2023 reread: Yup, the paranormal aspects are just too much for me. There are some paranormal or mystical touches in some of Buchan's other books (in Greenmantle for example) but not as prominent as in this book.

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2018 review:
This is the 3rd book in the Sir Edward Leithen series by John Buchan and the one I liked the least so far. I liked the setting but there was too much 'touch of the mystical' for me about both Vernon & the plot in general. ( )

This is the 3rd book in the Sir Edward Leithen series by John Buchan and the one I liked the least so far. I liked the setting but there was too much 'touch of the mystical' for me about both Vernon & the plot in general. ( )

I had this review from W_. We were both guests at a friend’s place and, Scottish weather being Scottish weather, the haggis hunting that day had been postponed due to the traditional sleet and snow that typifies Spring in the Highlands. Seeking distraction and entertainment, I wandered to the library hoping to find at least our host’s selection of plainly bound pornography.
W sat by the fire, both were smoking. Beside him on a small table rested an oversized decanter. The glass was in his hand. W was known to bring his own supplies on these trips, having once being forced to spend a weekend snowed in on the moors with only the host’s blended scotch to pass the time.
‘You’ll want the Buchan.’ He advised, gesturing to a bookcase with his foot. ‘To your left, second shelf, yellow dust jacket. ‘The Dancing Floor’. That’s what you want.’
He topped up his glass and, without invitation, began.
‘The Dancing Floor may not be the greatest book ever written, but it’s the greatest adventure story I’ve ever read.
Its construction is superb. Its author’s audacity breathtaking. It begins with an admirably short introduction where the writer explains that this is a story he heard from a friend as they both passed the time when taking civilized refuge from an unseasonable climate. By the end of that first paragraph, one is hooked.
The astonishing thing is that, for a novel of adventure, so very little happens for so very long. Buchan shows exceptional nerve, and prodigious skill, in maintaining, and building, tension, moving inexorably towards the climax, where a lot happens in a very short period of time.
The premise is intriguing. The first portion of the book deals with the storyteller’s friendship with a young friend of the family, and how this singular young man is visited by an annually recurring dream. Surely, the reader thinks, this must be the key to the adventure and not just mystical tosh.
It’s a measure of Buchan’s confidence that the Great War is briefly explained as an wholly unexpected interlude offering adventure and excitement. One cannot but help admire Buchan’s mastery of understatement here, as both central characters are clearly profoundly affected by their experiences at the front, most markedly in it being confirmed to them, on a grand scale, that when beastly things are in the offing, a British gentleman is justified in grabbing a pistol and the initiative and jolly well sorting things out, no matter where this might take him.
Then the book takes a most unexpected turn, the young man and his strange dream all but vanish from the narrative and we are introduced to a rare and exotic bird, a young and, naturally, beautiful woman who is far braver than any of the male characters.
Her somewhat shocking behaviour in London society is explained away by her growing up abroad and, page by page, we learn more about her background, and the terrible fate that awaits her. She is determined to make amends for her father’s misdeeds at the family home on a remote Greek island. The islanders however, think that this can best be achieved by torching said home, and her.
And so the book races towards its conclusion, but not before Buchan pulls off a masterstroke, changing narrative perspective at a crucial point but in such a way as to excite the reader rather than to frustrate.
This is a masterpiece. Its depiction of London pre and post Great War is superb and Buchan’s depiction of the effect of the conflict on even the stoutest of English hearts is surprisingly compassionate in a tale of high adventure. He is also gifted in describing the society of the time.
The Dancing Floor is a tale of high adventure, dazzlingly well written. It is about destiny, self determination, family, friendship, conflict and Bad Blood. It even manages to combine a dash of mysticism with what some might consider heroics, and what other will recognise as the British gentleman at his best, under pressure, with nothing but his wits and a firearm to save the day.
An astonishing tale of high adventure, astonishingly well written.
Anyway, you should read it.’ ( )

I found this an enjoyable novel though it is far from Buchan’s finest. Once again the principal character is Sir Edward Leithen (perhaps of all his characters the one who most closely resembled Buchan himself) who, having made his name and fortune as an accomplished barrister, became an MP, serving as Attorney general.
The novel takes the form of reminiscences from Leithen recounted over glasses of port across several evenings in his gentleman’s club, and tell of the strange adventures that befell Vernon Milburne, a young companion of his who had been orphaned at a young age and subsequently gone on to became a renowned classicist.
Every spring Milburne found himself having the same dream, full of alarming yet unspecified presentiment. In the dream he found himself sleeping in a strange large house, aware of some threatening presence that was searching for him. Each year the presence came a bit nearer, coming one room closer in the large labyrinthine house. Milburne becomes convinced that the eventual arrival in his own room of this phantom presence will unleash dramatic forces within his real life.
Life moves on, and Milburne continues to have the dream each year, and the presence continues to come one room closer each time. Even the intervention of World War One, in which both Leithen and Milburne serve with credit, each being invalided out, fails to break the sequence of dreams. However, in the meantime both Leithen and Milburne separately encounter the bizarre and exotic Kore Arabin, only child or the dissolute and rakish Shelley Arabin. Kore has inherited her father’s estate in Greece but now finds herself beset with local disputes that owe more to the darker side of Greek mythology than twentieth century life.
This is one of Buchan’s more fanciful (and, to my mind, less successful) novels, owing more than a little to J G Frasier’s then recently-published “The Golden Bough” which awoke hitherto unrecognised affinities with primordial legend across British society. Still, even if it doesn’t pass muster alongside such glorious works as “John Macnab”, this book is as beautifully written as ever, with Buchan’s trademark pellucid prose and simple yet immensely plausible characterisation. Perhaps this time, though, the sense of yearning for a better, more idealistic age leaves the reader with a slightly stronger sense of melancholy than is the case with Buchan’s more boisterous books. ( )