Ministry of higher and secondary specialized education of the republic of uzbekistan state university of world languages english language faculty №1 Course paper theme: james aldridge-his life and work group: Written by: Supervisor

The types and creation of work written by James Aldridge

During his lifetime James Aldridge achieved to make a lot of masterpieces and wery popular work including novels, novellas, even in lyrics he tries to make an effort. In the following we can see his works as example:
The list of novels:

1. 
   The Diplomat (1949)
   
2. 
   The Hunter (1950)
   
3. 
   Heroes of the Empty View (1954)
   
4. 
   Signed with Their Honour (1954)
   
5. 
   Undersea Hunting for Inexperienced Englishmen (1955)
   
6. 
   I Wish He Would Not Die (1957)
   
7. 
   The Last Exile (1961)
   
8. 
   A Captive in the Land (1962)
   
9. 
   The Flying 19 (1966)
   
10. 
    · My Brother Tom (1966)
    
11. 
    The Statesman's Game (1966)
    
12. 
    Sea Eagle (1971)
    
13. 
    Sporting Proposition (1973)
    
14. 
    Of Many Men (1974)
    
15. 
    Mockery in Arms (1974)
    
16. 
    The Marvellous Mongolian (1974)
    

17. The Untouchable Juli (1975)
18. Ride a Wild Pony (1976)
19. One Last Glimpse (1977)
20. Goodbye Un-America (1979)
21. The Broken Saddle (1982)
22. The True Story of Lilli Stubeck (1984)
23. The True Story of Spit Macphee (1986)
24. The True Story of Lola Mackellar (1992)
25. The Girl from the Sea (2002)
26. Non fiction- Cairo (1970)
27. Anthologies containing stories by James Aldridge - The 4th Bumper Book of Ghost Stories (1980)

- Short stories - The Black Ghost of St Helen (1980)The first books of Aldridge aroused considerable interest not only in their life truthfulness and reliability of the narrative but also in the profound democracy of the writer, who was vitally interested in the victory of the people. The early works of James Aldridge - “A Matter of Honor” (Signed with Their Honor, 1942), “Sea Eagle” (The Sea Eagle, 1944) and “About Many People” (Of Many Men, 1946) - are a major achievement of the advanced English military literature time. These works pleased with the novelty, freshness of the writer's voice, clarity of political thought. They were perhaps the first war veterans in England who brought the truth about the suffering of millions and the determination of peoples to defend their independence and freedom. James Aldridge's first novel, A Matter of Honor, paints a vivid picture of the popular liberation movement in Greece, from the moment the Italo-Nazi invaders invaded October 1940 until the Nazis captured the country in April 1941. The Greek people defending their freedom are opposed in the novel is a rotten fascist-metaxist elite in power. The writer shows how poorly armed Greek soldiers fought selflessly for their land and what sinister, treacherous role metaxists and representatives of the high English command played. Already from the first novel, marked by the stamp of undoubted talent, one can judge about Aldridge's democracy, about his considerable life experience, great observation, persistent search for his individual style of writing. In the early works of Aldridge, especially in the novel “The Case of Honor,” one can hear the echoes of Hemingway intonation. However, this influence exerted by Hemingway on Aldridge at the time of the formation of his creative method should not be overestimated. The young writer inevitably enters into a kind of ideological and artistic polemic with him. Aldridge reinterprets the theme of courage in the face of death, takes a new approach to portraying the patriotism of a people fighting for its independenceHis heroes experience the same bitterness as the heroes of Hemingway's novel “Farewell to Arms,” but they more clearly see the culprits of the senseless and tragic deaths of people and they all make their way to the truth in one way or another, overcoming the moods of political indifference typical of many representatives of the English bourgeois intelligentsia.

