Huntingtower

Buchan described many of his own works as 'shockers' -- escapist adventures. There is modesty in that description, as Buchan's prose style makes his work impossible to confuse with even the best dime novels.

But there is another distinction. Many tory writers would create a naive pacifist, as Buchan does in Mr. Standfast. But few would redeem him as Buchan does, and make the character's redemption consist not of the rejection of the pacifist creed but in its magnificent embrace. Throughout all his work one finds this consistent moral tone -- a fairness to all sides, a charity towards weakness, a chivalry. When reading Buchan I can physically feel its presence, like a crisp ocean breeze.

Huntingtower is a small canvas for Buchan. It is show more consciously an entertainment, and contains a degree of whimsy not equally present in his Hanney or Leithen novels. But you can smell the salt air, and the same bracing wind comes roaring from the pages... show less

Namochrist! See that John Buchan? See that Huntingtower? Crivvens but that fella can write. Adventure, excitement, lassies in distress – allathat, sure, but also: the highlands, the heather, the burns and the bonny banks (an’ the no so bonnie banks), furriners, exotic furriners, good furriners an’ evil furriners – an’ evil as only furriners can be noo, no evil like some pasty haim grown evil lout. It’s like getting’ a furriner, and getting’ evil, and crashin ‘em together in yon large haydron collider. See adventure? See scenery? See drama? Oot o breath yet? No? Hoo aboot…grocers?

Naw just ony grocer mind. A retired grocer!

Aye, noo yer interested, eh? But hod on, there’s mair. Wee wifies from a wee village, aye show more redoubtable. An’ poets. Aye, that’s right enough, poets in an adventure yarn. An if that’s no enough ta half yer breeks standing ta attention, The Gorbals Diehards!

The Gorbals Diehards! Just say the words! They roll round in yer gob like a boiled sweet, like a dram. Were ye in a gang when ye were a kiddie? (No, no’ ane a those that do yon drive-by and wear their hankies ain their heeds an’ their breeks holf way doon their shins, basically updated versions o the Sharks and the Jets but wi’ hip-hop gangster rap instead o show tunes and 9mm automatics instead o dancin’. Naw, I’m meanin’ the one you and yer mates formed up ta give yer hangin’ roond a wee bittie waste ground some romance). Did it have a name?

I bet it did, even if it was just in yer heid because ye knew that if ye ever let on that ye called the gang ‘the mystery team’ or ‘the wee A team’ or ‘[yer awn name here]’s gang o death’ the rest o the lads would ha beat the tar oot a ya. So ya put up wi whatever bawheadied name the big lads picked, probably based on their footie team. Whitever yer gang wis called ‘the East End boys’, ‘the Wild Ones’, ‘the leather lads’, I bet it wisne a patch on ‘The Gorbals Diehards’.

In a fight, the Gorbals Diehards could take the following, nay bother: LA gangs, Pirates, Nazis, the KKK, backwoods militia types, Al Queda, Klingons, Daleks and Imperial Stormtroopers…and Imperial Stormtorropers arnie even REAL!

Ahem, okay, the rest in English.

John Buchan knows who he is writing for. Dixon McCunn is a freshly retired grocer who, with a lifetime of dreaming behind him and days of leisure in front of him, decides to stroll the Highlands and strides straight into adventure. Buchan is writing for the man on the train, fettered to an office away from natural light and fresh air, he holds out the promise of hope that, upon retirement, it’s not just a shed, a model train set, addiction to painkillers and gin and a slow decline towards finding yourself in your dressing gown at the corner shop, having no recollection about what you came in here for and acutely aware of people staring at your mismatched slippers. Something splendid awaits.

This is adventure, this is a man who goes looking for adventure, informed by a lifetime of reading adventure novels well…like this one actually, and who finds that that physical bravery, some supreme moral courage and the commendably lax laws about owning firearms in 1920’s Scotland is quite enough thank you to see off the vilest conspiracy to harm innocents. Because this is not an Englishman roused to action…this is a Scotsman roused to action and when injured, the man bleeds tartan…well, the red bits anyway, the blues and greens are the bruising.

