Book Ten of the Book-a-Week Quest
The 39 Steps
by John Buchan, 1915
I saw the Broadway play adaptation of this last summer and it was a slapstick suspense-comedy. I thought this was going to be a suspense-comedy...it wasn't even close.
It's only saving grace was that it was short (a little over 100 pages...but the print was super-tiny so it seemed infinitely longer).
When Englishman Richard Hannay returns home from a trip, he meets a man named Scudder who recently moved into an apartment in his building. Scudder is certain that there will be an assassination attempt on a Greek political figure with the hope of providing the impetus to start a war throughout Europe. A few short days later, Scudder is murdered in Hannay's apartment and Hannay must flee for his life through the hills and valleys of England.
Certainly a decent premise for a story, but author Buchan's writing style is not the least bit interesting at all. At times he's way too descriptive and at times he is much too straight-forward. It literally seems like nothing happens in the book except during the first and last chapters. Dialogue is written in varying English dialects and I literally could not understand what people were saying. I re-read things and tried to speak things out loud and was still at a loss. Maybe it worked in Britain in 1915, but it didn't work in 2009 America.
This one was a bust, for sure.
It's only saving grace was that it was short (a little over 100 pages...but the print was super-tiny so it seemed infinitely longer).
When Englishman Richard Hannay returns home from a trip, he meets a man named Scudder who recently moved into an apartment in his building. Scudder is certain that there will be an assassination attempt on a Greek political figure with the hope of providing the impetus to start a war throughout Europe. A few short days later, Scudder is murdered in Hannay's apartment and Hannay must flee for his life through the hills and valleys of England.
Certainly a decent premise for a story, but author Buchan's writing style is not the least bit interesting at all. At times he's way too descriptive and at times he is much too straight-forward. It literally seems like nothing happens in the book except during the first and last chapters. Dialogue is written in varying English dialects and I literally could not understand what people were saying. I re-read things and tried to speak things out loud and was still at a loss. Maybe it worked in Britain in 1915, but it didn't work in 2009 America.
This one was a bust, for sure.
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