The Citadel

"The Citadel" (1937) is a fine collection of por­traits in the medical world of England. The action in the novel begins in 1924 and ends in the middle of the 30's. The main character of the novel is Andrew Manson who after graduating from the university starts working as a general practitioner in a small

town in South Wales. The first steps are always hard, especially for Andrew who has to work on his own for Dr Page. Hard work is no burden for Andrew, but he lacks experience and practice, and he can't even diagnose his first patient.

Luckily, Andrew gets acquainted with doctor Philip Denny who helps him a lot. When an outbreak of typhoid begins, Manson is at a loss for he sees no way to fight it. Philip proposes to blow up the old sewer which causes infection. The scene of the blow­ing up of the sewer is one of the best in the novel.

Alongside difficulties and hardships Andrew meets love and affection. He gets acquainted with an attrac­tive and gentle young teacher, Christine Barlow. They fall in love with each other and get married.

Andrew undertakes a research on miners' lung diseases, and successfully passes his examinations. Strongly determined to make the best of his career, Andrew does not even notice how he gradually loses his best qualities as a man and as a scientist. Archibald Cronin gives a thorough description of Andrew's moral degradation: first money becomes his main aim in life, then he loses interest in work and scientific research. All this cannot but affect his relations with Chrisitine who sees what is happening and tries to stop his degradation. However, honesty prevails in Manson's nature: seeing one day how a patient dies because of stupidity of some doctors, Andrew is born anew. He becomes the Andrew of his first days in South Wales again. All goes well, but suddenly disas­ter comes. Christine is killed in a road accident. The blow is hard, Andrew suffers bitterly, but the catas­trophe helps him to see and understand many things. His duty as a man and as a doctor becomes quite clear to him: to serve people, to make people happy.

John Boynton Priestley (1894-1984)

John Boynton Priestley was

born in 1894 in Bradford. He started writing in 1919. Now he is known all over the world. Priestley was not only a famous writer, but an excellent sto­ryteller, critic and essayist. He could entertain his readers. More than that, he wrote plays that were very popular when they were first performed and are still produced today.

Priestley started as an essayist, then he began writ­ing novels. His first novel appeared in 1929 under the title "The Good Companions". It was a success. The author reveals the scenes of small provincial towns with their drab and dingy hotels and inns, old theatres and dirty buildings. In 1930 his novel "Angel Pave­ment" was published. The fate of the broken timber firm is described in this novel. The author skilfully reveals the atmosphere of unemployment, fear of never getting the job and fear of losing the job. Priestley depicts the feelings of unhappy workers who lose hope for better life.

It is interesting to know that John Priestley wrote more than forty plays. The most famous of them are "The Dangerous Corner" (1932), "Time and the Conways" (1937) and "An Inspector Calls" (1946).

"Time and the Conways" moves the time of the events of the play from the past to the present and back to the past again so that the audience can see the characters in their present situation and its contrast with their earlier hopes and intentions.

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"An Inspector Calls" shows how each member of;i family slowly understands that he or she is responsible, because a girl who knew them all in different ways has | killed herself.

In his short novels Priestley draws the readers' at-1 tention towards different episodes of the wartime | "blackout", the coming of demobilization, release, en­tertainment. His works are admired outside Britain. He I has distinguished himself as a prominent, the most fertile writer. But there is no doubt that John Priestley belongs to no trend or "school" style. "My own choice," he wrote, "is Broad Comedy, which is stronger | in situation than Light Comedy. [...] It is, I believe,; peculiarly suitable to the English temperament, it is the I field of comedy in which I have chosen to work" ("John \ Boynton Priestley", I. Brown).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Arthur Conan Doyle was born 1859 in Edinburgh into a family of a clerk. Arthur was well-educated, he be­came a doctor of medicine and worked as a doctor on a whaler, and then in Africa. His medical knowledge was a great help to him in writing detective stories.