McCunn’s initial act of charity towards the Gorbals Diahards is repaid a thousandfold. He triumphs because he is a decent man, like anyone who is reading this; because this novel is like a litmus test. If you enjoy, really enjoy it, then if your train were to deposit you not at your commuter station for a day at the office but on the platform of a deserted station in the highlands where mystery and adventure awaited, you’d be equipped – because all you would need to ask yourself is ‘what would McCunn do?’. show less

Loved this little gem. A nice uncomplicated little adventure.....simple middle-class guy sets out to take a relaxing walking holiday in the Scottish countryside and soon innocently finds himself embroiled in an incident of secret international intrigue. A romp of sorts including a scrappy band of city boy ruffians, abandoned ocean-side manor house, treasure, weapons, sailing ships, a strong-willed fair maiden, and whole host of colorful shady characters all thrown in and mixed together for just a good old-fashioned story. A little bit of a struggle with some Scottish dialect, but not enough to discourage. Will good triumph over evil???? I'll not ruin it....read it and find out for yourself!

A century after its publication, I would probably agree with any current-day criticisms of the novel. But it's still a good, fast-paced yarn - and I felt at certain points like a boy again reading an adventure story on a rainy day (I finished it today during a snowfall). I previously read the third book in Buchan's linked trilogy - 'The House of the Four Winds' - and enjoyed this more. At some point I sold my copy of the middle book ('Castle Gay') and will pick up another should I come across one.

A classic slice of traditional adventure fiction by one of the great masters of the genre. The hero of this novel (set in the early 1920s) and its two successors is retired grocer Dickson McCunn who decides to mark his retirement from the respectable world of grocery by going for a walking holiday in Southwest Scotland, in the hope of encountering some scent of romantic ideal. As luck would have it he becomes embroiled in a Bolshevik plot to exploit a former Russian princess and divest her of her family jewels.
In his travails McCunn is helped by long-time Buchan regular, Sir Archibald Roylance (though in this particular novel he is more heavily clothed in obtuseness than usual), a would-be free-verse poet John Heritage and the hardy show more Gorbals Die-Hards, a street gang from the poorer reaches of Glasgow who have been given an opportunity to escape the roughness of the backstreets of Glasgow to commune with nature.
Beautifully written and exquisitely plotted, this is Buchan near his best. show less

This was a bit of a potboiler. I am a great fan of John Buchan's spy adventure novels, but both the plot and the development of the characters in Huntingtower seemed to be second-rate.

Huntingtower is the first of a series of three novels centered around the character Dickson McCunn. The novels in the series were written alongside other novels by Buchan I appreciate much more. The fast development of the plot is characteristic, as are serendipity and exaggerated elements of a strong story. The solidarity of Scottish (or British) folk against a sinister foreign power, and corruption of some countrymen are also a fixed element. Another thing is the obvious love of the Scottish countryside, and beautiful descriptions of the landscape, show more nature, villages and castles.

Still, particularly in this first volume, the character of Dickson McCunn, as well as Heritage are cardboard characters. Their unexpected ally consists in a troupe of street urchins, the Gorbal Die-Hards and their leader Dougal, sketched by the same pasteboard characterization. There is some humor in the way they are juxtaposed against the aristocratic Sir Archibald. The Gorbal Die-Hards add a fairy-tale element to the novel.

Huntingtower was written shortly after the Russian Revolution and published in 1922. The novel contains several story elements that would later feature in Cold War era pulp fiction, such as Russian spies, the ruthlessness of Bolshevik spies, the power of a united people to withstand an invader, and the importance of the middle class and its natural loyalty to the upper classes. show less

A classic slice of traditional adventure fiction by one of the great masters of the genre. The hero of this novel, set in the early 1920s, and its two successors is retired grocer Dickson McCunn who decides to mark his retirement from the respectable world of grocery by going for a walking holiday in Southwest Scotland, in the hope of encountering some scent of romantic ideal. As luck would have it he becomes embroiled in a Bolshevik plot to exploiut a former Russian princess and divest her of her family jewels.
In his travails McCunn is helped by long-time Buchan regular, Sir Archibald Roylance (though in this particular novel he is more heavily clothed in obtuseness than usual), a would-be free-verse poet John Heritage and the hardy show more Gorbals Die-Hards, a street gang from the poorer reaches of Glasgow who have been given an opportunity to escape the roughness of the backstreets of Glasgow to commune with nature.
Beautifully wriiten and exquisitely plotted, this is Buchan near his best. show less