Customer Reviews
Strange and Haunting - By: Gregory S. Buzwell, 17 Aug 2008 
John Buchan is, sadly, a rather neglected writer these days, so it's encouraging to see a few of his books creeping back into print. I have no doubt he will always be best known for 'The 39 Steps' but, as 'The Dancing Floor' amply shows, there is a great deal more to Buchan's work than daring exploits & Boys Own adventure.
The Dancing Floor centres on a young English woman, Kore Arabin, who inherits a house on a remote Greek island. Sadly for Kore the locals regard her as a witch, responsible for the failure of their crops, & become convinced she must be sacrificedin order to ensure better harvestsin the coming years. Much of the story deals with the attempts of Sir Edward Leithen - all-round good-egg & gent - & the curiously morbid Vernon Milburne to save her. So far so conventional but what makes the novel a curiously compelling experience is the care Buchan takes to build up character & an all-pervading sense of unease. For example Milburne suffers from a recurring dream; each year, on a particular night, he dreams he isin a room connectedin a long line to several other rooms. Something else, something dark & malevolent, is slowly moving towards the roomin which he sits, creeping ever onwards at a rate of one room a year, each year the haunting, unknown 'it' has crawled one room closer to the roomin which Milburne nervously & helplessly waits..... As an idea many writers would probably use it as a hook upon which to hang the weight of an entire novel but here, with Buchan, it's merely a single strandin a much more complex picture. Similarly Kore is far from the damselin distress of so much adventure fiction: she's gauche, rude, self-centred, pushy and, deep down, completely lost & very lonely.
Buchan is a writer very much of his time: the men are all gentlemen & the British, quite rightly, rule the world. But if you can look beyond that what he presentsin 'The Dancing Floor' is a compelling & far from straight-forward tale of a battle between Christianity & paganismin which the genuinely supernatural plays a large part. It's dark, & it's haunting & it does lingerin the mind long after the last page has been turned. Curious but very compelling & well worth searching out if you're looking for something a little different.
Great but a little dated! - By: "Smith" Reader, 18 Oct 2007 The Dancing Floor by John Buchan is a good read. I readin in two days - while it has a good story - being 80-90 years old the wording & thoughts at times can be dated. So 4 stars.
One of Buchan's most thoughtful - By: Fabrisse, 08 Aug 2001 I've been a fan of John Buchan's for a very long time. This book, which is the third of the Edward Leithen's, deals with ideas of purity & kindness.
While Vernon is a major character, the eyes we most often view other character's through are those of Leithen. Through him we meet the girl Kore whom he doesn't care for at first. Later we see how modern manners & fashions have shadowed over her essential goodness & slowly she becomes identified with the eternal maiden that her name implies.
It's been many years since I've re-read this book, but I will always remember the impact that it had on me.
