-
Impressions of Book of The
Thirty-nine Steps
As
we
all know,
the Thirty-nine
Steps
is
the
most
famous
novel of John
Buchan, and
typical suspense
novel
in
the
literary
history
. What's
more,
it's one of 100
typical suspense
novels
chosen by
the Institute of
American
Reasoning Writers,
ranking 22
in
the
list. Also,
it's
in
the
list
of
1000
must-read
novels
before
death
chosen
by
The
Guardian
.
Actually,
John
Buchan
is
one
of
Hitchcock's
most
favourite
writers.
On
the
first
looking
into
the
Thirty-
nine Steps
,
he
said,
it could be
turned
into a
great
film
from the
first
time I
read John Buchan's
the Thirty-nine Steps
.
However,
I'm
merely
familiar
with
its
book
title.
At
the
first
sight,
I'm
curious
about
what
These words
first appear
in Chapter 4,
steps)'
was the
phrase; and at
its
last
time of use it
ran
—
'(Thirty-nine steps, I
counted them
—
high tide
10
:
17 p.m.)'.
to
my
calculation,
thirty-nine
steps
appear
9
times
in
total.
Most
part
come
out
in
Chapter
9,
which
focuses
on
how
the
hero,
Richard
Hannay
figured
out
the
code
thirty-nine
steps
Obviously,
it's
a
clue,
which
Scudder
left
to
his
fellows
to
find
out
the
secret
place
of
Black
Stone
where
they
hung
out,
where
they
were
going
to
leave
Britain,
though
he
kept
the
name
to
himself.
Therefore
how
to
find
out
the
code
is
of
great
importance to achieve the final
success.
Speak of the
hero,
Richard Hannay
is
the one
who wants to adventure and
has a
head
for
things like chess and puzzles. In fact, he did a
bit at it himself once as intelligence officer
at Delagoa
Bay during
the
Boer War.
He
is a
mining
engineer back
to
London
from South
Africa.
But
I
have
been
wondering
why
the
writer
didn't
tell
his
job
until
Hannay
met
Sir
Harry
.
Apparently,
Hannay
was so
fed
up with the
life
in London before
Scudder came
to
him, and he
was just about to settled to clear out
and
get back to the
African
grasslands. So
when Scudder
came
up
to
him
for
help,
he
didn't refuse
immediately
.
At
first,
Hannay
was
more interested in his own
adventures than in his high politics. After
Scudder was killed, he
turned
into
a
quick-
witted
man
to
carry
on
Scudder's
work.
Hannay
began
showing
his
insight from the moment.
At
that
night,
Hannay
arrived
home
and
found
Scudder
stuck
to
the
floor
by
a
long
1
knife. He felt
very sick and was succeeded by a fit of the
horrors. Under such a condition, he
could calm down and eventually think
things out
in the
next a
few
hours. At this point,
it's
easy to show his
intellect and capacity of handling with tough
situations in this difficult trap.
He
kept his head and arranged his schedule in the
next three weeks. It proves that Hannay is
a very strong person in mind and hardly
shaken in belief.
In order to get rid
of those two sets of people would be
looking
for
him
—
Black Stone,
Scudder's
enemies
to
put
him
out
of
existence,
and
the
police,
who
would
want
him
for
Scudder's
murder,
he
should
keep
hiding
before
he
could
venture
to
approach
the
powers
that
be.
As
a
result,
he
pretended
as
a
milkman,
a
Scotsman,
a
Colonial
and
free
trader,
a
roadman
and a
man called Ainslie(maybe a
thief).
Although
his
get-ups are
not perfect,
he
has a wonderful way to make it. That is
a saying that an old scout in Rhodesia once told
him
that
the secret of
playing a part
was
to think
yourself
into
it.
He said,
you are playing a
part, ou should never keep it up unless
you could manage to convince yourself that you
were
it.
It
haunted
Hannay
from
time
to
time
and
really
helped
him
a
lot.
When
he
acted
as
a
roadman,
he shut off all
other thoughts and
switched
them onto
the
roadmending with this
saying
in
mind.
And
his
get-up
was
good
enough
for
the
dreaded
Surveyor
and
the
Black
Stone. Another scene
is when Hannay kept watch on the house called
Trafalgar Lodge at the
head
of
the
thirty-
nine
steps
and
his
owner
of
course.
