the Earl of Bessborough as Governor General of Canada and two months later raised him to the peerage as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan promoted Canadian unity and helped strengthen the sovereignty of Canada constitutionally and culturally. He received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
John Buchan was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a youth, Buchan began writing poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first novel in 1895 and ultimately writing over a hundred books of which the best known is The Thirty-Nine Steps. After attending Glasgow and Oxford universities, he practised as a barrister. In 1901, he served as a private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa towards the end of the Boer War. He returned to England in 1903, continued as a barrister and journalist. He left the Bar when he joined Thomas Nelson and Sons publishers in 1907. During the First World War, he was, among other activities, Director of Information in 1917 and later Head of Intelligence at the newly-formed Ministry of Information. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities in 1927.
In 1935, King George V, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, appointed Buchan to succeed the Earl of Bessborough as Governor General of Canada and two months later raised him to the peerage as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan promoted Canadian unity and helped strengthen the sovereignty of Canada constitutionally and culturally. He received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
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April 13, 2024
John Buchan's #3 Richard Hannay book - longer and more complex again than Greenmantle, but based on recurring characters (good and evil!) from both The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle.
First published in 1919 it is an impressive undertaking, weaving the story through the active front of the Great War but was perhaps the geography of the story was much more readily understood than today (it begins and end in France, but takes in Britain, Italy and Switzerland. Those reading it when published would have been familiar with the happenings at the front. General Hannay is withdrawn from the front by British Intelligence to undertake a secret mission - although he knows little detail of it in advance, purposely as is suits him poorly - among conscientious objectors, pacifists and anti-war folks. A wild chase up through Scotland allows for some typically Buchan high pace combined with fortuitous coincidences and feats of physical endurance.
The storyline also gave Buchan the opportunity to write for pages on the topics of national character and the anti-war movement. There was 50% too much of this for me to bear and some skimming came into play. Then of course, there was the German angle, where again Buchan could frame the Boche and their underhand methods (like the anthrax packages, planted German agents in Britain, etc). So there really was a soapbox opportunity.
The big change from the first two books was the introduction of the love interest - handled rather clumsily to be honest. Mary Lamington (I know, right?) is half Hannay's age and weirdly described as boyish, and clean and it is noted that she 'can't soil'.
Was this perhaps once of the earliest books in which the evil villain of the story tells the captive hero of his plans, then leaves him in a situation he is unlikely to escape from, only for the hero to escape and foil those plans? So James Bond villain, and so well mocked in Austin Powers in modern time!
If you have reached the end of my review and are still wondering about the title of the book - I did too, until I realised that Mr Standfast is a character from Pilgrims Progress, the book used by Hannay and the network as a cypher. There may have been more subtleties I missed, having not read that book.
In spite of its faults, this is still a very entertaining book, and given how early a publication this is, was formative of the genre.
4 stars
First published in 1919 it is an impressive undertaking, weaving the story through the active front of the Great War but was perhaps the geography of the story was much more readily understood than today (it begins and end in France, but takes in Britain, Italy and Switzerland. Those reading it when published would have been familiar with the happenings at the front. General Hannay is withdrawn from the front by British Intelligence to undertake a secret mission - although he knows little detail of it in advance, purposely as is suits him poorly - among conscientious objectors, pacifists and anti-war folks. A wild chase up through Scotland allows for some typically Buchan high pace combined with fortuitous coincidences and feats of physical endurance.
The storyline also gave Buchan the opportunity to write for pages on the topics of national character and the anti-war movement. There was 50% too much of this for me to bear and some skimming came into play. Then of course, there was the German angle, where again Buchan could frame the Boche and their underhand methods (like the anthrax packages, planted German agents in Britain, etc). So there really was a soapbox opportunity.
The big change from the first two books was the introduction of the love interest - handled rather clumsily to be honest. Mary Lamington (I know, right?) is half Hannay's age and weirdly described as boyish, and clean and it is noted that she 'can't soil'.
Was this perhaps once of the earliest books in which the evil villain of the story tells the captive hero of his plans, then leaves him in a situation he is unlikely to escape from, only for the hero to escape and foil those plans? So James Bond villain, and so well mocked in Austin Powers in modern time!
If you have reached the end of my review and are still wondering about the title of the book - I did too, until I realised that Mr Standfast is a character from Pilgrims Progress, the book used by Hannay and the network as a cypher. There may have been more subtleties I missed, having not read that book.
In spite of its faults, this is still a very entertaining book, and given how early a publication this is, was formative of the genre.
4 stars
February 22, 2012
This novel concludes what I think of as the original Hannay trilogy, which sees our hero through the course of the first world war, or the Great War as they used to call it.
There's an interesting change in tone over these three books. 'The Thirty Nine Steps' is stark and intense with Hannay a man pushed to the limit, fighting a battle he barely understands with few allies until the last third of the novel. 'Greenmantle' is an altogether more rollicking and gregarious work with various allies and companions along the way as well as the window-dressing of exotic settings, although it isn't bereft of moments of singular intensity.
'Mr. Standfast' is by far the darkest of the three novels, as Hannay alternates between the frontlines and backrooms of some of the most climactic moments of the war. There is a vivid sense of the horror of war, both in blitz-torn London and in the battlefields of Europe. Even though Hannay has his share of comrades, and even a love interest (described as 'childlike' or 'like a slim boy' rather a lot of times - was Buchan a closeted Uranian?) this novel plunges deep into the ideological currents that surround the war and its dissenters, taking us far from the realms of amiable jingoism at times. It also features a villain who is somehow far more diabolical than when we first met him in '39' and far more purely villainous than the villains in 'Greenmantle'.
The ending is bittersweet, with some noble companions lost. Along the way, I also realised that Hannay works as a character because Buchan is able to show us his limitations to just the right degree as to make his superhuman abilities palatable. Hannay describes a couple of lines of Goethe used as passwords by German spies as 'pretty dismal poetry' and confesses to having no ear for any instrumental music other than marching tunes. These foibles remind us that, for all his achievements, Hannay has led a life that has had little of culture or art in it, and Buchan does not present this as a flaw or an advantage, simply as a part of the character, allowing us to draw our own conclusions. This a far cry from the first Bulldog Drummond novel where 'Sapper' is clearly in love with his headstrong buffoon of a hero, even though he doesn't come across as especially notable even through 'Sapper's narrative.
Buchan was a subtle author; there are many fine things woven into the fabric of this novel. You don't have to agree with his politics or his religion to admire how he has deeply interwoven them with an exciting adventure story in a manner that gives added depth to the plot rather than making it into a shallow polemic. Matthew Reilly can brag until he's bleat in the face about pure entertainment, but a writer who is aware of his world-view and intelligently works it into his novels is preferable to any amount of allegedly subtext-less hi-jinks.
There's an interesting change in tone over these three books. 'The Thirty Nine Steps' is stark and intense with Hannay a man pushed to the limit, fighting a battle he barely understands with few allies until the last third of the novel. 'Greenmantle' is an altogether more rollicking and gregarious work with various allies and companions along the way as well as the window-dressing of exotic settings, although it isn't bereft of moments of singular intensity.
'Mr. Standfast' is by far the darkest of the three novels, as Hannay alternates between the frontlines and backrooms of some of the most climactic moments of the war. There is a vivid sense of the horror of war, both in blitz-torn London and in the battlefields of Europe. Even though Hannay has his share of comrades, and even a love interest (described as 'childlike' or 'like a slim boy' rather a lot of times - was Buchan a closeted Uranian?) this novel plunges deep into the ideological currents that surround the war and its dissenters, taking us far from the realms of amiable jingoism at times. It also features a villain who is somehow far more diabolical than when we first met him in '39' and far more purely villainous than the villains in 'Greenmantle'.
The ending is bittersweet, with some noble companions lost. Along the way, I also realised that Hannay works as a character because Buchan is able to show us his limitations to just the right degree as to make his superhuman abilities palatable. Hannay describes a couple of lines of Goethe used as passwords by German spies as 'pretty dismal poetry' and confesses to having no ear for any instrumental music other than marching tunes. These foibles remind us that, for all his achievements, Hannay has led a life that has had little of culture or art in it, and Buchan does not present this as a flaw or an advantage, simply as a part of the character, allowing us to draw our own conclusions. This a far cry from the first Bulldog Drummond novel where 'Sapper' is clearly in love with his headstrong buffoon of a hero, even though he doesn't come across as especially notable even through 'Sapper's narrative.
