I can’t imagine a pairing more appropriate than John L. Rigby and John Buchan.
A couple of days ago, I stumbled across an enigmatic post from Rigby, showing the unboxing of a classy (of course) volume of Buchan’s John MacNab. I don’t think these are available to the public, and, anyway, if they were they would be at Rigby prices, so…
Anyways…
John MacNab (1925) is a lighthearted sportsman’s tale from the author of ur-thrillers such as The 39 Steps and Greenmantle. Michael Young describes it in an essay in Studies in Scottish Literature:
The story of John MacNab is typical Buchan. Three of his recurrent heroes — Sir Edward Leithen, Lord Charles Lamancha and John PalliserYeates — are suffering from depression and undertake a romantic adventure as a cure. Their real identities protected by the pseudonym “John MacNab,” they issue a challenge to three landowners in the Scottish Highlands: Colonel Raden, a member of the older, landed aristocracy; the Bandicotts, rich American tenants; and the Claybodys, middle-class new rich. The heroes vow to poach game from these people’s estates and attempt this with varying success. The text closes with a happy ending appropriate to a comic adventure through which depression — social as well as individual — has been symbolically cured and harmony achieved.
Blogger Jordan M. Poss notes that:
Buchan describes not only the geography of the plot’s action but the visual splendor of Scotland beautifully. Buchan was no mean outdoorsman and loved to tramp through the hills and wilderness, and his keen observation and firsthand knowledge of this kind of environment give the hunting and fishing scenes—or even a simple scene of a young man and woman walking through the countryside and talking—a vividness and immediacy often missing in more recent fiction.
Scotland has adopted and adapted the plot into a sportsman’s challenge known as The MacNab: Catch a salmon on the fly, shoot a brace of grouse with the shotgun, and take a stag (surely with a John L. Rigby Highland Stalker, right?), between dawn and dusk of a single day. That’ll cure the ennui…
There’s a story from the Rigby Campfire on Simon Barr’s determination to complete The MacNab.
And a YouTube doco from the outfitter Delaney & Sons, who specialize in providing The McNab Challenge experience.:
I have not read John MacNab, an inexplicable gap I intend to fill in short order. I’ll be reading a paperback, not a limited-edition Rigby volume, but that’s okay.
I am a fan of Buchan’s work. His most famous protagonist, Richard Hannay, is a gentleman Frontier Partisan, who honed his capabilities in Rhodesia. Buchan also threw down the occasional weird tale of a kind that would appeal to fans of Robert E. Howard. He’s Frontier Partisan for the tweed jacket set — and I like to go there sometimes.
More on Buchan:
Add this wonderful recounting of a successful MacNab:
Matthew says
Most people know of Buchan from the 39 Steps if from anything at all. This has always been strange to me since, while I certainly enjoyed Steps, I don’t think it was his best work. His best work to me at least Greenmantle. Seems to me that it is all the movie adaptions that made Steps famous.
JimC says
Yes, it’s the movies. Greenmantle had a moment when the GWOT kicked off.
Quixotic Mainer says
Man, completing a MacNab sounds like a phenomenal day. We have precious few days when fishing and grouse season overlap, but I’ve tried something similar here. I managed only the one grouse and a odd mix of bass and river chub though!
JimC says
Friend Deuce Richardson has noted that there is no evidence that Robert E. Howard read Buchan — no mention in the inventory of his library or in his rich correspondence. We DO know that JRR Tolkien enjoyed Buchan, because he said so.
Greg Marshall says
Buchan was a man of considerable talents. He was our Governor General for the period 1935-1940, when he died while in office. He was very highly regarded in Canada as a representative of the Crown and diplomat. His title, Lord Tweedsmuir, was conferred on him as part of his appointment as GG on the recommendation of the Conservative Prime Minister at the time.
There are many streets in Canada named after him. I used to live on Tweedsmuir Avenue.
His wikipedia article indicates that he was an early and strong Zionist (at a time when it was not considered a slur) and supported the movement to create a Jewish homeland in the middle east following the Balfour Declaration and the end of WWI.
JimC says
He truly was a remarkable man — incredibly productive given that he had some serious health problems.
Kobus van Coppenhagen says
No doubt about his narrative skills, but a flawed person he certainly was. He joined Lord Milner in South Africa and turned the Concentration Camps in a ‘health resort’ (his words), and afterwards he sent agents after destitute ‘Boers’, returning from ‘transportation’ during captivity, as bona fide purchasers to acquire their farms for a song. All of this he did for quite a princely salary, having had no experience at all. You can make your own conclusions.
His skills at fiction also came in very handy during WW I, when he was responsible for the history of the war; e.g. when a defeat could be described as a return to base for rations, etc. (this sentence is my own invention just to illustrate the concept). Obviously he had no axe to grind with Canadians? which would confirm their benign view of him.
JimC says
He was very much an Empire guy, and I can see how his role in “Milner’s Kindergarten” would create a less positive view of the man in SA.