Masaryk University Brno

Faculty of Education

Department of English Language and Literature

The Treatment of Setting Novels by Arthur Hailey

Diploma Thesis

Brno 2009

Supervisor: Written by: Ph.Dr. Irena P řibylová, Ph.D Eva Malíšková

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that all the literary sources used in the thesis are stated in the bibliography.

Eva Malíšková

2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Ph.Dr. Irena P řibylová Ph.D., for her advice, help and support in the course of my work.

3 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...5

1. POPULAR LITERATURE…………………………………………………………….6 1.1 Popular literature and its features and genres…………………………………6 1.2 Popular literature from the wiew of some selected scholars…………………8 1.3 Hailey and his place in popular literature……………………………………13 2. HOTEL……………………………………………………………………...………...19 2.1 The location and the prospects of the St. Gregory …………………………..19 2.2 Everyday duties and everyday worries ……………………....…...... 22 2.3 The employees ………………………………………………………………25 2.4 Services and troubles ………………………………………………………..28 3. AIRPORT……………………………………...……………………………………...32 3.1 The places and the weather…………………………………………………..32 3.2 The departure lounge………………………………………………………...34 3.3 The community of Meadowood ………………….……………………....….36 3.4 Air traffic control…………………………………………………………….37 3.5 Services………………………………………………………………………39 3.6 Preparation of a flight and a flight…………………………………………...41 3.7 Stowaways…………………………………………………………………...44 4. IN HIGH PLACES………...………………………………………………………….46 4.1 The plot and setting………………………………………………………….46 4.2 The Prime Minister and his Cabinet…………………………………………49 4.3 Vastervik and its stowaway………………………………………………….51 4.4 The summit meeting in Washington…………………………………………54

CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………...…58 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………....60 RESUMÉ……………………………………………………………………………….62

4 INTRODUCTION

My final thesis is entitled The Treatment of Setting Novels by Arthur Hailey . Hailey wrote novels which rank among popular literature. During his writing career he published eleven novels from different settings and I have chosen three of them. The aim of my thesis is to describe what the popular literature is and focus on analysis of the settings which are priorities in his novels. The work is divided into four main chapters – “Popular Literature“, “Hotel“,“Airport“ and “In High Places“. The first chapter, which is called “Popular Literature“, deals with the formation and development of popular literature mainly in American literature. I want to point out the common elements and features which occur in this sort of literature. Futhermore, I would like to mention some literary critics giving their opinions and attitudes to the contemporary popular literature. At the end of this chapter I would like to explain why Hailey wrote his novels and why they rank into popular literature. The next three chapters treat the settings in three Hailey’s novels - namely “Hotel“, “Airport“ and “In High Places“. I have chosen especially these novels because each setting is different in many ways. Each chapter is divided into several subchapters which describe how Hailey treats the theme, works with details and focuses on individual settings, their equipment and facilities, management, staff, services and problems which the characters have to solve. At the end of each chapter I express my opinions on individual novels. My work is also focused on search why his novels are bestsellers and what is the positive impact of the novels on readers. I state here his techniques, skills and last but not least a good knowledge of given settings and his mastership in depicting the settings so impressively. I would also like to explain why just his accurate descriptions of the settings, a simple plot, with a certain extent of excitement and happy endings attract so many readers.

5 1. POPULAR LITERATURE

1.1 Popular literature and its features and genres The literature in the 20th century is characterized by different artistic movements and styles. There were excellent writers whose styles, works and masterworks contributed to the formation of valuable literature which broadens our horizons. On the other hand, there were also authors whose works do not have artistic value but their books are demanded by readers and they are published in great numbers. The author Arthur Hailey, whose books I have chosen for my work, ranks among American writers who produce popular literature. American literature from the early forties up to the present is characterized by range of different individual styles. These styles proceed from realistic and naturalistic principles. Also, we can find here different post modernist stylistic-compositional experiments which interfered in all genres. (Baštín, Š., et al. p. 291) As the author mentions in his book, the contemporary American literary scene has more and more writers of popular literature who offer their readers works which have three common features: a skilful style, effective techniques and an attractive theme. These novels often mean an escape from serious social problems into the world of romantic illusions, erotics and exotic adventures and the attractive world of business. Nearly all the novels were a great commercial success, we can mention, for example, Herman Wouk and his novel The Winds of War (1973), Arthur Hailey´s Airport (1968) and Mario Puzo with The Godfather (1969). (Baštín, Š., et ali. p.315-316) The Czech philosopher, aesthetician, literary theorist and historian Kv ětoslav Chvatík occupies himself with the development literature in the twentieth century. In his book Od avantgardy k druhé modern ě he mentions some authors of bestsellers as H.G. Konsalik, J.M. Simmel, A. Haily and M. Puzo. He writes that these authors use attractive settings as Italian Mafia, drugs trade,airports, hospitals, solicitor’s office etc. in order to achieve readers‘ success. (Chvatík, K. p.269) The editors of The Columbia History of the American Novel focused on different genres in American literature which come under popular forms. It includes sports novels, pulp magazines with serialized novels, adventure paperbacks, science fiction, Western, hard-boiled detective stories and last but not least thrillers. (Elliott, E. p. 357-379)

