Alistair MacLean

Alistair MacLean

Alistair MacLean, late in life
Born Alistair Stuart MacLean
21 April 1922(1922-04-21)
Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland
Died 2 February 1987(1987-02-02) (aged 64)
Munich, Germany
Cause of death Series of strokes
Resting place Céligny, Switzerland
Residence England
Switzerland
Croatia
Nationality Scottish
Other names Ian Stuart
Education Daviot School
Inverness Royal Academy
Hillhead High School
Alma mater University of Glasgow
Occupation Author and teacher
Years active 1955 to 1986
Employer Royal Navy (1941–1946)
Gallowflat School (1946þ1956)
Known for Thrillers
Home town Shettleston
Net worth £73,347 (at death)[1]
Height 5 feet 7 inches
Spouse Gisela Heinrichsen (1953–1972)
Mary Marcelle Georgius (1972–1977)
Children Three sons (one adopted) with Gisela
Parents Revd Alistair MacLean and Mary Lamont

Alistair Stuart MacLean (21 April 1922 – 2 February 1987; Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacGill-Eain) was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare, all three having been made into successful films. He also wrote two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart.

Contents

Life

MacLean was the son of a minister, and learned English as his second language after his mother tongue, Scottish Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, ten miles south of Inverness. He was the third of four sons.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. He was first assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted for anti-aircraft guns, on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland. From 1943, he served in HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. In Royalist he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz and other targets off the Norwegian coast. In 1944 he and the ship served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France and in helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean. During this time MacLean may have been injured in a gunnery practice accident.[2] In 1945, in the Far East theatre, MacLean and Royalist saw action escorting carrier groups in operations against Japanese targets in Burma, Malaya, and Sumatra. (MacLean's late-in-life claims that he was captured by the Japanese and tortured have been dismissed by both his son and his biographer as drunken ravings. [2]) After the Japanese surrender, Royalist helped evacuate liberated POWs from Changi Prison in Singapore.

MacLean was released from the Royal Navy in 1946. He then studied English at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1953, and then worked as a school teacher in Rutherglen.

While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story "Dileas". The publishing company Collins asked him for a novel and he responded with HMS Ulysses, based on his own war experiences, as well as credited insight from his brother Ian, a Master Mariner. The novel was a great success and MacLean was soon able to devote himself entirely to writing war stories, spy stories and other adventures.

In the early 1960s, MacLean published two novels under the pseudonym "Ian Stuart" in order to prove that the popularity of his books was due to their content rather than his name on the cover. They sold well, but MacLean made no attempt to change his writing style and his fans may easily have recognized him behind the Scottish pseudonym. MacLean's books eventually sold so well that he moved to Switzerland as a tax exile. From 1963–1966, he took a hiatus from writing to run a hotel business in England.

MacLean's later books were not as well received as the earlier ones and, in an attempt to keep his stories in keeping with the time, he sometimes lapsed into overly improbable plots. He also struggled constantly with alcoholism, which eventually brought about his death in Munich in 1987. He is buried a few yards from Richard Burton in Céligny, Switzerland. He was married twice and had three sons with his first wife; the third son was adopted.

MacLean was awarded a Doctor of Letters by the University of Glasgow in 1983.

Style of writing

Compared to other thriller writers of the time, such as Ian Fleming, MacLean's books are exceptional in one way at least: they have an absence of sex and most are short on romance because MacLean thought that such diversions merely serve to slow down the action. Nor do the MacLean books resemble the later techno-thriller approach. Instead, he lets little hinder the flow of events in his books, making his heroes fight against seemingly unbeatable odds and often pushing them to the limits of their physical and mental endurance. MacLean's protagonists are usually calm, cynical men entirely devoted to their work and often carrying some kind of secret knowledge. A sometime twist is that one of the hero's closest companions turns out a traitor.

Nature, especially the sea and the Arctic north, plays an important part in MacLean's stories, and he used a variety of exotic parts of the world as settings to his books. Only one of them, When Eight Bells Toll, is set in his native Scotland. MacLean's best books are often those in which he was able to make use of his own direct knowledge of warfare and seafare, such as HMS Ulysses which is now considered a classic of naval fiction.

Stylistically, MacLean's novels can be broken down into four periods:

  1. HMS Ulysses through to The Last Frontier. These four novels featured third-person narratives and a somewhat epic tone, and were mostly set during World War II. The Last Frontier contained overt philosophical and moral themes that were not well received. MacLean then switched gears to —
  2. Night Without End through to Ice Station Zebra. These four novels (plus two more under the pseudonym Ian Stuart) all featured first person (and sometimes unreliable) narration laced with a dry, sardonic, self-deprecating humour, and were all set in contemporary times. These are MacLean's most intensely plotted tales, masterfully blending thriller and detective elements. MacLean then retired from writing for three years, returning with —
  3. When Eight Bells Toll through to Bear Island, a varied collection of six novels that still maintained a generally high quality, with some books harking back to each of the first two periods but usually taking a more cinematic approach (not surprising since he began writing screenplays during this time). Finally —
  4. The Way to Dusty Death to the end (twelve novels). There were no more first-person stories, and his prose is thought to have often sagged badly, with excessive dialogue, lazily described scenes, and under-developed characters. Some bore these faults more than others, and all the books sold reasonably well, but MacLean never regained his classic form.

