Huntingtower

I read this book as a child in the 1960s. Returning to it at last in 2022, I vaguely remembered that I liked it; and I'm pleased to find that I still like it.

It has some drawbacks. Almost every feature of the story is implausible, and the dialogue is so Scottish that some words are incomprehensible to me as an Englishman.

However, it makes a good story nonetheless. Starting off gently, it becomes exciting as it goes along, and it's relatively concise, being a short novel. The characterization of Dickson McCunn is engaging, and the Gorbals Die-Hards are a wonderful creation, lifting the story out of the usual run of early 20th century adventure novels. It occurs to me now that they remind me somewhat of the Nac Mac Feegles, created much later by Terry Pratchett.

The book was written just over a century ago: it was first serialized in a magazine in 1921, just a few years after the First World War. The Russian Civil War was still continuing at the time, and some participants in this story are involved in it; even though the story is set entirely in Scotland.

I see that some readers foolishly criticize the book for a few minor sins against modern ideas of political correctness. The book was written in a different age, what do you expect? “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” You should bear this firmly in mind when reading any old book.

Most of the books that I read were written during my own lifetime. In general, I find that the older the book, the more alien to me is the writing style and the thinking behind it. In this particular case, the book is only a century old, and I find the writing style and the thinking behind it clearly not modern, but still tolerable; you may differ.

I gave this book four stars initially, but on reflection I've reduced it to three. I did enjoy reading it, and it was definitely worth reading; but it's sufficiently old-fashioned and implausible that I probably won't reread it often.