6 I have read the selected sources about popular literature and its genres which are mentioned in the bibliography. I have come to the conclusion that Hailey´s books might be defined as thrillers because they fulfil almost all requirements characteristic for this genre. How the thriller differs from other genres and which techniques are used? According to Wikipedia, thriller is defined as a genre whose task is to arouse strong tension and emotions in the readers or viewers. When comparing it with horror, the source of tension is realistic while horror uses fictional, supernatural phenomena. Rapid sequence of events, frequent actions and ideal heroes, who have to fight stronger opponents, are typical of thrillers. Other devices which help raise tension are false leads and cliffhangers. The authors of thrillers often choose unusual settings like foreign countries, deserts, polar areas or the wide seas. In some stories there are main heroes so called tough guys who get over all danger, like policemen, soldiers, sailors, spies or pilots. However, the heroes can be also ordinary people who find themselves in dangerous situations accidentally. Formerly, the main heroes were men but nowadays there seems to be also some room for heroines. The heroes rather try to thwart the plans of the enemies than to reveal crimes which might happen. These crimes include series or mass murders, assassinations, overthrowing goverments or terrorism.¹ Comparing Hailey’s books with the definition of thriller, there are to be found similar elements. His stories do not miss the right tension and emotional drives. He tries to keep readers in tension making up different plots which alternate after some chapters. He always starts several stories with many characters but only some of them play important parts. The supporting characters sometimes play their roles only in one chapter. These characters often do not have anything in common with the others except the setting. The setting enables them either to use its services and offers or they may misuse the setting for committing bad things like thieving in the hotel, smuggling a bomb into a plane, abuse of power etc. The main hero or heroes are ideal people who are hard-working, honest, fair and helpful. They often have to fight their opponents who try to give them a hard time. They usually hold high posts as directors, managers, doctors, politicians or bankers, and they take the responsibility very seriously. They are devoted to their work and loyal to the company. Hailey prefers male parts in his novels because the settings mostly require it or ______¹) my translation

7 perhaps, the author thinks that they are predestined for such posts. Women usually play supporting roles apart from some exceptions, for example, in The Moneychangers Edwina gets an equal role of a banker between men, and in Strong Medicine the main hero is even a woman. Hailey also often uses cliffhangers to keep readers in suspence expecting what will happen in the next chapters.

1.2 Popular literature from the view of some selected scholars I would like to present some scholars and their opinions on popular literature in this chapter. One of them is Umberto Eco, who is the most famous expert of mass and fiction literature, he focuses on the art which surrounds and impresses us in his book Skeptikové a těšitelé . He calls it mass culture and he examines the negative and positive sides of the whole art not only litrature. He warns the mankind not to succumb to current trends but start looking for real values. For instance, he says: ‘…the worst certificate for the work is enthusiasm that evokes in a mass man….the Ghost knows well where to look for its only opponent, namely in phrases, in self-deception and in shortage of mass power.‘ (Eco,U. p.17) ¹)

It is true that the literature offered to us in supermarkets or bookshops might be confusing for potential customers. I visited different bookshops of different quality but they all had one thing in common. Counters and shelves literally overflow with books with beautiful covers and gripping pictures. Each book has at least four hundred pages but wide spacing enabling readers easy reading. The plots are similar and offer readers exciting reading with happy ending. Eco defines popular or kitsch literature this way:..‘they offer feelings and passion, love and death which are mixed in advance to evoke a desired effect.‘ (Eco, U. p.13). ¹ Opinions also differ as far as the term popular literature is concerned. Some critics do not agree with the appellation, one of them is the Czech critic Ji ří Urbanec. Ji ří Urbanec is a literary historian and critic who pursues an exploration of Silesian literature, he is interested in its works and the cultural heritage of the writers from the region. He proposes to term the popular literature as pulp or trashy literature. In his treatment he discusses what actually the popular literature is and where this sort of literature belongs to. He occupies himself with the question if popular literature is a fiction or art. ______¹ my translation

8 Urbanec states that this literature is distinguished by some elements. The attention concentrates on a plot, the composition is schematic and the stories often end in a happy end. The characters are portrayed in a simplified way, the authors revel in external effects and they use simple language means which allow easy reading. Further, Ji ří Urbanec says, that popular literature is connected with modern genres of mass communication like comics, detective stories, television series etc. The structure of popular literature has several typical elements; suspense, depiction of uncommon life fates and dramatic events with the aim to amuse readers. Urbanec insists that the majority of critics deny a hallmark of art to the literature, some of them evaluate it like a marginal literary genre, others speak about works of the lowest value. Ji ří Urbanec says: ´Admit, that so called pulp literature wants to be mostly understood as a part of the fiction in general. In the countries with democratic system or in the settings of political liberalism it comprises absolute majority of everything what is published and read.´ ¹

