"The Judas Tree" - AJ Cronin

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I read this book a few years back and enjoyed it, but don't remember much about it. Just that "it was a good book" sense.

I have read quite a few of AJ Cronin. First being "Keys of the Kingdom", which I loved on first read (prior to my full reversion to the faith)...
Then a year ago and met it with more of a "grrrrr".

AJ Cronin was a Catholic, but when writing about specifically Catholic things (like in "Keys of the Kingdom" he's as heterodox as any pantsuit wearing sister. I didn't notice it the first time round... but on the 2nd reading the pious (in a derisive way) character, "Anselm Mealy", is constantly painted as the dreadfully out of touch one. He's a childhood 'friend' of the main character (Francis Chisholm). Cronin paints Mealy (even that name "Mealy") being both very orthodox in his Catholicism (which as the reader you gather as being very bad) as well as very worldly. I don't know, maybe that was Cronin's experience... but, from my vantage worldly usually goes hand-in-hand with appeasement and eschewing dogma so at to look more, well.... worldly.

He even includes a line at the end that states (paraphrased) "Jesus might have been wiser, but Confucius had a better sense of humor".... this being in the context of how humor is better than wisdom; and how tolerance is the most important virtue, with humility coming in 2nd.

So, when writing about Catholic doctrine/dogma, he's a dork.

But, he's a gifted writer and when talking about Catholicism in practice; and the consequences of living a life antithetical to those doctrines and dogmas.

David Moray is the main character of the novel. A very wealthy Scottish man who when you first meet him is living the retired life (was a doctor) in Switzerland.
He's at a party with once wealthy woman, who is now poor but still able to put on a good veneer. At this party Cronin narrates on how another beautiful woman married a "Herman Schutz".. "The richest cheese exporter in Swizterland". Cronin goes on to describe him as,

A large, pallid, heavy man who seemed fashioned from his own product.

I love that type of prose.

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David Moray, who passed the medical examination with honors, is courting Mary Douglas. Mary is the daughter of a baker in a small town. She was set to be married to Walter Stoddart.. son of the town's clerk (this is somewhere in Scotland... so whatever the significance of that in the late 1940s). Walter has a position in the accounts department of the town's gas company.

The narrator describes him thusly:

Walter's excruciating mannerisms, his condescension towards the Douglases exercised with all the stiff assertiveness of the small-town bureaucrat, even the ostrich-like convulsion of his long thing neck when he drank his tea - all these gave promise of entertainment. (to David Moray).

David's motorcycle breaking down in this small town brings him in contact with these others. The three of them, David, Mary, and Walter plan another outing for the following weekend. Walter brings them to a very fancy hotel for lunch where the guest who typically dine there are well established customers of import...not people in accounting departments of the gas company in some provincial hamlet.

Walter throws his weight around to get a nice table for them. Diners at another table (some important retired Lieutenant and 3 younger guys) are drunk and one of them starts aggressively flirting with Mary. Walter lacking the gumption to do anything beyond gently suggesting the man stop accosting his soon-to-be... David takes the matters into his own hands by following the man back to his table, taking him by the back of the neck, and submerging his face into the soup.

Well, Mary's won over....

The two decide to get hitched with Mary breaking the news to Walter and her family. The family is upset at first, given that Walter and his politically involved family can make it hard on the baker... but, the prospect of David and his soon to be had large salary with a head position at a beautifully located hospital and a house to live in (with wife) on the campus sets the family's fear to easy.

The romantic winning over and sense of newfound and unexpected love is written incredibly well. You lose yourself in their story, remembering your own.

But, and here's where Cronin does a good job with one element of the faith.... sin creeps in.

Mary and David are on a country-side jaunt in some bucolic area:

They lay together on the soft bracken under the hot afternoon sun. Bees were droning faintly amongst the heather flowers, a lark sang its way into the blue, the scent of thyme and the wild orchis filled the air. From far off came the whirr of a rise grouse, then again stillness, but for the quiet ripple of the stream.

