Corridors of power

TIMEOF HOPE

Lewis Eliot is a representative of modern society, he understands that to achieve comfort and power he must struggle and make compromise. The develop­ment of Eliot's career demonstrates a transmission from optimism of a poor young man to the wisdom of a middle-aged dutiful government official.

The most important novel is, perhaps, "Time of Hope" which helps the reader to understand the most subtle character. Eliot tells his own story about his childhood, about his hopes and dreams. He comes from a middle-class family, possessing great ambition and aspiration. His-mother's only desire is that her son should do well in his life. The problem of ambi­tion is in the centre of the novel. Ambition, to Snow, is a part of man's nature, but the weak and flabby characters turn ambition into desire for success. For­tunately, in the end Eliot understands that success is not everything in this life. Snow shows, very convinc­ingly, the evolution of his main personage, the change in his outlook and his attitude towards life.

Charles Snow's novels are remarkable for their imaginative power, their vivid situations and exact depiction of political moments. He tries to show the inner world of his characters. The novel "Time of Hope" is the key one, which helps the reader to

understand the most complicated aspects of Eliot's character.

Many pages in "Time of Hope" are dedicated to the story of Eliot's romantic love for Sheila Knights, the daughter of a well-to-do clergyman. Much attention is paid to the description of Sheila's and Eliot's feelings and their inner world. The reader takes into consider­ation the vast social background of the events.

A new stage in Charles Percy Snow's literary career began with the publication of "Corridors of Power" in 1964. It depicts a gallery of people at the head of England who are responsible for the policy of the state. The reader visits the Parliament, listens to the speeches and becomes a witness to the "political kitchen". The main character is Roger Quaife, a young politician. He is a realist, and he understands the danger of the production of nuclear weapons. He tries to prevent his country from unpredictable actions of this sort. But he fails, because the political leaders think only about their own profit. They don't take into consideration the interests of the common peo­ple. "Corridors of Power" is a masterpiece of critical realism, the author reveals the political essence of one of the powerful states of the world. The plot of the novel develops dynamically. The language of the book is rich, vivid and lively, and makes reading pleasant and interesting. The author is mostly concentrated on the revealing of the inner feelings and moral princi­ples of his characters.

Charles Percy Snow had a unique personality be­cause he managed to be a prominent scientist and an outstanding novelist simultaneously.

Graham Greene (1904-1991)

Graham Greene is a contradictory writer, possessing a great force of con­viction whose late novels seem to show la very rapid development towards criti­cal realism. Greene would characterize himself as a realist and a religious writer. He is a Catholic whose books have brought him an international estimation. Graham Greene was born in 1904 at Berkhamstead. His father Charles Henry Greene was a headmaster of the local church school. Henry Greene was a true Cath­olic. This fact strongly influenced the views of the writer since his very childhood.

Graham Greene was educated at Oxford. After grad­uating from it he became a subeditor of the "London Times" from 1926 to 1930. Greene travelled widely. He had been to all parts of Mexico which later became a scene of many of his novels. He first came to notice of the literary world with his novels of 1930's, such as "Brighton Rock" (1938) and "The Power and the Glory" (1940). With these books he introduced his own genre, the thriller based on moral significance.

"Brighton Rock" has at its centre an evil man who thinks he can conquer everything and everyone who stands in his way. He is outside the laws of man, but for Greene, only God's law is strong enough to reach him; his soul can be saved because he loves.

"The Power and the Glory" is considered to be one of his best novels. It tells the story of a priest in South America who is in danger and has to choose between saving his soul (by continuing acting as a priest) or his

body, either by escaping or refusing from his action as a priest. The characters who are failures are seen as being nearer God than those who are more successful in worldly ways.

Since the beginning of his literary career Graham Greene wrote along two lines: the so-called "serious novels" and "the entertaining novels". While the first are generally about the psychology of Man, the second are more of the detective type. The plot of such a novel is always exciting and violent. But all of his "entertain­ing" books have one common feature — the humanism of the author, his profound psychological analysis of the characters and the social problems of the day. The novels of "entertainment" are "Stamboul Train" (1932), "The Confidential Agent" (1939), "Our Man in Havana" (1958).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-07