Customer Reviews

The Stars Look Down

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This novel was first published in the 1930s and it is a measure of the author's achievement that it still reads wonderfully today. The story has a breadth to it that amazes me, and a cast of memorable characters that linger in the memory. I love it!

It is set in an English mining town over a number of years before and after the First World War. It follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of several families, from the wealthy mineowner's, to a humble family where the father and three sons are all miners. There are some wonderfully drawn characters, some doses of realism that shock the reader, and some moving passages which bring tears to your eyes. But there's nothing cliched or sentimental about the book, so if you like television mini-series or the kind of 'feel good' romantic stories that Hollywood specialises in, this is not for you.

But if you want a taste of real life from nearly a 100 years ago, written by an author who was there (he was a doctor in a mining village for a time and many of his books come from out of his medical background) then this is the book for you. Get Amazon to find you a copy!

I sum up this novel to friends by saying it is so great an achievement that I feel it could only have been written by God. I'm probably the only person who thinks so, but perhaps it really is the greatest novel of the 20th Century.

With apologies to Mr. Lusby, below, who apparently sees Marxists under his bed, this is as lovely a literary jewel as every other story that sprang whole and breathing from this wonderful author. I will concede that Cronin's novels have a common thread: the hero or main character usually gets what it was he thought he wanted in the end, but by that time it has cost him everything else and his life lies in ruins. Far from being shallow and two-dimensional, Cronin's characters are so real and human in their weakness, shallow cruelty and avarice that you can almost smell their sweat in the room. Another beautiful Cronin novel that I did not see listed here among his works is, "The Northern Light".

Cronin's novels evidently mean something different to each reader, but to me they warn that it is dangerous to want too much for yourself, when winning might turn in your fist like a knife and take away everything you love. "The Stars Look Down" is no exception.

Stars Look Down obviously is not the best known book by A.J.Cronin who is known for writing books mainly about miners or medicine (such as Citadel), but it's definately one of the best ones.

It's about a young man who comes from a miner family. He has lost some family members and collegues due to bad conditions in mines and he feels like there has to be something done about it, so he wins in the local election and goes to the London. He really wants to make his people life better, he wants to change the whole mining system, make reformations but in the Parliament his ardency is killed by people who are interested in nothing except for power, i.e., money and show no interest for this outstanders pains to fulfill his ideals. As he couldn't win the fight with them he had to go home and become a miner again; he had lost his wife and he had got nothing.

I personally was very touched by the story itself as well as with the way Cronin tells it. Although you know how it's going to end if you've read some other Cronin's books (the thing I really suggest to do), you are so deep in it you are not thinking about it. Stars Look Down is not the new-age kind of book-the one you take, read and put in the bookshelve and never take again, it's got the classical value-you think of it again and again and you recall it when you feel absolutely miserable about your dreams and things you're trying to do or reach.

4 stars instead of 5 cos I really hoped for a better ending, although 4,5 would fit better as it was a realistic one.

I recomend it if you're a serious reader, otherwise you'll simply be bored.

Found a book I had been looking for in good condition at a resonable price!

This book is as blatant a piece of political propaganda as anything that came from Ayn Rand's pen. In the guise of a heart-tugging novel, Cronin gives us working class people who are all noble, hard working, honest, long suffering, and abominably exploited by employers who are universally either arrogant, greedy, dishonest, unscrupulous and heartless, or patronising, stupid and hoplessly incompetent. The characters are never more than two dimensional, the world in which they live essentially one dimensional, with that one dimension being the class struggle.

The story is well written, with exquisite graphic detail, but still it would have been far more enjoyable with a rational balance of characteristics for the protagonists, instead of the ridiculous polarization that Cronin employs.

If you're looking for a dollop of marxist propaganda, then this book will fit the bill. If you're looking for a serious and balanced cross section of life in the England of the Edwardian era, look elsewhere.