Half-Hearted Book

This is one of my all-time favorite books, but in all honesty, I can't claim that it's a great book, and I would be very hesitant to recommend it to almost anyone. Buchan tells the story of a man ill at ease in his own life, constantly torn between conflicting interests and social values. The result is a book which is constantly in conflict with itself. The story both illustrates and demonstrates this conflict. It's almost as if Rudyard Kipling wrote the odd-numbered chapters - many of which brim with adventure in the Hindu Kush - and Jane Austen wrote the even-numbered chapters, which focus on duty within upper-class British society. The result is a dizzying but limpid study of a character who can neither fully embrace nor deny his place in the world. I sometimes wonder if a lot of people today might actually relate to this book, but it's simply too strange and obscure to appeal to a wide audience. Recommended only for readers who can enjoy a book for its strengths and overlook its shortcomings. Or for people who can imagine that such an idiosyncratic book might be fun. For the record, The Half-Hearted is an oddity among Buchan's works, most of which tend to be very focused, story-driven, and tightly-plotted.