Three men find themselves successful, but un-challenged, and bored
with their lives. They decide to take on a challenge: they will poach
from well-defended estates in Scotland, and warn the owners that
they're coming, by sending letters over the name "John Macnab".
I should perhaps mention first that when I'm reading a book from
a period or a culture with different sensibilities from my own I tend
to take on the sensibilities of that culture for the duration. So
while I suspect many modern readers would be aghast at the casual
assumption of privilege and class, I'm not going to mention it
further. I don't see any point in reading an old book without at least
trying to understand the thinking of its intended audience.
This book was published in 1925, and like the society it depicts is
very much overshadowed by the Great War. Everybody knows someone who's
having a hard time adjusting to peace. There's a sense that the world
has changed irrevocably, but it's not yet quite clear how it's
changed.
There are fine descriptive passages during the three stalks; I don't
know how plausible they may be, but they certainly give the feel of
being well-researched.
The politics are progressive but not socialist: the essential theme
expounded by the good guys is that having stuff is all very well,
but only if you're prepared to go to some trouble to hold onto it.
Resting on your laurels and counting on your money or status to keep
your stuff safe isn't good for you or for your descendants. (This is
played out particularly with the Claybody family: the father is the
one who made the money, and the son is the one who's clearly preparing
for a life of wasting it.)
There's much clambering among the highlands, a feeling of the Press as
a potential power for good that echoes Kipling, the unearthing of the
remains of Harald Blacktooth the real discoverer of America, and a
bride for Archie Roylance (last seen in 1922's Huntingtower).
In some ways the most subversive part of the book is the ending. The
sense of danger has come from the risk of being caught and exposed:
the three men who make up Macnab all have considerable reputations.
But old Claybody points out that, in fact, they were pretty much safe
all along: the three landowners on whose property they've been
poaching are sufficiently "people like us", people who can be brought
to understand the appeal of the thing even if not to praise it, that
although they didn't know it they ran no risk at all. The fact that
their ennui is nonetheless cured is simply a trick of the mind.
Which is one in the eye for anyone who thinks this book is encouraging
people to go off and do whatever piece of bad behaviour they feel like.
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