Buchan was a subtle author; there are many fine things woven into the fabric of this novel. You don't have to agree with his politics or his religion to admire how he has deeply interwoven them with an exciting adventure story in a manner that gives added depth to the plot rather than making it into a shallow polemic. Matthew Reilly can brag until he's bleat in the face about pure entertainment, but a writer who is aware of his world-view and intelligently works it into his novels is preferable to any amount of allegedly subtext-less hi-jinks.
July 5, 2025
There's a part of me that marvels at how well these espionage novels written by John Buchan convey the imminent peril by which Richard Hannay must constantly exist. Mr. Standfast is the third book in the series. The novels are good, but the prose is so dense with exposition that they are almost too busy to follow.
Hannay is a general in WWI, who has twice before demonstrated the ability to sneak behind enemy lines, grab important information, and take the data to where it would most be useful. Due to his courage and skill, he is once again enlisted to supply alternatives to Great Britain's needs. Characters from previous novels serve as allies and help to move the story along.
Basically, posing as a pacifist, Hannay adopts the name and personality of conscientious objector Cornelius Brand, a South African living in England where he meets Mary Lamington, his contact. She tells him that they are after the most dangerous man in the world, who proves he is over several instances. Worse for Hannay is that he has proposed to Mary, and he wanted to do that.
The story is over six hundred pages long so there is complexity, twists and turns, false clues, and threads that lead nowhere. However, although I would communicate a too long and involved narrative thread, I would also say it was a pleasure to read this paradigm shifting, classic of the genre.
Hannay is a general in WWI, who has twice before demonstrated the ability to sneak behind enemy lines, grab important information, and take the data to where it would most be useful. Due to his courage and skill, he is once again enlisted to supply alternatives to Great Britain's needs. Characters from previous novels serve as allies and help to move the story along.
Basically, posing as a pacifist, Hannay adopts the name and personality of conscientious objector Cornelius Brand, a South African living in England where he meets Mary Lamington, his contact. She tells him that they are after the most dangerous man in the world, who proves he is over several instances. Worse for Hannay is that he has proposed to Mary, and he wanted to do that.
The story is over six hundred pages long so there is complexity, twists and turns, false clues, and threads that lead nowhere. However, although I would communicate a too long and involved narrative thread, I would also say it was a pleasure to read this paradigm shifting, classic of the genre.
March 27, 2018
For links to other posts relating to my Buchan of the Month reading project, visit my blog: https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.com/
Mr. Standfast is the third book in my Buchan of the Month reading project.
Before I say anymore, I’ll confess that Mr. Standfast is a book I’ve read many times before and it happens to be one of my favorite Buchan books (alongside Sick Heart River, which I shall be reading later this year). For me, it has everything: a mystery, some thrilling set pieces, great characters, numerous locations, a touch of romance and some chilling scenes on the battlefields of World War One France. I always get a bit tearful at the end. As well as being a very entertaining book, Mr. Standfast explores some serious themes – courage, fortitude, sacrifice.
As the title suggests, Mr. Standfast has a number of allusions and references to John Bunyan’s work The Pilgrim’s Progress. That book was an important text for Buchan and I believe it informs many of the themes in Mr. Standfast I have just mentioned. Full disclosure: my dissertation for my MA in English from The Open University was on the subject of the influence of The Pilgrim’s Progress on John Buchan’s books but don’t worry, I’m not going to test your patience by quoting from it extensively. However, just a few thoughts on the connections between the two texts...
In his autobiography Memory-Hold-The-Door, Buchan attributes his regard for The Pilgrim’s Progress to ‘its picture of life as a pilgrimage over hill and dale, where surprising adventures lurked by the wayside, a hard road with now and then long views to cheer the traveller and a great brightness at the end of it’. The reference to the journey being ‘over hills and dales’ acknowledges that life brings moments of difficulty and challenge as well as ease, involving either physical or mental effort. The journey features ‘surprising adventures’ – the use of the word ‘adventures’ rather than ‘experiences’ suggesting that these will be exciting episodes - but these ‘lurk’ by the wayside. There is a sense of the unexpected, of danger in the choice of the word ‘lurk’. All of these elements I feel are apparent in Mr. Standfast.
As well as having a thematic influence, The Pilgrim’s Progress, as a physical object, plays a role in Mr. Standfast. It acts variously as a prize, a code-book and a source of moral and comfort.
For example, The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of Peter Pienaar’s few cherished possessions; with the Bible, it acts as a source of comfort during his captivity in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Pienaar is described as ‘puzzling over it’, using it as one of his ‘chief aids in reflection’ and for ‘self-examination’. Peter searches The Pilgrim’s Progress to find examples that he can apply to his present predicament. Charmingly Peter takes everything in The Pilgrim’s Progress ‘quite literally’ and talks about the character Mr Standfast ‘as if he were a friend’. Arguably, Peter’s identification with the characters in The Pilgrim’s Progress partly inspires his actions at the end of the book.
For Hannay, The Pilgrim’s Progress has a more practical and utilitarian function; he describes it as one of his ‘working tools’. For example, it alerts Hannay to the fact that someone has searched his belongings as he observes ‘a receipted bill which I had stuck in the Pilgrim’s Progress to mark my place had been moved’. Later, it provides a method of authenticating the character Hannay has adopted. Producing his copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress to the old postmistress of a Highland village, it creates a shared cultural connection between them as she comments, ‘I got it for a prize in the Sabbath School when I was a lassie’.
One of the most notable roles for The Pilgrim’s Progress in Mr Standfast is as a shared means of communication between Hannay and his comrades. This operates at two levels: as a common language to express feelings, anxieties and hopes and, at a practical level, as a code for secret communications between the characters. In particular, The Pilgrim’s Progress becomes a key part of the burgeoning relationship between Mary Lamington and Hannay. At one point, Hannay sends a message of reassurance for Mary: ‘If you see Miss Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty. I’m coming back as soon as God will let me’.
There is a lot more I could say on the links between the two texts but I’ll just close by saying that Mr. Standfast is a great story even if you have no knowledge of The Pilgrim’s Progress. I think it is the best of Buchan’s Richard Hannay adventures and one of the finest books he wrote.
Mr. Standfast is the third book in my Buchan of the Month reading project.
Before I say anymore, I’ll confess that Mr. Standfast is a book I’ve read many times before and it happens to be one of my favorite Buchan books (alongside Sick Heart River, which I shall be reading later this year). For me, it has everything: a mystery, some thrilling set pieces, great characters, numerous locations, a touch of romance and some chilling scenes on the battlefields of World War One France. I always get a bit tearful at the end. As well as being a very entertaining book, Mr. Standfast explores some serious themes – courage, fortitude, sacrifice.
As the title suggests, Mr. Standfast has a number of allusions and references to John Bunyan’s work The Pilgrim’s Progress. That book was an important text for Buchan and I believe it informs many of the themes in Mr. Standfast I have just mentioned. Full disclosure: my dissertation for my MA in English from The Open University was on the subject of the influence of The Pilgrim’s Progress on John Buchan’s books but don’t worry, I’m not going to test your patience by quoting from it extensively. However, just a few thoughts on the connections between the two texts...
In his autobiography Memory-Hold-The-Door, Buchan attributes his regard for The Pilgrim’s Progress to ‘its picture of life as a pilgrimage over hill and dale, where surprising adventures lurked by the wayside, a hard road with now and then long views to cheer the traveller and a great brightness at the end of it’. The reference to the journey being ‘over hills and dales’ acknowledges that life brings moments of difficulty and challenge as well as ease, involving either physical or mental effort. The journey features ‘surprising adventures’ – the use of the word ‘adventures’ rather than ‘experiences’ suggesting that these will be exciting episodes - but these ‘lurk’ by the wayside. There is a sense of the unexpected, of danger in the choice of the word ‘lurk’. All of these elements I feel are apparent in Mr. Standfast.
