The Riddle of the Sands and The Thirty-Nine Steps: Pre-War Literature

In my absence from writing, I have:

The 2009 Sweet Cheeks Viognier and thefabulous Fontina
Cheese Plate we enjoyed while wine tasting

• Partied like an undergrad in San Francisco with my best friend and a whole crew of new best friends; 
• Spent entirely too much time curled up in old pajamas watching Grey’s Anatomy;
• Embraced the beauty of living in Eugene by spending an afternoon wine tasting at local wineries;
• Celebrated spring’s arrival with gelato on the patio and the first barbecue of the year (both of which were fantastic);
• Listened to Dan Brown’s latest book, The Lost Symbol (which made it something of a relief to return to my list of great novels);
• And I finished The Riddle of the Sands and The Thirty-Nine Steps, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

A view of San Francisco from my recent trip

Overall I loved The Riddle of the Sands for the reasons I outlined in my last post.  Throughout the novel the narrative style and the main characters remained charming, personable, and endearing.  For me it was the characters who drove the story, moving the plot forward and, ultimately, making this novel a great one.  Davies and Carruthers were so genuinely likable and determined in their quest that they made the story enjoyable, even when the action dragged a bit in places. 

As I noted in my last post, Childers had a background in sailing and service, which greatly affected his writing.  His descriptions of movements and actions on the sailboat were incredibly detailed.  He embraced the use of jargon, which lends the story an additional level of authenticity, but it also makes the story a bit more difficult to read for anyone who is not familiar with sailing.  The plot, too, lagged a bit in places for anyone who is not familiar with sailing.  A majority of the story takes place in the regions around the North Sea as Davies and Carruthers work to map and plot the progress of the tides and the depths of troughs and sandbars around the fjords and bays of the Frisian Islands.  During these sections there is not much action, but Carruthers describes their progress in a good-natured tone that makes the slow story more enjoyable and more readable.

In addition to granting the story authenticity, Childers’ background and his experience give the story purpose and give the characters their motivation.  In one important chapter, Chapter X: “His Chance,” Childers, through Davies, discusses the need for an extended navy; he also discusses at length the benefits of mobilizing the general population during a war.  Men like Davies--men who knew the ins and outs of every port and bay along the English coast--could be of use to the country by helping the Navy defend each vulnerable spot.  Childers seemed to believe that anyone, regardless of training or background, was capable of being a national hero, of saving his country like Carruthers and Davies did.  Childers also strongly believed in being prepared for the impending war with Germany.  By the time that he wrote The Riddle of the Sands, it was becoming apparent that Europe would soon become engulfed in a great war.  England had not been invaded since 1066, a fact which created a false sense of comfort and quelled fears of a foreign invasion.  Davies and Carruthers, who represent typical English men, puzzle throughout most of the novel over what their German counterparts  are planning and thus spend a majority of their time preparing for a British invasion of Germany; they never consider the possibility of a German invasion of England.  Childers wrote a fun spy adventure, but he also drafted a warning to the English government: “We Must Be Prepared.”  

Whereas The Riddle of the Sands is a spy novel written with a purpose, The Thirty-Nine Steps is an action-packed adventure written to entertain and amuse.  The novel tells the story of Richard Hannay, a Scottish mining engineer recently returned from the Matabele Wars in South Africa.  Hannay is initially bored with the London society until he is approached by a man named Scudder who claims to have faked his own death for matters of personal and national security.  This launches Hannay into a world of espionage and intrigue as he becomes single-handedly responsible for attempting to prevent the outbreak of an international war (a war that we would later call World War I).  Hannay is pursued by a ruthless group of people known as The Black Stone and he is forced to undergo several hardships as he works to alert the British government and save the world from war.  Unlike The Riddle of the Sands, the action in The Thirty-Nine Steps starts relatively early and literally keeps up until the final page.  Despite the focus on action, though, the hero Hannay is amiable and his good nature and strong moral sense make him an ideal hero; like Davies and Carruthers, Hannay is an instantly likeable character whose personality helps to drive the plot.

I chose to read these two novels back-to-back for a couple of reasons.  First, these two are acknowledged as being two of the first spy novels, laying the groundwork for later stories of espionage by writers like Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, and others.  Though I am not a spy novel aficionado, I can appreciate this fact.  The second reason I blame on the scholar in me.  Although the Great War was not my focus as a historian, the war and its cultural effects have fascinated me for years.  I am particularly interested in the shift in attitudes that occurred during the war.  I spent a semester in undergrad studying this shift as it is seen in the poetry of the era.  The shifts in attitude was remarkable: before the war young British men believed that they would easily win the war in a month or two and then would return victoriously.  This is reflected in most pre-war poetry with its optimism, bravado, and naiveté.  Once the war began, though, and young men experienced the horrors of modern warfare, the attitude shifted.  Men no longer believed in the phrase “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” instead they are bitter and jaded, irrevocably changed by their experiences.  The literature that came after the Great War is darker, deeper than what preceded the war.

The Riddle of the Sands and The Thirty-Nine Steps are prime examples of British mentality before the Great War.  Richard Hannay, Davies and Carruthers are ordinary men, former English school boys and products of the best English public schools.  All three characters find themselves embroiled in dangerous affairs of state and thus transform themselves into spies to save their country from war.  Each character is driven by a staunch patriotism and the belief that he can save the country from sure destruction.  This belief--both bold and naïve--is the same attitude that was so characteristic among young men in the years leading up to the war.  I find this pre-war innocence fascinating, and, after spending so much of my scholastic career focusing on the works of disillusioned writers like the so-called Lost Generation, returning to that innocence is interesting and a tad refreshing.  For me, this blend of history, culture, and literature made both novels fascinating and rewarding.