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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Coming to The Day of the Jackal (1971) at this part of the course we re-visit the territory of the 'Masculine Romance', of The Thirty-Nine Steps and Rogue Male (particularly the latter novel to which Forsyth's novel seems to be particularly indebted. As with the earlier novels The Day of the Jackal is a pursuit thriller, bringing in elements of the political thriller, and with common preoccupation's: conspiracies and threats to social order; the testing of "masculine values" of competition, endurance, the ability to know one's way around the "Great Gymnasium" of the "Real World", instinct, bravery, rationalism, etc. I have chosen to study the novel at this point because it illustrates the extent to which the form has proved remarkably resilient: the character of Mike Martin, for example, the SAS hero who saves the world from the Iranian Super Gun in Forsyth's latest novel, The Fist of God, bears more than a passing resemblance to the character of Richard Hannay.
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