As well as having a thematic influence, The Pilgrim’s Progress, as a physical object, plays a role in Mr. Standfast. It acts variously as a prize, a code-book and a source of moral and comfort.
For example, The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of Peter Pienaar’s few cherished possessions; with the Bible, it acts as a source of comfort during his captivity in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Pienaar is described as ‘puzzling over it’, using it as one of his ‘chief aids in reflection’ and for ‘self-examination’. Peter searches The Pilgrim’s Progress to find examples that he can apply to his present predicament. Charmingly Peter takes everything in The Pilgrim’s Progress ‘quite literally’ and talks about the character Mr Standfast ‘as if he were a friend’. Arguably, Peter’s identification with the characters in The Pilgrim’s Progress partly inspires his actions at the end of the book.
For Hannay, The Pilgrim’s Progress has a more practical and utilitarian function; he describes it as one of his ‘working tools’. For example, it alerts Hannay to the fact that someone has searched his belongings as he observes ‘a receipted bill which I had stuck in the Pilgrim’s Progress to mark my place had been moved’. Later, it provides a method of authenticating the character Hannay has adopted. Producing his copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress to the old postmistress of a Highland village, it creates a shared cultural connection between them as she comments, ‘I got it for a prize in the Sabbath School when I was a lassie’.
One of the most notable roles for The Pilgrim’s Progress in Mr Standfast is as a shared means of communication between Hannay and his comrades. This operates at two levels: as a common language to express feelings, anxieties and hopes and, at a practical level, as a code for secret communications between the characters. In particular, The Pilgrim’s Progress becomes a key part of the burgeoning relationship between Mary Lamington and Hannay. At one point, Hannay sends a message of reassurance for Mary: ‘If you see Miss Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty. I’m coming back as soon as God will let me’.
There is a lot more I could say on the links between the two texts but I’ll just close by saying that Mr. Standfast is a great story even if you have no knowledge of The Pilgrim’s Progress. I think it is the best of Buchan’s Richard Hannay adventures and one of the finest books he wrote.
February 16, 2013
Buchan is a bit of an acquired taste. The book is a bit slow at times, and the values that form its backbone are often foreign. But that is part of his charm.
I love old books that were once popular. They are the window into the soul of an age.
In this one, we have a wonderful view of the tensions between pacifism and patriotism, socialism and class expectations in WWI Britain. Much of this is quite illuminating, and by itself makes the book worth reading. (In order to worm his way into a spy ring, Hannay has to pose as a pacifist.)
And as in Buchan's other books, it is precisely what Buchan doesn't mean to show us that is particularly illuminating: the generous "condescenscion" of the upper class General Hannay in appreciating the salt of the earth British soldier, the notion that he as an officer has an orderly as a servant, the casual racism of references to Asians, Italians, and Africans, the demonization of "the Boche."
I was given this by a friend who was editing a new biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes; she noted that this was one of the fifty books that Holmes read in the summer of 1919, when the court was out of session. That alone is a reason to read the book - a reminder particularly appropriate to Goodreads, that sharing the act of reading with someone else enhances the reading itself. I relished that I was getting a view not only into the mind of the time, but also of the great jurist. (Though of course, I have no idea what he thought of the book.)
My friend gave it to me because it is organized around metaphors and characters from A Pilgrim's Progress, and I had recently given her husband a lovely old illustrated edition of the same. Not remembering my Pilgrim's Progress as well as I might, or as the good christians of Buchan's day might have, a lot of the connections went over my head, as did some of the taken-for-granted background about WWI. The war front really only comes alive at the end of the book, in the concluding battles.
By the way, I don't understand the other reviews that suggest that Buchan is completely negative about pacifists. While he builds a portrait of the narrowness of the sentiment of those opposed to the war (as opposed to the solid citizens who shoulder the burden uncomplainingly), it is almost Trollopian in its sympathy for those so portrayed, and in the end, it is a conscientious objector who is described as "the best of us" at the front.
P.S. I read The Thirty-Nine Steps long ago, but don't remember it well, and never read Greenmantle, the second book in his Richard Hannay series, so that may have contributed to my review. If I'd read the books in sequence, the characters and the thrust of the narrative would have been more familiar, and I might have found the book more engaging. I'd recommend starting with The Thirty-Nine Steps.
I love old books that were once popular. They are the window into the soul of an age.
In this one, we have a wonderful view of the tensions between pacifism and patriotism, socialism and class expectations in WWI Britain. Much of this is quite illuminating, and by itself makes the book worth reading. (In order to worm his way into a spy ring, Hannay has to pose as a pacifist.)
And as in Buchan's other books, it is precisely what Buchan doesn't mean to show us that is particularly illuminating: the generous "condescenscion" of the upper class General Hannay in appreciating the salt of the earth British soldier, the notion that he as an officer has an orderly as a servant, the casual racism of references to Asians, Italians, and Africans, the demonization of "the Boche."
I was given this by a friend who was editing a new biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes; she noted that this was one of the fifty books that Holmes read in the summer of 1919, when the court was out of session. That alone is a reason to read the book - a reminder particularly appropriate to Goodreads, that sharing the act of reading with someone else enhances the reading itself. I relished that I was getting a view not only into the mind of the time, but also of the great jurist. (Though of course, I have no idea what he thought of the book.)
My friend gave it to me because it is organized around metaphors and characters from A Pilgrim's Progress, and I had recently given her husband a lovely old illustrated edition of the same. Not remembering my Pilgrim's Progress as well as I might, or as the good christians of Buchan's day might have, a lot of the connections went over my head, as did some of the taken-for-granted background about WWI. The war front really only comes alive at the end of the book, in the concluding battles.
By the way, I don't understand the other reviews that suggest that Buchan is completely negative about pacifists. While he builds a portrait of the narrowness of the sentiment of those opposed to the war (as opposed to the solid citizens who shoulder the burden uncomplainingly), it is almost Trollopian in its sympathy for those so portrayed, and in the end, it is a conscientious objector who is described as "the best of us" at the front.
P.S. I read The Thirty-Nine Steps long ago, but don't remember it well, and never read Greenmantle, the second book in his Richard Hannay series, so that may have contributed to my review. If I'd read the books in sequence, the characters and the thrust of the narrative would have been more familiar, and I might have found the book more engaging. I'd recommend starting with The Thirty-Nine Steps.
May 6, 2025
Richard Hannay leads a charmed life as usual as he tries to unravel the mystery of the identity of a German WWI spy in the UK. This is a fast-paced story starting in London and heading to suburban England, Glasgow, the Scottish Highlands, and Skye before moving over to France and Switzerland before the denouement on the front lines of the war.
Along the way, Hannay meets many old friends at convenient times. Many of the characters don't make it to the end of the book and there are some accurate descriptions of the injuries caused during trench warfare.
Hannay meets his future wife in this book. It's a very good story. Some of the words and idioms may have to be looked up in a dictionary, but don't let those put you off. The title comes from a character in The Pilgrim's Progress.
Along the way, Hannay meets many old friends at convenient times. Many of the characters don't make it to the end of the book and there are some accurate descriptions of the injuries caused during trench warfare.
Hannay meets his future wife in this book. It's a very good story. Some of the words and idioms may have to be looked up in a dictionary, but don't let those put you off. The title comes from a character in The Pilgrim's Progress.
June 16, 2017
More than a bit convoluted and ridiculous, but what are you gonna do? It's John Buchan and an engaging story.
In the third of the five Richard Hannay novels, Dick, now a Brigadier General, is recalled from leading his troops on the Western front in the Great War in order to take part in a top secret spy mission. There's a German posing as a Brit in the British countryside, and Hannay adopts the pose of a pacifist in order to smell him out.
Before much smelling happens, the nearly-forty Dick Hannay falls head over heels for a girl (I think she's nineteen) who happens to be his spymaster. Dick seems to be particularly drawn to her boyishness: "I remember the way she laughed and flung back her head like a gallant boy."
The first time he sees her "I stared after her as she walked across the lawn, and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an athletic boy."
"I had been picturing her in my recollection as very young and glimmering, a dancing, exquisite child. But now I revised that picture. The crystal freshness of morning was still there, but I saw how deep the waters were. It was the clean fineness and strength of her that entranced me. I didn't even think of her as pretty, any more than a man thinks of the good looks of the friend he worships."