Aldridge very soon discovers his independence as an artist, and this is greatly facilitated by the breadth of his views and the ever-increasing historical experience brought by him from the liberation struggle of the peoples. Aldridge's path in this sense is directly opposite to the path of various Hemingway epigones, blindly canonizing the early manner of his teacher, his deliberately simplified, stylized tale, which Hemingway himself later largely abandoned. The desire to portray noble human characters, which is one of the main features of Aldridge's creative work, makes him related to the best traditions of English and world classical literature.
The lyrical theme - the love of the Greek patriot Elena Stangu and the English aviator John Quale, the awakening and development of this love, its tragic character, due to the harsh atmosphere of the war - occupies a prominent place in the novel “A Matter of Honor”. The personal fates of the heroes, inextricably linked with the nationwide struggle against fascism, are, as it were, illuminated by its light. In the family of Elena Stangu, John Quale found the true patriots of Greece, people of advanced beliefs who are persecuted by the metaxists. Communication with this family, bitter military experience prompts the hero to think a lot, overestimates his views on life. Quale saw that "his views are not ugliness" and that he is not alone. And Mann, and young Gorell, and many others are in the same mood as he is. “The day will come when they will all come together,” is Quail's conclusion. The novel "A Matter of Honor", dedicated to the fate and quest of John Quale, closely leads the writer to the theme of the people who have risen to fight.This theme is developed in the novel "Sea Eagle", in which the clarity of political thought, the boldness of exposing the perpetrators of the tragedy of the Greek people, combined with high artistic merits. An epigraph was prefaced to Roman, which gives the key to the author's plan and introduces a dynamically developing action into a passionate struggle. “Nis defended Megara,” the epigraph says, “when the Minotaur invaded the country. His half-brother decided to take Megara into his own hands as soon as Nis defeated the Minotaur. Nis penetrated his plan and told Zeus about him. Zeus turned his half-brother into a fish and Nisu gave power at will to turn into a sea eagle in order to pursue his stepbrother in this image and observe the actions of enemies."
The action of the novel "Sea Eagle" takes place on the island of Crete at the moment when the last act of the drama that the Greek people experienced came: having occupied Greece, the Nazis occupied Crete, destroying the Australian, New Zealand and English troops that did not have time to leave the island.
During the actions of novel, the wounded Australian Enges Burke roams in search of salvation. A skeptical person, he tries to remain an outside observer of the events unfolding in front of him. He meets the Greek patriot Nis on his way; close acquaintance with him and participation in a joint struggle prompts Burke to think and doubt the correctness of his position of political indifference. Fate brings with Nis another Australian, the simple-minded giant Stone, a man of unbending will, possessing restraint and humor; adopted as a brother by the kind-hearted Littosian fishermen, Stone is close to them. The image of the freedom-loving Greek Nis - the "sea eagle" - a man of great spiritual strength and nobility, who knows how to be a devoted friend and a passionate, implacable fighter, helps to understand how deep the roots of the national liberation movement are. This is one of the best images of a national hero in the literature of the Second World War.James Aldridge manifests himself in this novel as a master of a tense, fascinatingly developing plot. He knows how to convey the drama of life, to show the clash of social forces, the deep antagonism between the people and their enemies. The novel shows that the reactionary goals and intentions of the metaxist clique aspiring for power found sympathy and support in well-known English circles.
Showing how people infected with ironic skepticism overcome it and join the ranks of the fighters against fascism, Aldridge does not separate this topic from the image of the nobility and power of ordinary people like Nyssa or the giant Sarandaki, who boldly meet the danger. The lyrical overtones are especially noticeable in the workshops' dialogs, which eloquently testify to the deep emotional experiences of the characters of The Sea Eagle.
The book "On many people" consists of separate chapters, short stories, from essays written at different times, but connected by a unity of ideological design and the image of the protagonist. In vivid fragments, she gives a brief chronicle of the outbreak of the Second World War, sets out its dramatic course and completion.
