Песенка в шесть пенсов и карман пшеницы

by A.J. Cronin, Арчибальд Кронин

Fine/No Jacket. Hardcover. No marks or inscriptions. No creasing to covers or to spine. A very clean very tight copy with bright unmarked leatherette boards, minor foxing to page edges and no bumping to corners. 414pp. With two novels in one volume, starting with the early years of the main character in Scotland and later his time as an unscrupulous medic. We do not use stock photos, the picture displayed is of the actual book for sale. Every one of our books is in stock in the UK ready for immediate delivery.

480 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Archibald Joseph Cronin was a Scottish novelist, dramatist, and non-fiction writer who was one of the most renowned storytellers of the twentieth century. His best-known works are The Citadel and The Keys of the Kingdom, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films. He also created the Dr. Finlay character, the hero of a series of stories that served as the basis for the long-running BBC television and radio series entitled Dr. Finlay's Casebook.
-Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.J._Cronin

Reviews

[Annise · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first picked this book up, years ago, I dismissed it (too quickly) because I wasn't gripped by the first page. Years later, I decided to give it another go.

A Song of Sixpence is a biographical story about a boy growing up in Scotland, and his trials and tribulations. The strength of it is in the characters. They're all drawn beautifully, with their quirks and personalities shining. From the wealthy spinster who takes Laurence under her wing, to the dour uncle who apprentices him, they all felt real. There were no true villains, no spot-free heroes; just a collection of very real people. The writing was solid and easy to read, if antiquated at times. Despite expecting it to be dry, I eventually found myself invested, rooting for Laurence as he fought to get himself an education in the face of poverty, and I grinned at the final twist at the story's conclusion.

A Pocketful of Rye is ostensibly a sequel. However, aside from the character's name and a couple of historical details, it might as well not be. It picks up several years after the final event of the first book, and Laurence has changed beyond recognition. None of the secondary characters from the first book appear, and hardly any of them are even mentioned. Because the two books were in the same volume, I found this jarring. A few chapters in I mentally re-categorized it as a different character, and it made more sense. Laurence is a doctor, working in a Swiss retreat for children with TB. A friend asks him to look after an old flame and her son, who is supposedly suffering from TB. She appears and starts to make trouble in the life he's built for himself, and in the process makes him re-examine who he is. On its own merits, it was a good story. It had much of the same strength of characters as the first book, the same strong sense of place, and the same solid writing.

As soon as I stopped thinking of it as a sequel, I enjoyed it. But as a sequel, it sucked. There is a paltry attempt to backfill between the end of the first book and the beginning of the second, but it doesn't do enough to show how the fifteen year old boy becomes the jaded doctor, or when he started being so much of a jerk. It would have made nearly as much sense if he'd renamed the main character and made it an unrelated story.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by a duology I'd disregarded as a teenager, and while it isn't going to supplant any of my favourites, it entertained me while I was ill. I'm just bemused by some of the choices.