"I loved to watch her, when the servants had gone, with her elbows on the table like a schoolboy..."
None of this is terribly convincing; the love Hannay feels for his war-crippled friend Peter Pienaar, the titular Mr. Standfast (a character from Pilgrim's Progress), is rather more so.
The Germans have a pretty easy time recruiting the British to work for them, someone tells Hannay. "The ordinary Briton doesn't run to treason, but he's not very bright. A clever man in that kind of game can make better use of a fool than of a rogue." Naturally this got me thinking of the Russians and people like Jared Kushner and Carter Page.
Buchan's heroes are always hale, hearty, and bookish. Manliness means being a very upper-crusty, very well educated warrior. A real man can barely stand sitting still. He wants to be in the center of the action; if that's a world war, all the better. There's no ugly war here. It's all beautiful. These are men who join in wars because they want "fresh air and exercise." (Think about that for a minute. This is a book published in 1919.) "I'm envying you some, for there's a place waiting for you in the fighting line," someone says to someone else in this veritable comic-book.
May 23, 2015
Read aloud. My favourite Buchan, well, at least, my favourite Hannay Buchan (Greenmantle is a close second).
"A man's courage is like a horse that refuses a fence; you have got to take him by the head and cram him at it again. If you don't, he will funk worse next time. I hadn't enough courage to be able to take chances with it, though I was afraid of many things, the thing I feared most mortally was being afraid."
Chesterton said that a good soldier fights not so much because he hates the enemy, but because he loves those behind him: Buchan does an excellent job illustrating that sentiment. He also manages to pull off at least two major plot climaxes and a bunch of helter-skelter escapades (Hannay is that word incarnate), not to mention the funny Scots characters that pepper Buchan's writings ('For the first wee bit,' Hamilton reported, 'we thocht he was gaun daft). Lots of fun.
"A man's courage is like a horse that refuses a fence; you have got to take him by the head and cram him at it again. If you don't, he will funk worse next time. I hadn't enough courage to be able to take chances with it, though I was afraid of many things, the thing I feared most mortally was being afraid."
Chesterton said that a good soldier fights not so much because he hates the enemy, but because he loves those behind him: Buchan does an excellent job illustrating that sentiment. He also manages to pull off at least two major plot climaxes and a bunch of helter-skelter escapades (Hannay is that word incarnate), not to mention the funny Scots characters that pepper Buchan's writings ('For the first wee bit,' Hamilton reported, 'we thocht he was gaun daft). Lots of fun.
March 5, 2023
This book managed to have all the elements I enjoyed in the first two - the solo agent on the run, the puzzling out of spy plans and mysteries, the relationships between team members in service of the country and cause they love so much. Also, this time around, romance with a smart woman who makes the man have to step up in order to keep up!
I loved this. I used to dislike the final two chapters which had much more detail about WWI battles than I cared for. I loved them this time around. Even previously I found them worth reading, though, to discover the fate of the ultimate villain (and I use the word ultimate advisedly) and for the fate of Mr. Standfast.
I loved this. I used to dislike the final two chapters which had much more detail about WWI battles than I cared for. I loved them this time around. Even previously I found them worth reading, though, to discover the fate of the ultimate villain (and I use the word ultimate advisedly) and for the fate of Mr. Standfast.
May 31, 2024
After getting slapped between the eyes a bit by the prejudices and smug self-satisfaction of GREENMANTLE (despite its strengths), I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go on and re-read my very favourite Buchan, MR STANDFAST. The first two chapters gave me a sinking feeling, because our stiff upper lipped hero Richard Hannay must infiltrate a society of pacifist intellectuals on the hunt for a German master-spy, and he and his author are again very smug and prejudiced about the job; there's another racial slur in the second chapter that left me feeling pretty sick. I was in for a surprise, however, because the smugness doesn't stick around for long. In GREENMANTLE the theme of blind reliance on Providence saved the story by a hair from nationalistic triumphalism, and in MR STANDFAST the theme of humility does a similar job but to far greater effect: this third book, written during the final climactic months of WWI just as the events it covers were unfolding, seems to have been written by a far more mature author than GREENMANTLE. It wasn't long before I was enjoying the story thoroughly.
This time, I found myself becoming aware of the deficiencies of the story as a spy novel. Once again, JB's delight in writing about adventures in the landscapes of Scotland and Switzerland puts him far beyond so much of the spy genre as it stands in the 21st century, which has half the plot unfold in front of a computer screen. And as in GREENMANTLE, I have no complaints about the protagonist being sidelined during the climactic scene. It's one of the things I like best about the books: for all his oh-so-manly muscular toughness, Richard Hannay has a limit, and can only ever do his best and then let Providence and his friends finish the job. However, in MR STANDFAST particularly it's kind of hilarious how much of the actual work is not being done by our hero. The vast majority of the intelligence gathering and string-pulling is done by Blenkiron, who will send Hannay on some terribly exciting wild goose chase around some forbiddingly gorgeous landscape for a few crumbs of information before appearing like a deus ex machina to reveal that he knew all of it all along from other sources. The Swiss mountaineering episode in particular, which as a teen I thought the most thrilling thing I'd ever read, is completely irrelevant to the story and achieves nothing whatsoever.
Where MR STANDFAST shines, even now that I can see how thin the plot is, is in the themes - and also, partly, the characterisation. While one is sometimes tempted to eyeroll at the ponderous self-analysis he puts into some of his characters' mouths, JB is far better writing about his fellow countrymen than he is about other nationalities. Beyond that, I don't know whether it's the theme of the book or witnessing the suffering wreaked on his friends as the war dragged on, but MR STANDFAST sometimes reads like a deconstruction of the entire spy genre in general and of GREENMANTLE in particular.
In my youth I thought that the theme of this book was about courage and fear, but now that I'm older I'm inclined to think that the discussion of courage is only the medium for the far deeper and more powerful theme, of pride and humility. This story sets up the hero and the villain as foils of each other - both powerful men in their homelands, both in love with the same woman, both spies and old archnemeses. Both of them are introduced as prideful men who must go through humiliation. Ivery's humiliation is to be stripped of power and forced to go through the hell of the trenches which his warmongering has inflicted on others (probably the most satisfying possible ending of any fictional WWI villain ever).
Hannay's pride and humiliation is a good deal more subtle, and I think that the 21st century reader would be tempted to miss it - especially if they approach this book as a shallow, unambitious boy's-own shocker. In fact, the thing about JB is that these were his potboilers; despite his significant flaws and blind spots he was a very ambitious writer who always aimed to say something profound about his subject and wrote a great many more literary than spy novels. Hannay starts the book looking down his nose at the pacifist intellectuals he's ventured among, and when he diagnoses them with "spiritual pride" I wanted to shout because his smug sense of superiority in these chapters is so overwhelming. However, JB spends much of the first half of the book tearing down Hannay's sense of pride, and in the second half his sense of courage. He's brought to recognise one of the very pacifists he despised as a better and braver man than himself, he realises how many of his efforts to outwit the main villain have been absolutely useless; we see him fleeing in a panic from a haunted chateau and breaking down into tears in the enemy's trap. There's no way that this is not 100% intentional.
Now I don't want to oversalt this: looking back, I think the book could have, and should have, gone a whole lot further in humbling Hannay than it did. But it's still an absolutely fascinating choice, especially coming from the author of GREENMANTLE. And it's this theme that makes the book feel so subversive: a spy novel where the main character realises that all his elaborate masquerades have been in vain, a war story by a propaganda chief in which the mighty warrior panics and flees. Hannay is not supposed to be a particularly self-aware or thoughtful narrator; we're stuck so deep in his point of view that it's easy to overlook the fact that his author is a fair bit subtler than he is. He may seem like a stock image of Edwardian masculinity - but the book is all about how you can be a pacifist, or disabled, or terrified out of your wits, and still have courage and maturity and worth.