It
gave
a
strong
point
to
convince
himself with his judgement.
Though Mr.
Buchan describes
Hannay as a quick-minded,
intelligent
and kind-hearted
man who
is
eager to
take risks,
he
doesn't embody
him
to be
such
a perfect
man.
Actually,
Hannay also
made
some
mistakes but they were turned out
to be good things. For example,
in
Chapter 3
he did play tricks on
those two sets of people successfully
but
he changed
the
plan to steal the car of the Black
Stone. As a result, the big green car became the
safest clue
to him
whether
he
left
it and
took
to his
feet or
not. As
he
tried
to
get
to the
leafy cover of
the valley
in order
not to on a bare
road
he
was at
the airplane's
mercy
,
he ran
slap
into
the
hedge
preventing
a
crash
with
a
coming
car.
Thus
he
met
Sir
Harry
,
a
local
Liberal
Candidate,
who
gave
Hannay
a
hand
when
in
a
mess.
Furthermore,
Sir
Harry
introduced
Hannay to his godfather, Sir Walter
Bullivant, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign
Office,
after Hannay took
him
into
his
confidence. Consequently,
Hannay could
get
in
touch
with
2
the Government people
before the
conspiracy
happened. It's
no doubt
that Hannay
made a
wrong decision on the run. However, it
seems that goddess was always on his side.
Probably
because all people believe in
that the evil will not triumph over the
virtuous.
Of course, Hannay
could not be able to succeed in accomplishing his
work without the
help of those kind-
hearted people
—
a couple of a
herd's cottage, an innkeeper, Sir Harry and
the
roadman
Alexander
Turnbull.
For
the
sake
of
being
far
ahead
of
any
pursuit,
Hannay
kept going
for
some
hours since
he
had
tasted
food when
he came to the
herd's cottage, set
in a corner beside
a waterfall.
The couple welcomed
him
for a night's
lodging
and offered a
large
meal
but
refused
any
payment.
As
for
Sir
Harry
,
I
have
just
mentioned
it
above.
Hannay
ran
into
the
innkeeper
on
a
bridge
of
the
plateau
and
pitched
him
a
lovely
story
which
completely
fitted
in
with
this
adventure
of
literary
innkeeper's
appetite.
Hence
the
innkeeper provided
Hannay with anything he could. With his help,
Hannay had enough time
to do his search
for the code
in Scudder's
notebook and eventually
found out that the whole
story
was
in
the
notes,which
was
not
the
same
as
what
Scudder
told
him.
Meanwhile
Hannay
moved
with
those
two
sets
of
people
through
the
innkeeper.
I
think
the
innkeeper
absolutely played
a key role in the story
. He earned some
time for Hannay to rest and got his
ideas
into shape. It
laid a good
foundation
for the battle of wits and courage
with
the Black
Stone.
On
his
way
to
the
shepherds
after
saying
goodbye
to
Sir
Harry
,
Hannay
found
the
roadman in a tiny bit of road, beside a
heap of stones. Hannay made believe that he was
the
roadman to take on
his
job
for a bit
instead of
Turnbull.
In this
way
, Hannay
got
rid of
the
Black Stone.
However, Hannay exchanged his coat and collar with
Turnbull's,
including
the
most
important
thing
—
Scudder's
notebook.
Unluckily,
Hannay
was
subject
to
the
boss
of
the
Black
Stone
—
an
old
man
blink
his
eyes
like
a
hawk
With
great
difficulties,
Hannay escaped
from the enemy's
headquarters.
And when
Hannay came back
to
Turnbull,
he
was
in
for
a
bit
of
Malaria
and
could
not
frame
a
coherent
answer.
Actually
,
Turnbull
could
neglect Hannay
and occupy
his
things, even take
him
to the police.
But
he didn't.
To
my surprise, he carefully took care of
Hannay and never bothered him with a question. And
he never even sought his name and gave
back all Hannay's stuff. More surprisingly, he
grew
positively
rude
and
shy
and
red
when
Hannay
pressed
him
to
accept
five
pounds
for
his
lodging.
was
a
true
friend
in
need,
that
old
roadman.
It's
how
Hannay
thinks
of
the
3