PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 26

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

DR.CRONIN'S BOMBSHELL

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "The Citadel," by A. J. Cronin, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:— .

In 1931, Archibald J. Cronin, a young doctor, of exceptional talent, left his profession, to follow his natural bent, which, as most people know, is writing. In that year he published his "Hatter's Castle," a fierce onslaught against the cruelty which he felt existed in. the world. "Three Loves," "The Stars Look Down," and "Grand Canary" followed—all mainly centred around the tneme of injustice. A reader of any of these books becomes immediately aware that Cronin feels some things very ■ deeply, so deeply sometimes that he could be accused of needless morbidity. Very often it would appear that he is, but on analysing his work, we suspect that it is not he who is morbid, but that our code of ethics, weakened by greed and injustice, ■ has perhaps less lea\ 7ening effect than it had in this present world of big profits and poverty. David and Joe, the two miners' sons of "The Stars Look Down," furnish an example. Joe Gowlan, an unstable character, deceitful, rotten to the core, becomes the head of a huge manufacturing firm by deceit and sharp practice, and is successful enough to become a member of Parliament; but David Fenwick, solid, conscientious, burning with the desire to ease the terrible conditions of a great section of British working people, finally sees his fine ideals outshone by the showy deceit of his onetime fellow, Joe Gowlan. Such is life today, is the implication. In this new book Dr. Cronin has chosen for his background the medical profession, a field which he knows well. Late one October afternoon in the year 1924 the reader finds a shabby young man gazing with fixed intensity through the window of a third-class compartment in the almost empty train labouring up the, Penowell Valley, from Swansea. All that day, Andrew Manson had travelled from the north, changing at Carlisle and. Shrewsbury, yet the final stage of his tedious journey to South Wales found him strung to a still greater excitement by the prospects of his post, the first of his medical career, in that strange disfigured country. His appointment was that of medical assistant to Dr. Page, one of the three doctors in Blaenelly employed by the mines company to give medical care to the employees and their families. * , In taking up his position he finds himself in the midst of a peculiar state of affairs. . Dr. Page is ill, so ill indeed that the young doctor doubted if he would ever work again, but his wife, Blowden Page, asemi-illiter-ate mean, grasping woman, persuaded the mines officials that he was merely temporarily incapacitated, and in consequence was able to draw the doctor's full salary, out of which she paid the assistant a mere pittance. Manson's first case came immediately after he had had tea and^ after examining the patient he found that he could not make a diagnosis. Finally, in desperation he made his way back to the dispensary and commenced to compound an anti-pyretic mixture. He had just finished his compounding and with a mild sense of achievement was writing the label when the surgery bell went "Ping," the outer door swung open, and a short, powerfullybuilt, thick-set, red-faced man of thirty strolled in, followed by a dog. There was a silence while the black and tan mongrel squatted on its muddy haunches, and the man, who wore an old velveteen suit, pit stockings, and hobnailed boots with a sodden oilskin cape over his shoulders, looked Andrew Manson up and down. His voice when it came was politely ironic and annoyingly well-bred. He was Phillip Denny, a morose, cynical man, who sought oblivion in the Welsh valleys after the destruction of his love. At heart he was a kindly man and the influence of personality had much to do with the final triumph of Manson's inherently good character. As Denny went, he hinted that Manson's case was probably, typhoid, and he was right. It became a mild epidemic and did not die away until Denny and MansOn blew up an old sewer, an act which roused the authorities from their horrible apathy.

Soon Blodwen Page's conduct became intolerable and he sent in his notice, and very shortly afterwards was appointed medical officer in a similar town, Aberlaw. On the day of his departure to take up his new post, he married Christine Barlow, a young school teacher whose sweet disposition and goodness won his love, and together they "set out for Aberlaw to meet the future. Here (with the aid of a valuable miscroscope given by Denny as a wedding present) Mans On. commenced a study of lung diseases suffered by miners, and finally completed a masterly thesis which won for him the M.D. degree, which was followed, by the M.R.C.P. His success, however, was offset by much adversity and rather than run his head against a wall he resigned and became a research worker in the Mines Fatigue Board. Again he encountered difficulty, chiefly red tape, and ipoihtless discussions and he was 'finally driven into practice. This practice, in London, marked a distinct change in his character, a change that saddened the heart of his devoted wife. Money became an obsession and he joined a coterie of guinea-chasing young medicos.. Tragedy overtook him when on the point of reforming, and served to give added impetus to his reawakening. Brought before the G.M.C. for assisting a brilliant but unregistered person practising in a department of medicine, he bitterly indicted his profession and was acquitted.; ;

The last pages are distinctly hopeful, leaving' the impression that good must come but of ideals nobly worked —and so "The Citadel" emerges as perhaps the best so far, of the Cronin books.