Then we've got the romance. I cannot lie, I shipped these two like a fiend as a teen. I was a little worried about how it would strike me on a re-read, given the fact that Hannay is 40 and his love interest, Mary Lamington, is just 18. (She certainly doesn't behave like any 18-year-old I've ever met; she speaks and acts with the assurance of a much older woman. At a time when female characters in popular fiction were starting to act younger than their age, it's startling to find that Mary has the opposite problem.) Anyway, the age gap, to my amazement, feels like another very calculated choice, and one that I can thoroughly get behind. First of all, Mary represents the generation that was just coming of age in the war, and as with Kore Arabin in THE DANCING FLOOR, Mary becomes a way for JB to express his admiration for the young women of this generation. In a world that often goes out of its way to look down its nose specifically on young women, that's something pretty astonishing. Second, I loved the way the age gap is used in the story. See, Hannay falls like a ton of bricks for Mary specifically because she's a comrade - a fellow spy engaged with the same business as himself. He's obviously never worked with a woman before and it's highly endearing how hard and fast he falls, and what a sap he becomes (for long stretches of this book he's just a happy little chap mooning over his crush and singing her song to the local sheep, and it's adorable). Her youth, however, makes him inclined to underestimate her and want to shield her, especially when he realises that she's also being pursued by the main baddie - and worse, is planning to honey-trap him in return. At which point Mary pulls our boy up straight and tells him that they may be lovers, but "we're comrades first, and comrades trust each other." Trusting Mary to handle herself and take risks as a comrade and fellow fighter is the whole point of their love story, and it's yet another of the little understated ways in which the hero is forced to re-evaluate his ideas of masculinity.
Finally, Mary herself is a terrific character, probably the best female character JB ever wrote. She doesn't get to do much to defeat the villain, it's true - but then, as mentioned above, neither does Hannay himself. She will, of course, get her chance during the climactic scene of THE THREE HOSTAGES, in a delightfully menacing speech that leaves her husband nearly as scared of her as the would-be dictator. In MR STANDFAST she mostly just ribs Hannay unmercifully - asking him in the aftermath of a very exciting action scene if he's ever been in the movies, and then unerringly putting her finger on his insecurity when he asks after the villain's age and replies "Younger than you". I still ship it.
To a greater degree than any of the other books in the series, MR STANDFAST remains as a thoroughly fascinating artefact of the final months of the Great War. Hannay's adventures on the home front in Part 1, and the hectically exciting depiction of Germany's final big offensive in the spring of 1918, all feel thoroughly convincing and grounded in a way that GREENMANTLE never did. JB may not have seen active duty in the trenches himself (and may have been a better and humbler man if he had), but he almost certainly interviewed officers who had, and probably visited in his role as a journalist and intelligence officer. It's hard to remember that although WWI was begun for ridiculous reasons and ended in a peace so futile that it led in half a generation to a second war, nevertheless while it raged there were real lives and liberties at stake, and those who fought in it were often just trying to do their duty against a foreign aggressor, rather than advancing the cause of a corrupt imperial order.
MR STANDFAST is not quite the thrilling spy masterpiece that I remember from my teen years. But it's a far more earnest and humane book than its immediate predecessor, with a surprising critique of Edwardian masculinity and a truly delightful, if abbreviated romance. If you're interested at all in where the spy genre began, I can highly recommend starting here.
This time, I found myself becoming aware of the deficiencies of the story as a spy novel. Once again, JB's delight in writing about adventures in the landscapes of Scotland and Switzerland puts him far beyond so much of the spy genre as it stands in the 21st century, which has half the plot unfold in front of a computer screen. And as in GREENMANTLE, I have no complaints about the protagonist being sidelined during the climactic scene. It's one of the things I like best about the books: for all his oh-so-manly muscular toughness, Richard Hannay has a limit, and can only ever do his best and then let Providence and his friends finish the job. However, in MR STANDFAST particularly it's kind of hilarious how much of the actual work is not being done by our hero. The vast majority of the intelligence gathering and string-pulling is done by Blenkiron, who will send Hannay on some terribly exciting wild goose chase around some forbiddingly gorgeous landscape for a few crumbs of information before appearing like a deus ex machina to reveal that he knew all of it all along from other sources. The Swiss mountaineering episode in particular, which as a teen I thought the most thrilling thing I'd ever read, is completely irrelevant to the story and achieves nothing whatsoever.
Where MR STANDFAST shines, even now that I can see how thin the plot is, is in the themes - and also, partly, the characterisation. While one is sometimes tempted to eyeroll at the ponderous self-analysis he puts into some of his characters' mouths, JB is far better writing about his fellow countrymen than he is about other nationalities. Beyond that, I don't know whether it's the theme of the book or witnessing the suffering wreaked on his friends as the war dragged on, but MR STANDFAST sometimes reads like a deconstruction of the entire spy genre in general and of GREENMANTLE in particular.
In my youth I thought that the theme of this book was about courage and fear, but now that I'm older I'm inclined to think that the discussion of courage is only the medium for the far deeper and more powerful theme, of pride and humility. This story sets up the hero and the villain as foils of each other - both powerful men in their homelands, both in love with the same woman, both spies and old archnemeses. Both of them are introduced as prideful men who must go through humiliation. Ivery's humiliation is to be stripped of power and forced to go through the hell of the trenches which his warmongering has inflicted on others (probably the most satisfying possible ending of any fictional WWI villain ever).
Hannay's pride and humiliation is a good deal more subtle, and I think that the 21st century reader would be tempted to miss it - especially if they approach this book as a shallow, unambitious boy's-own shocker. In fact, the thing about JB is that these were his potboilers; despite his significant flaws and blind spots he was a very ambitious writer who always aimed to say something profound about his subject and wrote a great many more literary than spy novels. Hannay starts the book looking down his nose at the pacifist intellectuals he's ventured among, and when he diagnoses them with "spiritual pride" I wanted to shout because his smug sense of superiority in these chapters is so overwhelming. However, JB spends much of the first half of the book tearing down Hannay's sense of pride, and in the second half his sense of courage. He's brought to recognise one of the very pacifists he despised as a better and braver man than himself, he realises how many of his efforts to outwit the main villain have been absolutely useless; we see him fleeing in a panic from a haunted chateau and breaking down into tears in the enemy's trap. There's no way that this is not 100% intentional.
Now I don't want to oversalt this: looking back, I think the book could have, and should have, gone a whole lot further in humbling Hannay than it did. But it's still an absolutely fascinating choice, especially coming from the author of GREENMANTLE. And it's this theme that makes the book feel so subversive: a spy novel where the main character realises that all his elaborate masquerades have been in vain, a war story by a propaganda chief in which the mighty warrior panics and flees. Hannay is not supposed to be a particularly self-aware or thoughtful narrator; we're stuck so deep in his point of view that it's easy to overlook the fact that his author is a fair bit subtler than he is. He may seem like a stock image of Edwardian masculinity - but the book is all about how you can be a pacifist, or disabled, or terrified out of your wits, and still have courage and maturity and worth.
Then we've got the romance. I cannot lie, I shipped these two like a fiend as a teen. I was a little worried about how it would strike me on a re-read, given the fact that Hannay is 40 and his love interest, Mary Lamington, is just 18. (She certainly doesn't behave like any 18-year-old I've ever met; she speaks and acts with the assurance of a much older woman. At a time when female characters in popular fiction were starting to act younger than their age, it's startling to find that Mary has the opposite problem.) Anyway, the age gap, to my amazement, feels like another very calculated choice, and one that I can thoroughly get behind. First of all, Mary represents the generation that was just coming of age in the war, and as with Kore Arabin in THE DANCING FLOOR, Mary becomes a way for JB to express his admiration for the young women of this generation. In a world that often goes out of its way to look down its nose specifically on young women, that's something pretty astonishing. Second, I loved the way the age gap is used in the story. See, Hannay falls like a ton of bricks for Mary specifically because she's a comrade - a fellow spy engaged with the same business as himself. He's obviously never worked with a woman before and it's highly endearing how hard and fast he falls, and what a sap he becomes (for long stretches of this book he's just a happy little chap mooning over his crush and singing her song to the local sheep, and it's adorable). Her youth, however, makes him inclined to underestimate her and want to shield her, especially when he realises that she's also being pursued by the main baddie - and worse, is planning to honey-trap him in return. At which point Mary pulls our boy up straight and tells him that they may be lovers, but "we're comrades first, and comrades trust each other." Trusting Mary to handle herself and take risks as a comrade and fellow fighter is the whole point of their love story, and it's yet another of the little understated ways in which the hero is forced to re-evaluate his ideas of masculinity.
