Why is The Hunt for Red October a modern classic?
Parting thoughts on our slow read of a Cold War thriller
Welcome back to the Two Navy Guys Debrief, the (mostly) weekly forum where we take on real—and fictional—national security issues. We also read books together.
You’ve reached us at the conclusion of a guided read-along of The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy’s debut novel about a rogue Russian ballistic missile submarine. Fear not! All of the posts will remain available online for free, so start at the beginning and enjoy.
Last week, we bid farewell to Jack Ryan and Marko Ramius. Then we got to thinking… We kinda miss those guys and maybe six weeks’ worth of literary ponderings deserves a wrap-up post. So here goes nothing.
Humble beginnings
The Hunt for Red October (THFRO) was published 40 years ago in October. Written by an insurance salesman from Maryland who had no prior military experience and, by his own admission, had never set foot on a submarine, the manuscript was accepted for publication by The Naval Institute Press. (They immediately told him he to cut at least 100 pages…)
Associated with the Naval Academy, the NIP is known for nonfiction books. In fact, THFRO was their first fiction title. It was an inauspicious beginning for a book that would go onto sell nearly five million copies over the next 40 years.
David has written about meeting Tom Clancy in the weeks following the book’s release--well before he was famous--and the effect that the book had on David’s career. Against all odds, the book became a huge hit. Even Ronald Reagan received a copy for Christmas and called it “the perfect yarn.”
From the original Jack Ryan adventure, Clancy (and his estate) have built a massive franchise that includes books, videogames, and movies. The book is still well known today. It has almost 380,000 ratings on Goodreads and sports an Amazon sales rank of 16,000—not bad for a book published 40 years ago!
But why does this book have such staying power?
A killer premise and the perfect opening
The idea behind the story is simple and gripping: a Russian submarine captain goes rogue and wants to defect to the US.
As a reader, it’s hard not to be instantly hooked by the idea. You can see the enormity of the challenge and the sky-high stakes for both sides. Two nuclear superpowers will stop at nothing to make sure the other side does not win.
But the author still has to deliver on that premise. Here’s our analysis of how Clancy launches this adventure:
The first chapter is a darn near perfect opener. An exotic setting onboard a Soviet missile boat. Check. Compelling character in Captain Ramius. Check. A murder. Check. Clancy does all that in the first ten pages. Brilliant stuff.
Are we gushing? Yes, we’re gushing.
The movie reinforces the book
The movie version of THFRO came out in 1990, six years after the book was published. David was attending Submarine School in Groton when the movie was released. The school rented out the entire local movie theater on a Friday afternoon and we all went to see Jack Ryan bamboozle the Kremlin. Imagine a movie theater packed shoulder to shoulder with US Navy submarine officers when the Dallas does the emergency blow in the final sequence…Yeah, it was pretty cool.
The movie also makes the story better in a way that few movies do. Over the course of the past six weeks, we’ve pointed out a few areas where Clancy let the pace of the story lag or overcomplicated the plot. The movie does a fabulous job of streamlining the story and building to a fantastic action-packed finish without losing the essence of the novel.
What’s more, the movie enhances the character development in a way that the book arguably lacks. Today, anyone who reads THFRO sees Sean Connery as Marko Ramius and a young Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan.
Clancy was the first in a new genre
THFRO is considered the one of the first technothrillers, a new genre label that emerged in the 1980s. In addition to the thriller tropes, there was another dimension to this kind of story. Technology became a central part of
defending democracy in a chaotic world thanks to the bravery of a few soldiers, sailors, marines, as well as the technological wizardry of America, and beating the bad guys over and over again…1
That said, you can get too much of a good thing. Clancy became famous for his detailed, realistic descriptions of military hardware in this book and even more so in follow on novels. Some would say infamous. The meticulous attention to detail (sometimes at the expense of pacing) was a common critique of Clancy’s work. We once had a reviewer who told us that they liked our novels because “we’re like Clancy, but with the boring bits taken out.”
Submarines are sexy
Those of us with enough miles on our chassis can recall the year 1984 with vivid clarity.
It was the height of the Cold War. The Soviet threat seemed omnipresent and overwhelming. If America was the shining city on a hill, then the valley below was crawling with enemies too numerous to count. The only thing that stood between us and Communism was the US military.
This feeling bled over into civilian life. Although we had moved beyond duck-and-cover drills in schools, the general public was well aware of our Soviet adversary. Red Dawn (the original, not the 2012 version) came out in 1984, the same year as THFRO.
At the same time, the public was not very aware of the Silent Service. Submarines were a mysterious, powerful branch of the military.
Into this cultural mix dropped a novel about a Soviet submarine captain who wants to defect and turn his ballistic missile submarine over to the United States. This was click-bait before the term even existed.
As good as The Hunt for Red October is—and it is a great story—the popularity of this novel owes much to timing. It was the right book at the right time. This novel sparked an entire new genre that exists to this day and has inspired thousands of new authors—including us.
OK, now we’ve had our last words on the Red October Read-along. Thanks for being part of the journey! You know what, let’s watch the USS Dallas save the day one more time.
Be happy. Stay healthy. Read (or listen to) a book.
As always, thanks for being a supporter –
David & JR, AKA the Two Navy Guys
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https://s-usih.org/2015/09/techno-thriller-novels-and-recent-american-intellectual-history/