Realism in the English post-War II literature. Ch.P.Snow, G.Greene, their major works.

                                 LITERATURE FROM THE 1940s TO THE 1970s

      The Second World War influenced greatly the ideological and economic life of Britain. This could not but affect the development of English literature.During the war Great Britain suffered heavy financial losses. The post-war programme of the Labour Party became the only hope for a better future for the British people. It promised to do away with unemployment, to improve living conditions, to level out prices. Great attention in the programme was paid to cooperation with the Soviet Union. So the elections of 1945 brought defeat to the Conservatives and ensured victory to the Labour Party. Very soon, however, the British people saw that the policy of the labour leaders did not differ much from that of their predecessors. From 1946 Great Britain faced strong resistance on the part of the oppressed people of India and Egypt. Great Britain was losing one colony after another and becoming more dependent on the USA. The failure of the Labour Government that promised a lot and did nothing, the cold war and the atomic threat, the rapid intensification of the cultural and moral crisis — these were the factors in the 50s—60s which influenced the minds of the British people, particularly the intellectuals, and caused their disillusionment.

Due to the deepening of the capitalist economic crisis the position of the working masses became worse in the 70s. Prices were rapidly going up. By the end of the decade inflation had reached more than 25 % annually and the number of unemployed amounted to the unprecedented figure of 2.5 mm. The workers responded to the government's economic policy with numerous strikes and demonstrations. The continuous arms race and the growing threat of a third world war led to a new wave of the anti-war movement which developed on a wide scale and involved millions of British people. All this was reflected in the literature of that time.

   Special mention should be made of Jack Lindsay (1900—1990), whose important contribution to English literature is his series of novels under the collective title Novels of the British Way. The first of these. Betrayed Spring, was well known to Soviet readers. In it Lindsay gave a fine picture of the complicated political situation in Britain after World War II. Besides socialist literature, other literary tendencies appeared one after another: "the angry young men" (1953—1957), "new left" and "teenager's literature" (after 1958), the "working-class novel" and the "new wave drama". The novel with a philosophical tendency was born and the traditional satirical novel flourished to the full. The essence of all these literary phenomena was the earnest search of the writers for their place in life, for a better future.

                    GRAHAM GREENE(1904—1991)

     Graham Greene was born at Berkhamsted, near London. He was educated at Oxford. From 1926 to 1930 he was sub-editor of the London Times. He started writing in the late 20s. He wrote a lot of short stories, critical essays, travel books plays and novels. He travelled a good deal and his novels are set in various countries of the world. Since the beginning of his literary career Greene has been writing in two veins — the so-called "serious novels" and the "entertaining novels". While the former are generally a meditation on the psychology of man, the latter are more of the detective type of novel. The group of "serious novels" is represented by The Man Within (1929), England Made Me (1935), The Power and the Glory' (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The Quiet American (1955), A Burnt-Out Case (1961). The "entertaining novels" are: Stamboul Train (1932), A Gun for Sale (1936), The Confidential Agent (1939), Loser Takes All (1955), The Ministry of Fear (1968) and others. The borderline between these two groups is, however, vague because the former are often constructed along detective or adventure lines while the  latter often pose serious problems.

Greene's novels touch on the burning political issues of the day — the American war in Vietnam in The Quiet American (1955), the people's struggle against the reactionary dictatorship in Haiti in The Comedians (1966), racism in South Africa in The Human Factor (1978), political terrorism in Getting to Know the General: the Story of an Involvement (1984). The social and political events serve as a background against which the problems of an ethical nature are dealt with. Greene's novels present a profound search into the depths of human psychology and are permeated with philosophical reflections on the nature of man and the human predicament. His last novel The Captain and the Enemy (1988) shows how complex and unpredictable human characters are. It treats of love and hatred, of devotion and betrayal.

    The major conflict in several of his novels occurs between believers, who live according to the law of the Church and unbelievers. And yet Greene avoids the easy solution that the believer will be saved and the unbeliever damned. He tries to find a way to reconcile these opposite views. This idea permeates the novel Monsignor Quixote (1982) and his public speeches, one of which was delivered at the International Forum "For Nuclear-Free World, for Survival of Humanity" held in Moscow in 1987. Well-known are also his short stories and funny entertaining tales for children such as The Little Fire Engine (1950), The Little Horse Bus (1952) and others. His last collection of short stories was prophetically headlined The Last Word (1990). The title story of the collection sounds as the writer's behest to the living. It asserts the necessity of faith for every individual and for society at large.