Finally, Mary herself is a terrific character, probably the best female character JB ever wrote. She doesn't get to do much to defeat the villain, it's true - but then, as mentioned above, neither does Hannay himself. She will, of course, get her chance during the climactic scene of THE THREE HOSTAGES, in a delightfully menacing speech that leaves her husband nearly as scared of her as the would-be dictator. In MR STANDFAST she mostly just ribs Hannay unmercifully - asking him in the aftermath of a very exciting action scene if he's ever been in the movies, and then unerringly putting her finger on his insecurity when he asks after the villain's age and replies "Younger than you". I still ship it.
To a greater degree than any of the other books in the series, MR STANDFAST remains as a thoroughly fascinating artefact of the final months of the Great War. Hannay's adventures on the home front in Part 1, and the hectically exciting depiction of Germany's final big offensive in the spring of 1918, all feel thoroughly convincing and grounded in a way that GREENMANTLE never did. JB may not have seen active duty in the trenches himself (and may have been a better and humbler man if he had), but he almost certainly interviewed officers who had, and probably visited in his role as a journalist and intelligence officer. It's hard to remember that although WWI was begun for ridiculous reasons and ended in a peace so futile that it led in half a generation to a second war, nevertheless while it raged there were real lives and liberties at stake, and those who fought in it were often just trying to do their duty against a foreign aggressor, rather than advancing the cause of a corrupt imperial order.
MR STANDFAST is not quite the thrilling spy masterpiece that I remember from my teen years. But it's a far more earnest and humane book than its immediate predecessor, with a surprising critique of Edwardian masculinity and a truly delightful, if abbreviated romance. If you're interested at all in where the spy genre began, I can highly recommend starting here.
September 1, 2011
Mr Standfast, published in 1919, was the third of John Buchan’s Richard Hannay espionage novels.
The success of The Thirty-Nine Steps had taken Buchan by surprise. Buchan was himself an interesting character who wrote some great weird fiction as well as works of serious history. He was created Baron Tweedsmuir in 1935 and ended up as Governor-General of Canada.
Richard Hannay is commanding an infantry brigade on the Western Front when he finds himself once again, somewhat against his will, assigned to counter-espionage duties. This time he must go undercover as a pacifist. Pacifist and anti-war activists in Britain are being used by the Germans to undermine the Allied war effort and Hannay must track down the master spy behind this plot.
Hannay finds that pacifists are not quite what he expected. Some he instinctively dislikes while for others he gradually learns to feel a grudging respect. He also has another even bigger surprise. The rather crusty 40-year-old brigadier finds himself falling madly in love with the 19-year-old Mary Lamington. Mary is ravishingly beautiful and exceptionally intelligent. She is also a formidable secret agent.
Hannay’s hunt for the German spymaster takes him to Scotland and later to Switzerland, and it proves to be a most frustrating hunt indeed. Hannay’s task is complicated by his determination to ensure that no harm comes to his new lady love, although in truth Mary is capable of looking after herself fairly well. There are many clever plot twists, exciting escapes from imminent death, and there’s a great deal of entertainment to be had within the pages of this book.
Some reviewers will lead you to believe that Buchan’s High Tory political beliefs and his enthusiasm for British imperialism combined with the common attitudes of the day on the subjects of women and foreigners make his books difficult for modern readers to appreciate. Personally I think this is nonsense. Buchan was a complex and intelligent man and his views are by no means simplistic or rigid.
He was also a masterful story teller and the Hannay novels are essential reading for anyone with a love for spy fiction.
The success of The Thirty-Nine Steps had taken Buchan by surprise. Buchan was himself an interesting character who wrote some great weird fiction as well as works of serious history. He was created Baron Tweedsmuir in 1935 and ended up as Governor-General of Canada.
Richard Hannay is commanding an infantry brigade on the Western Front when he finds himself once again, somewhat against his will, assigned to counter-espionage duties. This time he must go undercover as a pacifist. Pacifist and anti-war activists in Britain are being used by the Germans to undermine the Allied war effort and Hannay must track down the master spy behind this plot.
Hannay finds that pacifists are not quite what he expected. Some he instinctively dislikes while for others he gradually learns to feel a grudging respect. He also has another even bigger surprise. The rather crusty 40-year-old brigadier finds himself falling madly in love with the 19-year-old Mary Lamington. Mary is ravishingly beautiful and exceptionally intelligent. She is also a formidable secret agent.
Hannay’s hunt for the German spymaster takes him to Scotland and later to Switzerland, and it proves to be a most frustrating hunt indeed. Hannay’s task is complicated by his determination to ensure that no harm comes to his new lady love, although in truth Mary is capable of looking after herself fairly well. There are many clever plot twists, exciting escapes from imminent death, and there’s a great deal of entertainment to be had within the pages of this book.
Some reviewers will lead you to believe that Buchan’s High Tory political beliefs and his enthusiasm for British imperialism combined with the common attitudes of the day on the subjects of women and foreigners make his books difficult for modern readers to appreciate. Personally I think this is nonsense. Buchan was a complex and intelligent man and his views are by no means simplistic or rigid.
He was also a masterful story teller and the Hannay novels are essential reading for anyone with a love for spy fiction.
January 16, 2016
John Buchan wrote thrillers in the early decades of the twentieth century; his best-known book is probably The Thirty-Nine Steps, which spawned several film versions, including an early Hitchcock effort. This is the third of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, a stalwart soldier/adventurer embodying the best (and worst) of the old British Empire values.
This one was written just after the First World War, and it is not the strongest entry in the series; Buchan could not make up his mind what kind of book he was writing. The plot has Hannay recalled from the trenches in France to go undercover to track down a nefarious German agent making mischief on the home front. For half the book Hannay is traipsing around the Isle of Skye in the type of outdoor adventure yarn Buchan did so well; then there is an interlude of mountaineering in the Alps, and finally the tale devolves into a war story, with Hannay back in charge of his division as the final German offensive strains the Allied defenses. Along the way there is a great deal of contrivance, coincidence and melodrama, complete with sneering arch-villain and virginal heart-throb. It is all hopelessly dated, not least the casual racism and entrenched class attitudes. If you can overlook those, Buchan is great fun, but he wrote better books than this one.
This one was written just after the First World War, and it is not the strongest entry in the series; Buchan could not make up his mind what kind of book he was writing. The plot has Hannay recalled from the trenches in France to go undercover to track down a nefarious German agent making mischief on the home front. For half the book Hannay is traipsing around the Isle of Skye in the type of outdoor adventure yarn Buchan did so well; then there is an interlude of mountaineering in the Alps, and finally the tale devolves into a war story, with Hannay back in charge of his division as the final German offensive strains the Allied defenses. Along the way there is a great deal of contrivance, coincidence and melodrama, complete with sneering arch-villain and virginal heart-throb. It is all hopelessly dated, not least the casual racism and entrenched class attitudes. If you can overlook those, Buchan is great fun, but he wrote better books than this one.
November 23, 2016
Tears galore for me at the finish of this splendid tale: also a wonderful examination of people under the pressure of strife and war.
"In this nail-biting adventure story, Hannay must outwit a foe far more intelligent than himself; muster the courage to propose to the lovely, clever Mary Lamington; and survive a brutal war. Although Mr. Standfast is a sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps, it offers far more characterisation and philosophy than the earlier book. For its pace and suspense, its changes of scenery and thrilling descriptions of the last great battles against the Germans, Mr Standfast offers everything that has made its author so enduringly popular."
"In this nail-biting adventure story, Hannay must outwit a foe far more intelligent than himself; muster the courage to propose to the lovely, clever Mary Lamington; and survive a brutal war. Although Mr. Standfast is a sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps, it offers far more characterisation and philosophy than the earlier book. For its pace and suspense, its changes of scenery and thrilling descriptions of the last great battles against the Germans, Mr Standfast offers everything that has made its author so enduringly popular."