Certain themes are repeated in virtually all of MacLean's novels. For example, they typically feature a male character who is depicted as physically and morally indestructible (for instance, Carrington in HMS Ulysses or Andrea in The Guns of Navarone); such characters are also often described as having an almost inhuman tolerance for alcohol consumption (such as the Count in The Last Frontier or Jablonsky in Fear is the Key). MacLean was known to reuse plot devices, characterizations, and even specific phrases. For example, the description "huddled shapelessness of the dead" occurs in some form in several stories. Names are often reused as well, with chief female characters being frequently named Mary, or a variation thereupon (Marie, Maria), while a number of MacLean's lead male characters are named John. His villains usually feature a coldly competent and ruthless mastermind paired with a hulking, brutishly powerful subordinate.

Force 10 from Navarone, MacLean's only sequel, picks up from where the film version of The Guns of Navarone leaves off, not his original novel. Otherwise MacLean eschewed inter-novel continuity, save for two instances of a character from one novel appearing in another - Colonel De Graaf from Puppet on a Chain reappeared in Floodgate, and Professor Benson from Goodbye California making a second appearance in Santorini.

Altogether, MacLean published 28 novels and a collection of short stories, as well as books about T. E. Lawrence and James Cook. There have been reports of a "lost" MacLean novel titled Snow on the Ben, but it appears to be by a different Ian Stuart (refer ISBN 0-7089-6503-2).

Many of MacLean's novels were made into films, but none completely captured the level of detail and the intensity of his writing style as exemplified in classics such as Fear is the Key; the two most artistically and commercially successful film adaptations were The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. Moreover, MacLean also wrote screenplays, some of them based on his novels and others later novelized by other writers. MacLean wrote the novel and screenplay of Where Eagles Dare at the same time; in effect it was commissioned by Richard Burton, who wanted to make a "boy's own" type adventure film that he could take his son to see. The book and screenplay differ markedly in that, in the book, the Smith and Schaffer characters at times go out of their way not to kill anyone, whereas in the film they basically shoot anything that moves. In fact, the film contains Clint Eastwood's highest on-screen body count, as well as a far more laconic interpretation of the Schaffer character.

Around 1980, MacLean was commissioned by an American movie production company to write a series of story outlines to be subsequently produced as movies. He invented the fictitious United Nations Anti-Crime Organization (UNACO), and the books were later completed by others. Among these are Hostage Tower by John Denis and Death Train by Alastair MacNeill. Some of these works bear little resemblance to MacLean's style, especially in their use of gratuitous sex and violence.

MacLean's influence on future adventure/thriller writers is somewhat hard to measure, due to the conventions and expected requirements of the genre changing.

After his death, the popularity of MacLean's work saw a decline, and, according to Amazon.com, as of 2006 none of his novels were in print in the US. However, most are currently still in print in paperback in the UK.

List of works

Novels

Year Title Notes
1955 HMS Ulysses
1957 The Guns of Navarone
1957 South by Java Head
1959 The Last Frontier in the USA The Secret Ways
1959 Night Without End
1961 Fear is the Key
1961 The Dark Crusader in the USA The Black Shrike (as Ian Stuart)
1962 The Golden Rendezvous
1962 The Satan Bug as Ian Stuart
1962 All about Lawrence of Arabia Non-fiction
1963 Ice Station Zebra
1966 When Eight Bells Toll
1967 Where Eagles Dare
1968 Force 10 From Navarone
1969 Puppet on a Chain
1970 Caravan to Vaccarès
1971 Bear Island
1972 Alistair MacLean Introduces Scotland Non-fiction, edited by Alastair Dunnett
1972 Captain Cook Non-fiction
1973 The Way to Dusty Death
1974 Breakheart Pass
1975 Circus
1976 The Golden Gate
1977 Seawitch
1978 Goodbye California
1980 Athabasca
1981 River of Death
1982 Partisans
1983 Floodgate
1984 San Andreas
1985 The Lonely Sea Collection of short stories
1986 Santorini

UNACO books by other authors

Year Title Notes
1980 Hostage Tower by John Denis
1981 Air Force One is Down by John Denis
1989 Death Train by Alastair MacNeill
1989 Night Watch by Alastair MacNeill
1990 Red Alert by Alastair MacNeill
1991 Time of the Assassins by Alastair MacNeill
1992 Dead Halt by Alastair MacNeill
1993 Code Breaker by Alastair MacNeill
1995 Rendezvous by Alastair MacNeill
1997 Prime Target by Hugh Miller
1998 Borrowed Time by Hugh Miller

Golden Girl Series by other authors

Year Title Notes
1992 Golden Girl by Simon Gandolfi
1993 Golden Web by Simon Gandolfi
1994 Golden Vengeance by Simon Gandolfi

Movies with Screenplay Contribution

Year Title Notes
1968 Where Eagles Dare book author/screenplay
1970 Puppet on a Chain book author/screenplay
1971 When Eight Bells Toll book author/screenplay
1975 Breakheart Pass book author/screenplay

Other Movies

Year Title Notes
1961 The Secret Ways book author
1961 The Guns of Navarone book author
1965 The Satan Bug book author
1968 Ice Station Zebra book author
1972 Fear Is the Key book author
1974 Caravan to Vaccares book author
1977 Golden Rendezvous book author
1978 Force 10 from Navarone book author
1979 Bear Island book author
1980 The Hostage Tower story
1989 River of Death book author
1993 Death Train story
1995 The Way to Dusty Death book author
1995 Night Watch story

References

  1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ a b Webster, Alistair MacLean: A Life, p. 191.

Notes

  1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ a b Webster, Alistair MacLean: A Life, p. 191.
Works by Alistair MacLean
Novels
Short story collections
  • The Lonely Sea (1985)
Non-fiction
  • All About Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
  • Alistair MacLean Introduces Scotland (1972)
  • Captain Cook (1972)