THE JUDAS TREE by AJ CRONIN - BOOK REVIEW

THE JUDAS TREE  by AJ CRONIN - BOOK REVIEW

'The Judas Tree' by AJ Cronin (1896-1981) published in 1961 is an absolute classic novel.

I chanced to lay my hands on it amongst the significant collection of non-medical books at home. It was meant to be a 'time-pass ' on my return from Bengaluru.

'The Judas Tree' and my sister's carefully packed Pongal lunch and dinner made me firmly glued to my seat 75 in C3U of Uday!

I had read 'The Citadel' by the famous man in 1977. It had left a lasting memory in me! The physician turned novelist had a flair for words, candor for scenery and could spin a mean plot for several generations of characters! 

You taste the flavour of the events horizontally and smell a whiff of the plot vertically as it descends down the subsequent generations! As always, there is a twist in the tail, with an unforeseen ending!

Dr David Murray top of his class, falls in love with Mary Douglas. Love is portrayed, as it generally is for the middle class man! One feels the dedication of a struggling, but brilliant medical student with the singular motto of brilliant academics!

But forces conspire him to marry unhappily Doris, a rich woman for money in conniving circumstances! He gets separated from her after a brief petiod to be a rich man! The scenes are set in rich, expensive circumstances of the bourgeois living in Switzerland!

Trying to make amends for the deceipt of his earlier lover, he succumbs to fall in love with Mary's daughter, Kathy. The vigour of a focussed, unspoiled young woman in her dedication to the poor and the deprived society is well painted!

Only to fall a prey to a much older Frida, a mentally strong (?too strong) woman! Her firm actions are blatantly direct and honest!

Which tells you too much honesty too fast may not be the best policy! (as most politicians can vouch for!!😉)

One wonders why and how the author is able to write fluently about the incidents horizontally and vertically down the generations! Has the experience of being a physician seeing generations of families, helped him to weave a thread of imaginary events so lucidly? Not only in this, but also his other novels too! ..... I guess so!

Reading this novel gives you a sad feeling! But the writing makes his characters and surroundings come alive !

A welcome break from the mobile for a while!

Also the reading keeps your mind from wandering off, from why Uday Express is called a Super Fast Train. The modern train keeps travelling super fast only to be stopped in the outer part of Coimbatore junction for a long long time! It is certainly a Super Stop for a Super Train!

And one wonders if the railway officers should be trained by air controllers, so that they will learn to keep the trains moving all the time except in the stations!😂