September 21, 2024
Je poursuis ma découverte de l'univers de John Buchan. Toujours le même personnage central, Dick Hannay, général de l'armée britannique. Entouré d'un tas d'autres, variés, truculents, dont la délicieuse jeune Mary, et aussi, bien sûr, des tas de très méchants.
Cadre: la guerre 14-18, celle des tranchées, horrible avec ses millions de morts envoyés carrément à la boucherie pour gagner ou perdre quelques kilomètres carrés.
Des descriptions dans les moindres détails, fouillées, passionnantes, dans des décors multiples et sauvages -outre les tranchées du nord-ouest de la France- en Ecosse, en Suisse, en Italie.
Bien sûr, de nombreux espions allemands (on ne s'occupe pas ici des espions alliés) s'acharnent à la perte des Franco-britanniques. Et là, quand il ne commande pas sa division, le général Hannay (remarquablement entouré par ses partenaires efficaces et courageux) intervient.
Petite évolution par rapports aux deux premières aventures de Hannay: il doit évidemment se tirer des pires embûches, mais c'est nettement moins irréaliste, et cela augmente l'intérêt du suspense de ce roman de guerre et d'espionnage dont le rythme ne faiblit jamais. Avec, agréable, beaucoup de touches d'humour et de sensibilité parmi toutes ces horreurs.
Cadre: la guerre 14-18, celle des tranchées, horrible avec ses millions de morts envoyés carrément à la boucherie pour gagner ou perdre quelques kilomètres carrés.
Des descriptions dans les moindres détails, fouillées, passionnantes, dans des décors multiples et sauvages -outre les tranchées du nord-ouest de la France- en Ecosse, en Suisse, en Italie.
Bien sûr, de nombreux espions allemands (on ne s'occupe pas ici des espions alliés) s'acharnent à la perte des Franco-britanniques. Et là, quand il ne commande pas sa division, le général Hannay (remarquablement entouré par ses partenaires efficaces et courageux) intervient.
Petite évolution par rapports aux deux premières aventures de Hannay: il doit évidemment se tirer des pires embûches, mais c'est nettement moins irréaliste, et cela augmente l'intérêt du suspense de ce roman de guerre et d'espionnage dont le rythme ne faiblit jamais. Avec, agréable, beaucoup de touches d'humour et de sensibilité parmi toutes ces horreurs.
January 10, 2025
I'm tempted to give this book five stars, as I absolutely ended up loving it! However, it did start quite slowly, and for the first 25% I was frustrated with it. I don't think that was the book's fault, I was just hoping for a page turner, and it was a cat-and-mouse game where the cat couldn't identify the mouse. Eventually I realized I needed to change my approach by slowing down my reading and my expectations, and the book really began to work for me.
In the end this does become a nail-biter, taking the reader onto the battlefields of WWI and testing everyone to the uttermost. And I teared up a bit at the end, which is unusual for me. There are a lot of references to Pilgrim's Progress, but I don't think you have to have read it, just have a general idea of what it's about and you should be fine. If you've red the first two in the series I'd say this starts slowly and deliberately like the first and winds up full of action like the second. Once I submitted to it's pace I was enthralled. 4.5 satisfied stars.
In the end this does become a nail-biter, taking the reader onto the battlefields of WWI and testing everyone to the uttermost. And I teared up a bit at the end, which is unusual for me. There are a lot of references to Pilgrim's Progress, but I don't think you have to have read it, just have a general idea of what it's about and you should be fine. If you've red the first two in the series I'd say this starts slowly and deliberately like the first and winds up full of action like the second. Once I submitted to it's pace I was enthralled. 4.5 satisfied stars.
August 8, 2022
Mr Standfast is the third of five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan. It was first published in 1919 by Hodder & Stoughton, London.
It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War. The other being Greenmantle (1916). Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set directly before the war started.
The title refers to a character in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The story goes on to include novel multiple other references too. For example, Hannay uses a copy of Pilgrim's Progress to decipher coded messages from his contacts and letters from his friend Peter Pienaar.
For its pace and suspense, its changes of scene and thrilling descriptions of the last primary battles against the Germans, Mr Standfast offers everything that has made its author so popular.
It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War. The other being Greenmantle (1916). Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set directly before the war started.
The title refers to a character in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The story goes on to include novel multiple other references too. For example, Hannay uses a copy of Pilgrim's Progress to decipher coded messages from his contacts and letters from his friend Peter Pienaar.
For its pace and suspense, its changes of scene and thrilling descriptions of the last primary battles against the Germans, Mr Standfast offers everything that has made its author so popular.
September 1, 2013
From BBC Radio 4:
Agent Richard Hannay hunts his nemesis, the head of a First World War German spy ring. Stars David Robb and Clive Merrison.
Agent Richard Hannay hunts his nemesis, the head of a First World War German spy ring. Stars David Robb and Clive Merrison.
April 24, 2023
Richard Hannay is serving as a general in WWI, when he is called away from the warfront to engage in some counter-espionage back in England. A dangerous group of radicals in a small county village might be hiding an evil mastermind who is the center of a ring of German spies, hiding in plain sight on British soil. Richard meets some old friends who return to be part of the team, and he is introduced to the beautiful Mary, a voice of wisdom in all their plans.
I love the adventure in this third book of the series! However, it takes some time to get to that point. The beginning is a lot of setup before the action can get started. I liked some of the political and philosophical conversations about the war, but it slowed down the plot too much.
The espionage is thrilling. The mystery is intriguing. We travel to many different settings all over Europe from Scotland to the Italian Alps.
I liked the romance between Richard and Mary, but it seemed sort of insta-love, and I wish that they had had more than three conversations before they fell madly in love. And then, when they do declare their love for each other, it just seems like it's kind of understood between them that they are engaged without there ever having been an actual proposal. All their friends magically know that they are engaged, but we never hear about the actual proposal or an announcement to their friends. It seems like there are holes in the story regarding this romance. It doesn't evolve in a natural way. Maybe some things happened behind the scenes or something, but the reader is left wondering about the missing pieces.
I enjoyed the writing style very much. I like that we get to experience all of Richard's inner thoughts and emotions. The writing is so powerfully descriptive that the reader feels all of Richard's fear and elation as he escapes from danger.
I also enjoyed learning about this time period of history from a story written right in the middle of WWI.
I love the adventure in this third book of the series! However, it takes some time to get to that point. The beginning is a lot of setup before the action can get started. I liked some of the political and philosophical conversations about the war, but it slowed down the plot too much.
The espionage is thrilling. The mystery is intriguing. We travel to many different settings all over Europe from Scotland to the Italian Alps.
I liked the romance between Richard and Mary, but it seemed sort of insta-love, and I wish that they had had more than three conversations before they fell madly in love. And then, when they do declare their love for each other, it just seems like it's kind of understood between them that they are engaged without there ever having been an actual proposal. All their friends magically know that they are engaged, but we never hear about the actual proposal or an announcement to their friends. It seems like there are holes in the story regarding this romance. It doesn't evolve in a natural way. Maybe some things happened behind the scenes or something, but the reader is left wondering about the missing pieces.
I enjoyed the writing style very much. I like that we get to experience all of Richard's inner thoughts and emotions. The writing is so powerfully descriptive that the reader feels all of Richard's fear and elation as he escapes from danger.
I also enjoyed learning about this time period of history from a story written right in the middle of WWI.
September 3, 2025
Mr. Standfast is vintage espionage fiction set during World-War-One.
This is the third book in the Richard Hannay series; the more famous novel being book one, The Thirty-Nine Steps.
I read the above mentioned novel forty years ago and my memory of the plot is very vague, I do remember the tramping over vast areas of Britain. I’ve missed book two and jumped into this third book after a fellow book blogger’s recommendation.
Here Hannay has been pulled out of the battle trenches by his superiors; he’s wanted for a complex espionage trail. First Hannay must put on his own disguise in the form of an anti-war South African engineer.
Hannay’s travels take him to Scotland where danger follows him and he’s soon running from a braying pack of chasing police with noses that sniff him out like well trained hounds. The story next takes him to Switzerland where the enemy that he is after goes to ground, or so it seems.
First published in 1919, the story’s narrative and dialogue reflects the era in which it was written, at times this was jarring to hear, but no more so than is what can be expected of writing which is now over one hundred years old. I’m glad I read it and may pick up the second book in the future.
