More about John Buchan and the colour green

Looking for reasonably significant references to the colour green in John Buchan's books involves eliminating a very large number of descriptions of natural features such as uplands and downs, mountains and moors, water and trees, not to mention discarding a large quantity of protective outdoor clothing such as felt hats, capes and tweed coats. The much smaller number of occurrences of specific shades such as apple green and olive green are not of much interest either. 

After the routine references to the colour green have been removed, some examples of interest remain; it has taken two articles to cover what might be described as “the best of the rest”. 

The first article about John Buchan and the colour green  contains green references taken from his writings; this article contains more such references, and it also lists some green people and places of interest in his life.

Some miscellaneous green references
This section of the article has been inspired by some amusing material in Buchan's Prince of the Captivity that I quoted in the article about his Island of Sheep: 

“There were too many houses at Bournemouth, and too many people at Broadstairs, and a horrible band in green jackets at Eastbourne, and a man who made ugly faces at Littlehampton...”

Using that as a model, I have listed some miscellaneous, mostly minor, green references from various novels.

There is an archaeologist called Wintergreen, some green lizards, some wallpaper with pink and green parrots, an envelope heavily sealed with green wax and a strange girl dressed in an unusual shade of green who wears one green glove in The Dancing Floor; there is a Liberal candidate called Orlando Greenstone, a knitted tea-cosy in purple and green and an ancient hostelry called the Green Tree in Castle Gay.

There is a man called Green, a little green lamp, more green lizards, a Border dining club whose members wear faded green coats, green face paint and a translucent green tablet in The Island of Sheep; there is veined green marble, green alabaster, green imperial jade, two green doors and an emerald necklace in Huntingtower.

There is a man called Greenlees and a green drawing room in A Gap in the Curtain; there are green crabs, a green awning, green wooden seats and many references to Greenland in A Prince of the Captivity; in addition to the material already quoted, there are green sun-shutters, green sickness, a pink and green hearthrug and a green dressing gown in Greenmantle.

84 years of John Buchan’s Island of Sheep

The Island of Sheep, published as The Man from the Norlands in the US, is the fifth and final book in the series of John Buchan’s Richard Hannay adventures; it follows The Three Hostages.

The Island of Sheep was first published in July 1936, so its 84th anniversary is this month. 

I said in the article about Mr Standfast that The Island of Sheep was lower in my estimation than The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle and The Three Hostages. The latter was published in 1924; the 12-year gap between The Island of Sheep and its immediate predecessor suggests to me that John Buchan had finished with Richard Hannay but finally gave in to pressure from publishers and demands from dedicated Hannay fans for more exciting adventure stories.

The new thriller that he produced does not in my opinion have the appeal of some of the earlier books. Something is missing. Rudyard Kipling would have said that Buchan’s creative spirit or daemon was not involved in the construction process. 

Much of the material is familiar from the previous books; there are many descriptions of fishing, wildlife, sheep and Buchan’s beloved Scottish landscape and its people for example. 

There isn’t much that inspires commentary apart from a few miscellaneous passages and Richard Hannay’s ambivalent feelings and ideas about his comfortable life.

Richard Hannay’s inner conflicts
At the start of The Three Hostages, Richard Hannay was living a quiet life as a country gentleman. He had paid his dues and earned it. Having to leave it all to go on a mission seemed like a fate worse than death to him. 

At the start of The Island of Sheep, Richard Hannay has been living the quiet life for many years. His attitude towards it has changed: it is much more complicated and ambivalent this time around.