Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Roots that Clutch: John Buchan, Scottish Fiction and Scotland
- 2 A Civilizing Empire: T. H. Green, Lord Milner and John Buchan
- 3 A Very Modern Experiment: John Buchan and Rhodesia
- 4 ‘The Ministry of Information’: John Buchan's Friendship with T. E. Lawrence
- 5 Masculinities in the Richard Hannay ‘War Trilogy’ of John Buchan
- 6 John Buchan and the Emerging ‘Post-Modern’ Fact: Information Culture and the First World War
- 7 The Spy-Scattered Landscapes of Modernity in John Buchan's Mr Standfast
- 8 The Soul's ‘Queer Corners’: John Buchan and Psychoanalysis
- 9 John Buchan, Myth and Modernism
- 10 John Buchan and the American Pulp Magazines
- 11 What Kind of Heritage? Modernity versus Heritage in Huntingtower
- 12 Living Speech, Dying Tongues and Reborn Language: John Buchan and Scots Vernacular Poetry
- 13 John Buchan in Canada: Writing a New Chapter in Canada's Constitutional History
- Notes
- Index
3 - A Very Modern Experiment: John Buchan and Rhodesia
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Roots that Clutch: John Buchan, Scottish Fiction and Scotland
- 2 A Civilizing Empire: T. H. Green, Lord Milner and John Buchan
- 3 A Very Modern Experiment: John Buchan and Rhodesia
- 4 ‘The Ministry of Information’: John Buchan's Friendship with T. E. Lawrence
- 5 Masculinities in the Richard Hannay ‘War Trilogy’ of John Buchan
- 6 John Buchan and the Emerging ‘Post-Modern’ Fact: Information Culture and the First World War
- 7 The Spy-Scattered Landscapes of Modernity in John Buchan's Mr Standfast
- 8 The Soul's ‘Queer Corners’: John Buchan and Psychoanalysis
- 9 John Buchan, Myth and Modernism
- 10 John Buchan and the American Pulp Magazines
- 11 What Kind of Heritage? Modernity versus Heritage in Huntingtower
- 12 Living Speech, Dying Tongues and Reborn Language: John Buchan and Scots Vernacular Poetry
- 13 John Buchan in Canada: Writing a New Chapter in Canada's Constitutional History
- Notes
- Index
Summary
He mentioned that after much consideration he had reached the conclusion that the three greatest men he had ever heard of or met were Mr Valiant-for-Truth, the Apostle Paul, and a certain Billy Strang who had been with him in Mashonaland in ’92.
Towards the climax of his thrilling pursuit by a nationwide manhunt, the hero of John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) reveals his name with a nonchalant disregard for its impact:
‘My name's Hannay,’ I said. ‘From Rhodesia, you remember?’
‘Good God, the murderer!’ he choked.
Modern readers may be at a loss to explain why Hannay chooses to introduce himself as ‘Hannay from Rhodesia’. Yet it is a crucial detail. Hannay's identification with Rhodesia, about which The Thirty-Nine Steps reminds readers on at least ten occasions, not only raises his colonial origins to the status of a defining character trait, it implies that this background, more than any other, is a crucial factor in how others see him and, perhaps more importantly, how he sees himself.
The formulation also provides Buchan with an opportunity for ironic humour. By an ‘amazing chance’, it turns out that Hannay is slightly acquainted with his interlocutor, a nouveau riche stockbroker named Marmaduke Jopley, whom he promptly intimidates into silence so as to make good his escape.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity , pp. 49 - 62Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014