The book is a kind of review of the most important theaters of war. Events are given through the perception of the protagonist, the sharp-sighted journalist Wolfe, a Scottish-born. Wolf visited Spain during the war of the Spanish people against fascist invaders and is full of sympathy for anti-fascists. The book outlines the silhouettes of many people whom he happened to see. He writes about his meetings on the mountain roads of Norway, where he comprehended the calm courage of the Norwegian people, writes about people he met in the rear, in America. He talks about close friends and literary snobs deeply alien to him, whom he mentally calls "corrupt creatures." In Italy, Wolf saw such folk heroes as the Italian anti-fascist Fabiano, whom the representatives of the Anglo-American command held accountable for punishing the fascist killers who mocked the Italian people. Wolfe describes the persecution that Fabiano was subjected to as a typical manifestation of a certain policy of encouraging revanchism. Wolfe visited the USSR, where the people gave everything for victory, met with staunch people who defended Stalingrad.
The figure of Wolf, a man seeking the truth, plays a fundamentally important role in the book. It enables the author not only to cement together fragmented fragments, but also to show the aspirations of one of the typical representatives of the English democratic intelligentsia.
The genre of the book "On many people" is peculiar: these are more likely links of short stories, closely related to each other, than an integral novel. Aldridge has established himself here as a brilliant storyteller, owning the secret of the dynamic development of action, convexly outlining his images, skillfully building a dialogue, always with a deep undercurrent of thought. The book "On many people" is one of the approaches of the writer to the great epic canvas - the novel "Diplomat".
The play Forty-Ninth State, written in 1946, can also be seen to some extent as a harbinger of the novel Diplomat. And not only because Aldridge turned to acute international problems, which in itself is indicative of his creative development, but also because in this work the important aspect of the writer's talent was revealed in its entirety - the ability to create satirical images. The events depicted in the play take place “80 years after our time”, but it bears the stamp of our days. In this work in the form of a political buffoonery, the author poses such an important issue as the Anglo-American contradictions after the Second World War. The writer shows that the desire of the monopolistic circles of the United States of America for world domination creates an immediate threat to England, its dominions and colonies. The play feels the anxiety of the progressive English intelligentsia for the fate of their country, which, as a result of the anti-national policy of the Labor government, "for the first time in history" lost its independence and freedom of action in the field of foreign, economic and military policy, submitting to a foreign power - the United States of America "(" The Way of Britain to socialism ”is the program of the Communist Party of Great Britain.The novel "Diplomat" (The Diplomat, 1949), on which James Aldridge worked for four years and in which, according to him, he invested himself, is one of the most significant phenomena of English literature of the post-war period. Despite the attacks of reactionary criticism, this novel found its way to a wide audience and was a well-deserved success.
The novel "The Hunter" Aldridge devotes to people of work who have preserved the nobility and purity of the soul in the cruel conditions of their existence. Aldridge shows interest in the spiritual world and the fate of such people from the very first steps of his literary activity. In this book, he contrasts his understanding of man with the mockery of him that is characteristic of modernist literature.
Although there is no breadth of the social horizons of The Diplomat in The Hunter, the author in this novel also touches on the disturbing social problems facing his heroes - Canadian hunters and farmers. Aldridge is deeply concerned with human destinies.
The novel reveals the tragedy of the Indian Bob, a pounded, lonely, reserved and proud man. He loves and respects Roy, who sacrifices his interests for him and despises his oppressors. Aldridge's democratic views and his humanism are also manifested in the historically truthful depiction of Indian tribes doomed by capitalism to slow death. The author shows the unity of white and colored peoples in their struggle for their vital interests. The friendship of Roy McNair and the Indian Bob, in their growing mutual understanding, reveals the best aspects of their nature - integrity of character, responsiveness and humanity, manifested in a restrained form, only emphasizing the strength of their emotions.
Beautiful in the novel are descriptions of the harsh nature, among which the heroes of Aldridge live, fight and win. The writer, as it were, returns to the mood of the novel "Sea Eagle" and writes a book imbued with lyrics and philosophical reflection on the fates of people who are close to nature and feel their inextricable connection with it, waging a fierce struggle to not perish and not become brutal in immense forest wilderness.Hunter is a beautifully constructed novel,” the Daily Worker wrote, “reflecting a person's hope, struggle and victory over despair; this side of the book is very important at the moment. This novel, of course, does not have the scope and scale of a Diplomat but thanks to the skill of the author, determination, "The Hunter" is immeasurably higher than most of the books now appearing" ⁶