He gained a great popularity in 1887 when his first! detective novel "A Study in Scarlet" was published. His next novels, "The Sign of Four" (1890) and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1902) established him as a famous author. He became the greatest master of this

thrilling genre. Detective fiction attracts the readers who are extremely interested in discovering for them­selves the answer to the mystery or who the murderer is. Each story is a puzzle to be solved. A great master of a detective story, Arthur Conan Doyle managed to thrill the world. He created five volumes of detective stories about Sherlock Holmes:

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1891), "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" (1894), "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1905), "His Last Bow" (1917), "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" (1927).

The detective novel is a form that became very popular towards the end of the 19th century, particular­ly through the "Sherlock Holmes" stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 60 Sherlock Holmes adventures — four long novels and 56 short stories.

Sherlock Holmes is a name that everybody knows. The readers learn a lot about him from the stories in which he appears. He has a thin no­ble face and intelligent eyes. He smokes a pipe and plays the violin. He lives at Baker Street in London. As a detec­tive, Sherlock Holmes has ex­traordinary powers of deduc­tion.

London. Monument to Sherlock Holmes

Doctor Watson, his faithful friend and assistant, helps Holmes in the moments of danger. Professor Moriarty,

his great enemy, kills Holmes. But the readers didn'j like it, and the writer had to write another story ii| which Sherlock Holmes appears again.

Conan Doyle decided to "kill" Sherlock Holmes be cause he wanted to spend his time on more seriou&] writing. But it is for Sherlock Holmes that Conan Doyle] is remembered not only for his historical stories. •

The Sherlock Holmes adventures have been pub­lished, staged and filmed in at least 40 languages." Moreover, the detectives all over the world have been inspired by Holmes's methods of deduction.

By the way, in our imagination Sherlock Holmes is я real person to whom people write real letters from all the corners of our planet; they celebrate his birthday on the 6th of January. In their letters addressed to Mr Holmes many people seek his help in finding either a missing pet or friend, some ask him to detect a crime or solve a mystery. All these letters arrive at the Sherlock Holmes Museum situated in 221b, Baker Street.

According to the stories written by Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes lived and worked there for 23 years.

The house itself was built in 1815 in Victorian times.

The rooms are small, there are two large windows in the study of the famous detec­tive. On the second floor one can see the room of Dr Watson. The visitors of the I museum can feel the atmosphere of life in |

Sherlock Holmes Museum. Victorian times.
221b, Baker Street, London _;,,

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Agatha Christie (born Agatha Miller) was born in Torquay, England on September 15, 1890. In 1914 she married Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. They had one daughter, Rosalind, be­fore their divorce in 1928.

Christie's long line of books started with "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" which was written in 1915 and published in 1920. Her early books have a Belgian detective, Her-cule Poirot, as the hero, while the main character of the later books is Miss Marple, a quiet old English lady.

Agatha Christie reached the top of her fame in 1970, though people's tastes were changing radically during that period of time. Thus it is possible to notice some changes in the manner and style of her mystery writing from 1920 to the later period. The form is still of the detective story but relatively new. It becomes more mature and sophisticated for the readers can take into consideration as many details as the detective can. Moreover, the author can skilfully combine two devic­es, the spiritualism and nursery rhyme, to make her stories more intricate.

Agatha Christie uses spiritualism as a mask for mys­tery. Although she is extremely interested in science fiction, "she avoided both science and fantasy as main themes." She remains the best writer of a tightly-knit detective story.

Agatha Christie uses tbe nursery rhyme to let the reader follow the developing of the plot. The reader

knows what comes next (due to the rhyme). The fa­mous examples of such a nursery rhyme combination are "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" and "Ten Little Nig­gers".

TEN LITTLE NIGGERS

"Ten little Niggers" is not only a thrilling criminal case, but it is a great theatrical murder. It possesses a j deep philosophical power and it has an important psychological meaning. Crime and Punishment are! vividly reflected in the form of the unsolved murder mystery.

Ten people dead on an island and not a living soul on it.

A fanatic "with a bee in his bonnet about justice" picks ten people whose business is criminal, but who are beyond the reach of the Law. "The murderer, Mr Justice Wargrave, the judge, has a definite sadistic delight in seeing a criminal being killed. Right should prevail." His desire is to act instead of to judge, a desire to commit a murder himself.

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