This is the third book in the Richard Hannay series; the more famous novel being book one, The Thirty-Nine Steps.
I read the above mentioned novel forty years ago and my memory of the plot is very vague, I do remember the tramping over vast areas of Britain. I’ve missed book two and jumped into this third book after a fellow book blogger’s recommendation.
Here Hannay has been pulled out of the battle trenches by his superiors; he’s wanted for a complex espionage trail. First Hannay must put on his own disguise in the form of an anti-war South African engineer.
Hannay’s travels take him to Scotland where danger follows him and he’s soon running from a braying pack of chasing police with noses that sniff him out like well trained hounds. The story next takes him to Switzerland where the enemy that he is after goes to ground, or so it seems.
First published in 1919, the story’s narrative and dialogue reflects the era in which it was written, at times this was jarring to hear, but no more so than is what can be expected of writing which is now over one hundred years old. I’m glad I read it and may pick up the second book in the future.
August 13, 2020
The third of Buchan's Richard Hannay novels, "Mr. Standfast" finds the hero serving as a British general in the trenches of World War I France. He's recruited into another spy mission, has adventures tracking and eventually bringing down the most dangerous man in the world, and along the way falls hopelessly in love with an intrepid, beautiful young woman. It's James Bond without the technological assistance, and generally well written. I'll have to confess I skipped short sections here and there where Buchan goes on at length about the trench warfare; these might have seemed more interesting a century ago, when this book was first published.
April 8, 2018
Not a terrible spy thriller
January 26, 2016
The third of the Richard Hannay novels beginning with The 39 Steps, Mr. Standfast may be the weakest of the series. Like the second book, Greenmantle, it is set during WWI, and once again Hannay is pulled off the front lines with orders to infiltrate a German espionage ring. Although Mr. Standfast has some exciting set pieces, like Hannay's tramp over the Isle of Skye, off Scotland's coast, and his breakneck drive and later glacier climb through the Alps, the novel suffers from too many of these sorts of adventures--in short, the book sprawls in a way the more tightly focused Hannay novels don't. Buchan takes us from the English countryside to Glasgow to Skye to London to Switzerland to Italy and, finally, back to the trenches of northern France. All of this traipsing through Europe never succeeds in giving the reader a good grasp of how exactly Ivery's spy ring works, or even what his ultimate plan is--it all seems to be a bare-bones framework to hang the admittedly enthralling adventures on. Also troubling is the tone of the first fourth or third of the book; Buchan's books are always jingoistic and xenophobic, but Mr. Standfast strikes a meaner, uglier tone with Hannay's infiltration of a pacifist sect. I understand that England was in the middle of WWI when this novel was written, but Buchan rages against anybody who would object to war or even question if it was being fought intelligently or morally--the pacifists and conscientious objectors Hannay runs across are all ripped and described insultingly, with the implication they are all cowards, mentally unstable, or most likely traitors. Fortunately, Buchan mitigates these early insults with the character of Lancelot Wake, who maintains his pacifist principles but dies delivering messages through the most dangerous parts of the trenches.
One other note: as I read through the Hannay novels, I can't help but compare Hannay to James Bond, as Fleming was clearly influenced by Buchan's novels. Where Bond would have a cynical, pragmatic edge, Hannay, in the dawn of modern spycraft, feels that espionage is degrading, diverting soldiers from the front lines--an activity necessary only because the corrupt Germans started the whole game. Hannay also does not possess the hardness we see in Bond--when he lies, bluffs, or infiltrates, he carries a deep sense of shame at what he is doing, firmly believeing it is less than manly.
One other note: as I read through the Hannay novels, I can't help but compare Hannay to James Bond, as Fleming was clearly influenced by Buchan's novels. Where Bond would have a cynical, pragmatic edge, Hannay, in the dawn of modern spycraft, feels that espionage is degrading, diverting soldiers from the front lines--an activity necessary only because the corrupt Germans started the whole game. Hannay also does not possess the hardness we see in Bond--when he lies, bluffs, or infiltrates, he carries a deep sense of shame at what he is doing, firmly believeing it is less than manly.
August 7, 2017
This story was published in 1919 and appears to have been written either during or just at the end of the First War. It cries out with details and emotion that was still hot at the time of writing. It reads to me as a report on the battles by someone who was there and the report given while it was all fresh in his mind. The anti-German rhetoric is what you would expect but is tempered occasionally with remarks praising German organisation, determination, and hard work.
The villain, whom we know from the previous books, and proven to be a German aristocrat, is the ideal evil doer; brilliant, highly motivated, and with an army of agents at his command. With only four; John Blenkiron, the American mining engineer; Richard Hannay; Peter Pienaar, the South African hunter; Mary Lamington, the teen age spy; if they should win it would be a great achievement. Nothing like having terrible odds to stir up all one's abilities.
There are patriotic rants such as you find in writing of the period so you have to be careful not to be drawn in too much or you'll find yourself crying "Up the British!"
The villain, whom we know from the previous books, and proven to be a German aristocrat, is the ideal evil doer; brilliant, highly motivated, and with an army of agents at his command. With only four; John Blenkiron, the American mining engineer; Richard Hannay; Peter Pienaar, the South African hunter; Mary Lamington, the teen age spy; if they should win it would be a great achievement. Nothing like having terrible odds to stir up all one's abilities.
There are patriotic rants such as you find in writing of the period so you have to be careful not to be drawn in too much or you'll find yourself crying "Up the British!"
July 6, 2013
Another thrilling, fast-paced, WWI novel by Buchan featuring the adventures of Richard Hannay and his associates Pieter Pienaar, John Blenkiron and Mary Lamington. This time Hannay tracks down German spies and his main opponent is a master of disguise called Ivery who pursues him through Europe... With, as a bit of an unusual backdrop, 'The Pilgrim's Progress'...
Though a bit overly descriptive at times, this classic war adventure novel is loaded with action, adventure and excitmement on every page...
Though a bit overly descriptive at times, this classic war adventure novel is loaded with action, adventure and excitmement on every page...
January 20, 2017
Despite its age, (published in 1919, almost one hundred years ago), this was a gripping book which I found hard to put down. The battles of the First World War were mentioned a lot and the names all meant something to me - third battle of Ypres, Polygon Wood, the Somme, Amiens, etc. And the German spy that the Intelligence Service was trying to catch was very slippery. Richard Hannay got himself into and out of a number of difficulties. Highly recommended.
February 21, 2014
Very suspenseful. This book's strong point is the suspense, although I like the character of Richard Hannay. Overall, very worth reading, and probably you'll have to read it all at once, but it's not as good as the first book, the 39 Steps, partly because the ending was slightly drawn out and then suddenly cut off. I guess it was permissible, but I didn't prefer it.
January 3, 2017
An exciting and thought provoking read ...
An excellent read if you like old fashioned adventure stories, even if at times a bit far fetched ...but overall the story carries you along. One of Buchan's best, I think.
An excellent read if you like old fashioned adventure stories, even if at times a bit far fetched ...but overall the story carries you along. One of Buchan's best, I think.
November 3, 2022
Probably me but struggled with this one versus the last two. Definitely enjoy the classic buchan in parts, esp the travel up north to Scotland
December 20, 2022
I have mixed feelings about the book - there is definitely a change in tone in this one, which turns to take a look at the ideologies for both sides and the differing opinions in each. The first part was frankly tedious for me, and I wondered whether to complete reading the book - the mystery of identifying the network though kept me going. The reveal was rather dull, would have preferred it not to be a known character or even to be several people/a whole group as main drivers rather than one sole person. The second part was more descriptive of the actual fighting and the urgency, and it is far more impactful.
October 26, 2025
My third in the life of our-man in the thick of it, Richard Hannay. Once more, the author ups the ante. This time around 'our man' is tasked with identifying and exposing a German spy who is foot-loose and fancy-free on our cherished lands.
He, the spy, might see himself as masterful and clever, and 'our man' might just struggle for a while. However 'our man' is a determined and courageous hero and we all know he'll win the day. And the girl.
He, the spy, might see himself as masterful and clever, and 'our man' might just struggle for a while. However 'our man' is a determined and courageous hero and we all know he'll win the day. And the girl.
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