What are the best adventure novels? Let’s add a hidden gem to the list.
What are the best adventure novels? Let’s add a hidden gem to the list.
What are the greatest adventure novels ever written? By “adventure” I don’t mean “exciting” — nearly all fiction should be exciting in some way — but rather stories that emphasize action, danger and heroism. My own nominees — and tastes will certainly differ — would include the following baker’s dozen:
Homer, “The Odyssey”
Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo”
Jules Verne, “Journey to the Center of the Earth”
Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island”
H. Rider Haggard, “She”
Anthony Hope, “The Prisoner of Zenda”
Baroness Orczy, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
Edgar Rice Burroughs, “A Princess of Mars”
John Buchan, “Greenmantle”
Rafael Sabatini, “Captain Blood”
P.C. Wren, “Beau Geste”
Geoffrey Household, “Rogue Male”
Frans G. Bengtsson, “The Long Ships”
Recently I was wondering which works since World War II might be worthy of being added to this imaginary Library of Adventure Classics. If we sift through various genres — thrillers, fantasy, historical novels — some likely candidates include J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination,” Poul Anderson’s “The Broken Sword,” Alistair MacLean’s “The Guns of Navarone,” Frederick Forsyth’s “The Day of the Jackal” and John le Carre’s “The Little Drummer Girl.” Matters are complicated, though, because many of our most accomplished genre writers developed series without any single book being an obvious standout. Think of Ian Fleming’s James Bond thrillers, Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, the various installments of the Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin nautical exploits and Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe saga.
Overall, I find that the British write the best adventure fiction. As a case in point, consider Lionel Davidson (1922-2009), who is too little known in America, despite having won three Gold Daggers — England’s equivalent of the Edgar Award — for “The Night of Wenceslas” (1960), “A Long Way to Shiloh” (a.k.a. “The Menorah Men,” 1966) and “The Chelsea Murders” (1978). His 1962 book, “The Rose of Tibet,” earned exceptional praise from both Daphne du Maurier and Graham Greene, no small matter. Philip Pullman, author of that fantasy masterpiece “The Golden Compass,” has even called Davidson’s final novel, “Kolymsky Heights” (1994), “the best thriller I’ve ever read, and I’ve read plenty.”
That book focuses on a Canadian First Nation scientist-hero with a genius for languages and a MacGyver-like inventiveness. When a fuzzy surveillance photograph reveals a corps of Russian soldiers who don’t look quite human, Porter — who can pass as a Native Siberian — is reluctantly persuaded to infiltrate a remote laboratory located near a former gulag and discover what is going on. Back in 1994, when I reviewed “Kolymsky Heights,” I stressed its literary qualities — there is pervasive symbolism emphasizing light and dark, blindness and insight — but was somewhat begrudging about its other merits. Over the years, my estimation of the novel has gone up, and I’m now tempted to agree with Pullman’s judgment, at least if we restrict the field to post-World War II thrillers.
I hesitate partly because Davidson’s “The Rose of Tibet” isn’t just comparably gripping, it also adds some unexpected narrative twists and an extra dimension. Is it fact presented as fiction or fiction presented as fact? Or is it somehow both?
The book opens in 1960 with a prologue written by a publishing house editor named Lionel Davidson, who has recently brought out a work of his own called “The Night of Wenceslas.” Almost by happenstance, Davidson visits an elderly Latin teacher named Oliphant who lends him Charles Houston’s dictated account of the 17 months he spent in India and Tibet during 1950 and ’51. It is a fantastic story, in all respects. The prologue also references newspaper articles about Houston, ancient Tibetan prophecies and accounts of the actual Chinese invasion of Tibet at that time. We learn that Houston eventually returned to England on a stretcher, suffered the amputation of his right arm and somehow acquired half a million pounds.
You might think that divulging all these details right off would be a disastrous mistake. In fact, it’s part of a deliberate strategy to foster suspense. As the story proceeds, the third-person narrator — clearly not Houston — periodically intersperses comments and teasers about the future consequence of various actions, yet never offers any context for them. A reader is thus left on tenterhooks, feeling anxious for our hero and dreading the worst. For example, “That was how matters stood on the last day of the spring festival at Yamdring; which was also the last day that Houston could have saved himself.” From what? We have to wait a long time to find out. We learn early on that Houston will commit a murder, but not who will be killed or when, and that he will spend weeks underground with an unnamed girl, but not why. At the same time, Davidson repeatedly violates our expectations. Things suddenly, almost fatefully go wrong. Destinies can turn on a mispronounced name.
Everything begins when Houston’s brother Hugh, part of a film crew making a documentary about Mount Everest, goes missing and, along with three others, is presumed to have perished in an avalanche. Unfortunately, the bereaved families can’t collect any insurance money without proof that their loved ones are actually dead. Yet the Tibetan government seems peculiarly unwilling to supply this documentation, so Houston — a 28-year-old art teacher in a school for girls — is recruited to travel to the region and secure the necessary death notices.
Once Houston reaches India, however, what seemed a purely bureaucratic mission soon darkens into something far different and increasingly mysterious, even supernatural, especially after he starts to suspect the truth. Not being legally permitted to enter Tibet (then still highly isolated), Houston decides to do so illegally with the help of a local boy named Ringling who knows the passes through the mountains. When they eventually need to rely on a map, it is utterly out of date and leads them astray. I shouldn’t reveal too much more of the plot, but imagine an Indiana Jones movie with truly realistic violence and even more mysticism.
To promote its authenticity, the action throughout is repeatedly set against verifiable history reinforced by a punctilious insistence on precise dates and geographical locations (Kalimpong, Gielle Khola). We know when Houston bicycled through the Himalayan foothills, the length of his sojourn at the Yamdring Monastery, the number of months he and a companion spent trying to escape the invading Chinese armies.
Davidson feels hesitant about publishing the memoir without further evidence of its veracity. All these disguises, fulfilled prophecies, unnerving religious customs (including sacred prostitution), hidden passages, an enigmatic Chinese heroine and a fortune in emeralds — aren’t they the very stuff of old-time adventure fiction? Did Houston really experience any of it? Could Oliphant have made up everything? Davidson — and the reader — cannot help but speculate. What’s more, because of possible libel, Davidson recognizes that the original text will need to have names changed and certain identifying elements altered. Houston himself has strangely vanished, though he seems to have passed the years between 1951 and 1958 aimlessly wandering the globe. In the end, Davidson comes to a radical decision.
However much we are meant to question the fictive status of “The Rose of Tibet,” let me stress that 90 percent of the book is pure, even extreme adventure, with episodes of near-death, feverish delirium and sudden shock. There are also romantic interludes worthy of, say, William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride.” That book, you will remember, is equally replete with interjections and editorial comment.
Charles Houston’s sheer determination — whether to survive against impossible odds or be with the woman he loves — supercharges “The Rose of Tibet,” yet much of the main story’s appeal and charm depend on its Tibetan characters: Mei-Hua (“it means in China a rose,” she says); the weary governor of Hodzo province, who foresees the inevitable working out of his unhappy karma; the Duke of Ganzing, a Tibetan nobleman educated at English schools; or the shrewd “Little Daughter” who alone is allowed to see the face of the Abbess of Yamdring, now in her 18th incarnation. All are beautifully drawn.
Graham Greene used to divide his fiction into “novels” and “entertainments,” before eventually abandoning what he realized was an artificial distinction. In just this way, “The Rose of Tibet” is a modern adventure classic but also a subtly layered modern novel. It works neatly, brilliantly as both.
Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic and a regular contributor to Book World.