                               THE QUIET AMERICAN

The novel is essentially political and it brings forward the most important problem in the progressive

Literature of our days — the problem of choice. For the first time Greene strongly condemns the sordid laws of colonialism, presents the truth of the American colonial policy. The plot of The Quiet American is centred round a murder. It is not a detective novel, for the theme is profoundly political. The action of the novel is set in Vietnam in the 1950s, when the country was a French colony. The "quiet" American Pyle is employed in the American Economic Aid Mission, but his real duty is to arrange various acts of sabotage and provocation, trying to accuse communists of them and paving the way for the growth of American influence. His antagonist is Fowler, an English newspaper correspondent. Fowler is not young, he is unhappy in private life, disillusioned and tired. His creed is not to get involved in anything. Fowler reports only what he sees, trying to be indifferent to everything. But sooner or later one has to make a choice, and Fowler does so. He begins to help the people of Vietnam in their struggle against the French troops.

 Greene is a contradictory writer; theoretically he is noncommittal; in his works, however, the characters are forced to take sides, or to make a choice, in the political struggle. The novel Doctor Fischer of Geneva, or the Bomb Party (1980) disclosed a new aspect of Greene's literary skill. This relatively short work contains a sombre satire on the modem bourgeois world. It exposes the overwhelming power of money and the limitless lust for it in the rich. Greene's novels are characterized by a great force of conviction, concreteness of description and precision in rendering characters and situations. These, as well as the wide scope and preoccupation with the most urgent problems of the day, make Greene one of the most prominent writers of contemporary world literature.

                     CHARLES PERCY SNOW (1905—1980)

  C. P. Snow is one of the most outstanding realist writers of the 20th century England. He was bom in Leicester in 1905, the second of the four sons. Snow's father was a clerk in a shoe factory. Charles was educated in Alderman Newton Grammar School, where, in the sixth form, he specialized in science. Later he worked as a laboratory assistant at the same school, while studying for a university scholarship. At Leicester University College in 1927 he took a First Glass Honours degree in chemistry. After that he worked on molecular physics and became a Fellow of Christ's College in 1930. When World War II broke out. Snow joined the Civil Service and was engaged in selecting scientific personnel. Alongside with his public activities Snow devoted himself to literature. His first novel was a detective story Death Under Sail (1932). Literary fame came to Snow when in 1940 he started publishing a series of novels under the general title of Strangers and Brothers. In took him more than a quarter of a century to finish his work comprising eleven novels, the most important ones being: The Light and the Dark (.1947), Time of Hope (1949). The Conscience of the Rich (1958), The Affair (1960), Corridors of Power (1964). His last novel of the series was finished in 1970, it is called Last Things.

  The title of the series came from the title of the first novel, Stangers and Brothers (1940). It is about George Passant, a qualified clerk in a solicitor's firm. His strong personality makes him the focus of a group of young people who follow him. The life of George Passant is tragic; he is an idealist, who believes in man and society, and the ability of man to live in freedom. But his best dreams are frustrated and life shows its darker side. The title of the series is highly symbolic. People are "strangers" if they live alone, isolated from their environment. But there is something uniting all of them: griefs and sorrows, happiness and joy which make all of them "brothers". The limits of these notions are very frail, for today's "strangers" may become tomorrow's "brothers", and vice versa. Thus the main problems of all the novels are as follows: what makes people brothers? What should a man do to survive in a hostile world?

All these novels are united by one main character, Lewis Eliot. Through him Snow set out to examine and portray the life of an English man in the post-World War I years. Eliot is clearly a man of modern society: he is ambitious, anxious to gain comfort and power. He understands that to achieve these he must struggle and compromise.

   Snow is realistic in his description of the vast labyrinths of a bureaucratic society where the individual, if he has no guidance, has to look for the way out himself. He is a master of the social portrait, too. In his series of novels he creates a gallery of typical representatives of all the strata of contemporary society.

                 THE WORKING-CLASS NOVEL

  An important development of the 1950s and early 1960s was the emergence of the working-class novel. By this time the "angry young men" had shown the first signs of reconciliation with the existing reality. In fact, the reading public was expecting something new and fresh.

The working-class novel of the 50s-60s brought new themes into the proletarian English literature. First of all they introduced a new working class hero, with his aimless protest and passionate fury against everything and everybody. Another peculiarity of the working class novels is a strong emphasis on the workers' private life. The first books were very favourably greeted by the English bourgeois critics, because the hero introduced by the writers agreed with the Labour ideal of the young worker.

The reading public and the critics saw in the books of Sillitoe, Chaplin, Barstow and others the true representation of the working class life, the sincere attempts of the writers to achieve a better understanding of life conflicts, to solve some of the urgent problems of our times.