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39 more steps
Jul. 14th, 2021 05:22 pmWe are relying heavily on television for our evening entertainment these days; and since for some reason, neither of us is drawn to the much-praised dramas, and we are not in the least interested in sport, our viewing can be a bit random. But then, the same is true of what's on offer. I don't know why the BBC thought that now was the time for a rerun of its 2008 version of The 39 Steps - and come to that, I don't know why the BBC thought in 2008 that the world needed a new version of The 39 Steps. But a couple of years ago I read the book, slowly and carefully, as the pub quiz's Book of the Moment, and I was curious to see how much of the book I read what could survive in a 21st century version.
Quite a lot of the framework is still there: the eve of the Great War, the plot against Britain, Hannay dropped into the action by Scudder, the agent who knows what is going on but is killed before he can inform those who need to know, Hannay's flight to Scotland, wanted for Scudder's murder - and a lot of running to and fro across the Scottish landscape...
The adaptation gives Hannay a motive for his flight to Scotland: he is following Scudder's intelligence that this is where the enemy have their stronghold. In the book he needs to hide out until the time is right, and selects the southwest of Scotland for its empty spaces on the map (his knowledge of veldcraft, apparently, makes this a better prospect than the anonymity of the city). The film places its hero under very conventional time pressure: he leaves his flat unprepared, and later learns that a crucial event will takes place within two days... The book reverses that convention, in that the hero must remain at liberty for as long as possible, which allows him plenty of opportunities to admire that landscape, and to encounter the people who populate it.
The adaptation isn't short of admirable landscapes, and is meticulous in offering authentic Scottish locations, even for those parts of the action which do not take place in Scotland (in the process removing the already thin justification for those 39 steps themselves). Even so, to reach Stirling castle, it has to bypass the area in which the book is set. This seems a waste, when Buchan has described it in such detail that it can be followed on a map (and the National Library of Scotland has the map in question). There's nothing weong with the filmed scenery, but it lacks the magic of the book - which is interesting, because I wouldn't have thought of recommending Buchan for the beauty of his descriptions ...
Buchan had gone to some trouble, too, to populate his landscape: not just with the minor parts, like the travellers on the train who provide the fugitive with cover, but a gallery of individuals distinctive enough to provide the chapters with intriguing headings: the adventure of the literary innkeeper, the adventure of the spectacled roadman. Hannay encounters a variety of working people, from the herdsman's wife who gives him a bed on his first night in Scotland to the roadmender whom he first impersonates and with whom he later finds refuge (not to mention the milkman!). Only the adventure of the radical candidate, in which Hannay falls in with a young man of more or less his own class, survives into the film.
It survives, and the outline of the adventure is retained, but the flavour is much changed: the 'candidate' of the book is a cheerful young man whose political allegiance is not that of his author, who willingly allies himself with Hannay for his own reasons. In the film he is almost simple-minded, easily deceived by Hannay - and he has a sister. It was probably inevitable that a 2008 version would feel the need for a romantic interest, and that she would be a strong and capable woman. If I were more invested in the book John Buchan wrote, I might object to this in principle, but as things stand, I was more irritated by the character's insistence that she is a suffragette (she's almost certainly a suffragist and resents that demeaning diminutive). Much of the twisty-turny plotting of her narrative is not to my taste, but then, I feel the same way about much of the twisty-turny plotting of the original novel -
That's a good point to cut this short, I think. The film was a painless entertainment for a quiet evening; I was very far from loving the book. Nonetheless, not for the first time, I conclude that "the book is better."
Quite a lot of the framework is still there: the eve of the Great War, the plot against Britain, Hannay dropped into the action by Scudder, the agent who knows what is going on but is killed before he can inform those who need to know, Hannay's flight to Scotland, wanted for Scudder's murder - and a lot of running to and fro across the Scottish landscape...
The adaptation gives Hannay a motive for his flight to Scotland: he is following Scudder's intelligence that this is where the enemy have their stronghold. In the book he needs to hide out until the time is right, and selects the southwest of Scotland for its empty spaces on the map (his knowledge of veldcraft, apparently, makes this a better prospect than the anonymity of the city). The film places its hero under very conventional time pressure: he leaves his flat unprepared, and later learns that a crucial event will takes place within two days... The book reverses that convention, in that the hero must remain at liberty for as long as possible, which allows him plenty of opportunities to admire that landscape, and to encounter the people who populate it.
The adaptation isn't short of admirable landscapes, and is meticulous in offering authentic Scottish locations, even for those parts of the action which do not take place in Scotland (in the process removing the already thin justification for those 39 steps themselves). Even so, to reach Stirling castle, it has to bypass the area in which the book is set. This seems a waste, when Buchan has described it in such detail that it can be followed on a map (and the National Library of Scotland has the map in question). There's nothing weong with the filmed scenery, but it lacks the magic of the book - which is interesting, because I wouldn't have thought of recommending Buchan for the beauty of his descriptions ...
Buchan had gone to some trouble, too, to populate his landscape: not just with the minor parts, like the travellers on the train who provide the fugitive with cover, but a gallery of individuals distinctive enough to provide the chapters with intriguing headings: the adventure of the literary innkeeper, the adventure of the spectacled roadman. Hannay encounters a variety of working people, from the herdsman's wife who gives him a bed on his first night in Scotland to the roadmender whom he first impersonates and with whom he later finds refuge (not to mention the milkman!). Only the adventure of the radical candidate, in which Hannay falls in with a young man of more or less his own class, survives into the film.
It survives, and the outline of the adventure is retained, but the flavour is much changed: the 'candidate' of the book is a cheerful young man whose political allegiance is not that of his author, who willingly allies himself with Hannay for his own reasons. In the film he is almost simple-minded, easily deceived by Hannay - and he has a sister. It was probably inevitable that a 2008 version would feel the need for a romantic interest, and that she would be a strong and capable woman. If I were more invested in the book John Buchan wrote, I might object to this in principle, but as things stand, I was more irritated by the character's insistence that she is a suffragette (she's almost certainly a suffragist and resents that demeaning diminutive). Much of the twisty-turny plotting of her narrative is not to my taste, but then, I feel the same way about much of the twisty-turny plotting of the original novel -
That's a good point to cut this short, I think. The film was a painless entertainment for a quiet evening; I was very far from loving the book. Nonetheless, not for the first time, I conclude that "the book is better."
