The Riddle of the Sands (Classic Literature With Classical Music. Classic Fiction)

Rating:
Summary: Puts most modern adventure novels to shame
Review: I became aware of 'The Riddle Of The Sands' while reading Andrew Lownie's biography of my favorite author, John Buchan ('The Thirty-Nine Steps'). Buchan, a contemporary of Childers, reviewed a reissue of the book in 1926, calling it, "the best story of adventure published in the last quarter of a century". Well, 78 years later not much has changed. The writing is witty, intelligent and literate and the story at once simple yet complex. This novel is a perennial favorite among small-boat sailors, and is certainly "riddled" with enough sailing jargon to perplex most landlubbers. All of this is, however, very neatly integrated into a spy story that, like many of Buchan's wonderful novels, starts with the slenderest of threads and challenges the characters to figure out the skullduggery using sheer wit and intelligence.

It may sound trite, but they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Rating:
Summary: Adventure in Northern Germany
Review: I found this spy novel particularly interesting as I was born on the coastline described. Childers's descriptions of the Frisian Islands, the cities of northern Germany, and the dangerous tides are very accurate. That's what I like best about the book. The narrator, Anton Lesser, does a generally good job reading the book. In fact, he's much better than some other actors I've heard. However, his grasp of the German language is dreadful. Some sentences he reads in German are almost incomprehensible. This is inconsistent with the fact that the narrator of the story is supposed to speak German like a native. Listen if you love stories about ordinary people getting caught up in extraordinary events. Listen if you love the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany. Stay away if you love the German language.

Rating:
Summary: Always a delight
Review: This book has been described to me both as "the best Yachting Book written" and "The book that saved Britain". Written in part as a wake-up call to the British Public at the turn of the last century -Childers (no stranger to Whitehall politics) was terrified that existing British strategy left the country wide open to an invasion from Germany- and in part as a celebration of a lifelong passion for boats and boating, the book "works" brilliantly. Even non-yachting enthusiasts will be drawn into the story, and those of us who have worked our way along a foggy coast by chart and compass will appreciate Childers' attention to detail and faithfulness to his subject. Overall I found the two principal characters well drawn, but the Germans are a bit cartoonish, and the hint of Romance towards the end was an un-needed distraction, other than that, this is a quite-un-put-downable novel of adventire & daring that MAY just have changed the course of history.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Thriller With Attitude
Review: This book is often referred to as the first spy novel, and it is not wrong. However, to appreciate the novel, you have to know beforehand several things. But, don't worry, that is not much.

The story is narrated by an English gentleman Currthuers, who received an unexpected invitation of duck shooting from an old friend Davies. Being tired of his neglected position in "society," he accepts it to go to the North Sea only to find that he is involved in a mystery, or "the riddle of the Sands." His friend claims there's something in the air, something hiding behind the misty coast of Germany. But how can they prove it?

As a story, "The Riddle of the Sands" is far from perfect. It is full of authentic descriptions of local landscapes (the author actually cruised his yacht there), but at the same time frequent reference to the geographical data and nautical terms are a bit wearisome to readers, and moreover, the narrator often refers us to the maps in the appendix. Those things only slow down the action of the novel, and actually the book sometimes has to go through lull.

But, wait a while. The story gets gradually faster, and as the adventure of the heroes slowly gets near to the core of the plot, the tale becomes more and more gripping. Though characters sometimes are just more than cardboard (and especially female part is poorly done), your patience will be rewarded.

It is well-known that Sherlock Holmes in "His Last Bow" turns a spy for his country, and says "There's an east wind coming." The meaning of what Holmes says is clear to the comtemporary people, and Childers, a politician, also wrote his book not as an amusement but as a warning to England about the coming threat of Germany, and actually "The Riddles of the Sands" was written about 10 years before WW1 began. In this historical context too, the book is interesting, and the tediousness of the opening chapters is justified if you keep it in mind that it is meant for Childers's sarcasm against indifference and complacency among the English people (talking of English complacency, we remember later in 1938, immediately before WW2, Alfred Hitchcock again uses it as a satire in his thriller "The Lady Vanishes" with brilliantly silly two British gentlemen who are more concerned with cricket games than surrounding danger). People don't change.

So, the book itself is still enjoyable, but these historical matters will make it more precious; after all, it is one of the proof how people reacted to the coming change in the history of mankind. And if you're interested in this kind of book (I mean, books reflects German-England relationship), check out "The Battel of Dorking" by George Chesney (written in 1871) and "When William Came" (in 1913) by Saki once.