AJ Cronin. Anniversary of this Scottish doctor and writer

We all have a book at home Archibald Joseph Cronin. Or a compilation of their stories in volumes of fine onion paper and skin pastes. Sure. Well today, this Scottish physician and writer I would have fulfilled 122 years. He was a very successful novelist in the 40s and 50s and one of my first, let's say more or less, adult books was The adventures of a black briefcase on that cover. Today I review other of his titles in a memory of his figure.

Life is not a straight and easy corridor, through which we travel free and without obstacles, but a labyrinth of passages, in which we must find our way, lost and confused again and again stuck in a dead end.

But, if we have faith, God will always open a door that although it may not be the one we wanted, in the end it will be good for us.
AJ Cronin

Archibald Joseph Cronin

Born in Scotland on July 19, 1896. He wanted to be a writer from a young age, but decided to follow family advice and enrolled to study medicine at the University of Glasgow. In World War I it served as doctor in the Navy, and later practiced in Wales mining towns.

Was appointed medical inspector of mines and was commissioned to study the importance of lung disease in the mining regions of Great Britain in 1924. That experience and the one that followed when he practiced in more bourgeois neighborhoods in London served him long after as source of inspiration for your work. His novels mix realism and romanticism with social denunciation.

In 1930, on a health break, he began his career as a novelist writing The castle of hate, which was very successful. Then he was almost linking the publication of other novels such as Three lovesIn the Canary Islands and under the gaze of the stars.

But when got world fame went with The Citadel and Keys to the Kingdom. In them he narrated his religious concerns and his experiences as a doctor. Both novels were translated around the world and made into movies. The success of these film adaptations led him to live for a time in Hollywood, but then he returned to Europe, to the Blue Coast French, and ended up retiring in Switzerland, where he died in 1981.

Representative works

The adventures of a black briefcase

En 16 stories Cronin tells us the story of the doctor Hyslop finlay en levenford, a small Scottish town. Finlay, a young doctor, arrives to practice as a veteran's assistant and somewhat rough doctor cameron. It is a linear narrative that begins with Finlay's intervention in a tracheotomy of emergency practiced in miserable and almost heroic conditions on a boy with diphtheria. So to an end where there is also a murder in the middle.

De very easy to readThere is no lack of emotion or humor in the very small universe and characters so characteristic of that small Scottish town. Also keep in mind the context and the time in which the action takes place.

The Citadel

Again the protagonist is a young doctor, the doctor Andrew Manson, who arrives for his first job in a mining community in Wales. Your idealism and enthusiasm will soon be put to the test and you will almost go to the limit, upon discovering the reality of extreme poverty and lack of means for medical practice in the area. When you have too many problems you decide to move to London, where he continues to help working-class patients. But then a colleague asks him to work in a rich sick clinic.

This novel is perhaps the most relevant of Cronin, as he had a great influence on the creation of modern National system of health from United Kingdom.

I have written in La Ciudadela my opinion about the medical profession, its injustices, its boundless ambition, its stubbornness, its stupidities ... I have witnessed all the horrors that I narrate here. With this novel I don't want to denounce any specific person, but rather the system.

AJCronin

The year after its publication a film adaptation who directed King Vidor. They starred in it robert donat, Rosalind Russell y Rex Harrison between others. Of great success, it was nominated for 4 categories of the Oscars: best film, best actor (Donat), best direction and best adapted screenplay.

Keys to the Kingdom

Considered as your masterpiece, this novel recounts the life of father Francis Chisholm, an unconventional Scottish religious. Thus we go through his childhood until the tragic event that awakens his vocation: his missionary work in China in a very agitated period of famine, plague and civil war.

It was adapted to the cinema in 1944 with the same title. Directed her John M. Stahl and starred in it Gregory Peck, which earned a best actor nomination at the 1946 Oscars.

Other titles

  • The fate of Robert Shannon
  • The Spanish gardener
  • The green years
  • The grave of the crusader
  • The native doctor
  • The castle of hate
  • Beyond silence
  • The Judas tree
  • The Six Pence Song
  • Men propose (theater)

Be the first to comment

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: Miguel Ángel Gatón
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.