David's hand gets alittle prurient... and next thing they're having extra-marital relations.

during which:

The sun passed behind a cloud, the bees ceased their hum, a circling curlew uttered its mournful cry.

From this point their once idyllic relationship takes on a 'Dutch Angle".

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The subtitle to this book could be "Sin Makes You Stupid".

This bright, young doctor... close to the halfway mark of the book you see him throw away such a beautiful gift, such simple pleasures, all to pursue spicier delights, money, and notoriety.

He should have heeded Thomas Gray:

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The sin being his extra-marital doings with Mary.
To back up a bit: after fooling around with Mary in the moor, they were delayed getting back to her dad's bakery. Stuck in a rainstorm, getting soaked. David comes down with a bad cold that turns into pleurisy. His professor doctor says that the only thing that will cure him is a long sojourn on a ship to India... where he can serve as the ship's doctor.

On the ship David is befriended by a wealthy couple and their moody, albeit very attractive, daughter. The family gives him an offer he can't refuse... (well, if he wasn't a knucklehead he would have refused it). What was to be a round trip on the ship, and then back home and happy with Mary, is about to turn into a long stay in India, forgetting all about Mary. But not just that - her family is in a bad way because it would have been off of David's salary that they would have had some hope. Given that David being injected into the twosome of Mary and her original fiancé, Walter, ruined that pairing. Walter and his family have strong political pull in the little hamlet where Mary's family lives.

It's not usually referenced as his best work.... but this is Cronin's best work. It pulls all of the emotions out of you. It has you hating personal sin because the way it ravages those more innocent folk around you. It connects the dots on how comfortably sliding into 1 sin leads to another and another and another.... all the while holding in front of you the lives of those impacted by the main character's decisions.

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There's an interest parallel between this book and The Hobbit, regarding a journey that presents itself for one to go on.

The start of that journey is, if nothing else, the break from all of the cozy comforts of one's life. But hopefully more, a development of virtue and a rooting out of vice. Bilbo is compelled to make his journey and in the end is a better hobbit for doing so.

David Moray lives a life very typical to most people. His sins come on so comfortably, his warped conscience allows him to slip into them. He lives in a very large, very opulent house as an expatriate in Switzerland. He has made decisions that have not only hurt his own soul but placed enormous burdens upon those he claimed to have loved, especially Mary Douglas, whom in his youth he loved and intended to make a life with.

He passed on that to appease more base desires... though those ultimately made him a very rich man, albeit a widower from a disastrous marriage to another woman.

At one point later in life (early 40s) he finds himself overcome with grief as to his abandoning Mary. He goes to him hometown to find out that she has died. That she lived a hard life, but faced it nobly and was able to do so because of a religious devotion that she acquired after David had ditched her with no warning.

Standing by Mary's grave, and flooded with even more grief, a young woman approaches the grave. David turns to face her and for a moment believes that he is seeing Mary's ghost... it's her daughter (Kathy).

Again, starting from the sincerest and purest desires David makes her his charge and wants to give her a great life. He has the wealth to do so... he doesn't fully explain how he knew Kathy's mother aside from saying that he was a good friend of Mary's and Mary's younger brother Willie, back when David was a much younger man.

Eventually he starts to become romantically involved with Kathy. Kathy is set to move to Africa to join her uncle Willie to be a nurse at his Christian missionary. David is trying to convince her otherwise.. stay with him in Switzerland, enjoy the good things of life. Kathy is somewhat torn but still determined to become a missionary and leave for Africa.

David starts to have a true turn of character. He wants to marry Kathy and join Willie and Kathy to be their doctor at the mission... leaving behind all of the wealth and comforts of his life (and a substantial wealth at that).

But, as he did earlier in life, when met with a chance to make that journey he slips again.

The last part of this book is one of the most heartbreaking things I have read. Tragedy upon tragedy and done in such a realistic way, nothing of it feels forced.