Another critic, who occupies himself with problems of contemporary art, is Tomáš Kulka. In his book Um ění ký č he treats the art in general and specialises in kitsch in all branches of art. In the chapter about the kitsch literature he asks a question, how to distinguish between literary kitsch and the literature which is simply bad. He tries to find the answers whether the literary kitsch is a product of one movement or if we can find it in each period, genre and style. To determine what is a typical literary kitsch is even hard for critics, some of them suggest, for example, works as Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn , the others, works of Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo. In their opinion, it is possible to find on pages of an imposing novel a stereotypical character which is uncomplicated but can cause immediate reaction which evokes the kitsch. (Kulka, T. p.121) Most of the critics agreed that the kitsch emerged in the romanticism but there are also those such as Václav Černý, a literary historian and critic, who points to its roots in the Enlightenment. He considers Rousseeau to be the founder of the widest sort of novel kitsch which he calls moralistic-emotional kitsches. ( Černý, V. p. 315-333). In the chapter about literature, Kulka occupies himself with the question why the contemporary literary kitsch often becomes a bestseller and why it is read no only by people with lower education but also by intelligent readers. It is hard to define modern ______¹ my translation 9 literary kitsch thematically but it is possible to find some mutual features. The narration usually keeps the action closely. Flashbacks seldom occur and they are directly connected with the action. They are only some flashes which are quickly forgotten and they are replaced by anticipation which is frequent and explicit. How the action will progress is only suggested to readers by something that is not easy to overlook. The novels have certain excitement because both bad and good things happen but usually everything ends to readers‘ satisfaction. Kulka asks the question about the difference between heavy reading and popular literature which actually makes undemanding reading. He explains that heavy reading perturbs readers and makes them think and solve moral dilemmas. On the other hand, undemanding reading does not require big thinking, readers are clearly shown who is a villain and who is a person of a pure character. Furthermore, Kulka states that the topics which are used in contemporary popular literature are connected with ecology, human rights, wars or other humanitarian disasters. Good characters are usually completely normal people who stand their ground and nothing makes them change their moral values. On the other hand, evil characters have a lot of forms, starting with a perverse sadist and ending with an ambitious politician. The next feature, which Kulka finds in the popular literature, and which connects the classical kitsch with modern sophisticated undemanding reading is using their stereotypes. It means that authors have their rules which they obey to write a successful bestseller. An author has to arose interest just on the first page, then on next thirty pages he outlines all plotlines which will be gradually revealed by readers. Readers follow three or four thrilling storylines, witnessesing some mysteries, or they are attracted by first dramatic scenes and sexual excitation. Everything happens rather rapidly, the reader is safely caught and expects next dramatical scenes. However, the author has engaged a potentional reader and the plot is slowed down by side episodes, descriptions of settings or conditions. He knows, he has caught readers‘ attention so that they will not put the book down. Kulka introduces three conditions of the kitsch in his chapter “A Note about Literature“. The first condition is that each plot of each kitsch novel has a strong emotional drive which provokes a spontaneous unreflective emotional response. Typical kitsch novel describes what is generally considered to be good, moral or right in a given society. The second condition demands immediate intelligibility. The language of the

10 literary kitsch has to be sufficiently simple and the narration style must not be beyond the period conventions. The kitsch does not need interpretation, it is usually explicit and nothing is left for fantasy. Reading of the literary kitsch does not broaden our horizonts and does not enrich our experience with new aspects of reality. (Kulka, T. p. 128-131) Literary theorist and historian Dagmar Mocná focuses on the monographs of literary works, theory of popular literature, mapping of fictional world etc. In the book Encyklopedie literárních žánr ů, she and other authors try to describe individual literary genres to readers, students and teachers. The chapter “Popular literature“ treats formation and development of this sort of literature. Mocná defines popular literature as ‘a fictional production focusing on immediate and generally accessible communication with general readership.‘ (Mocná, D. p. 501) Mocná states that the conception of popular literature is not unified. There are some drafts, some of them emphasize ‘diference‘ of popular literature, others are interested in its relation to art literature. The position of popular literature is specifically dioecious. For many readers it is an alternative of art literature and the only representative of literature; this sort of readers of popular literature know that art literature exists but they either do not read it or they prefer popular production to art literature. In this situation popular literature creates a separate and to a large degree closed communication sphere with its own authors, publishing companies, distribution networks and customers. However, popular literature is also a part of literature and has a lot of connections with art literature. Further, the author explains basic differences between art literature and popular literature. In contrast to art literature, the basic strategy of popular literature is communication. Works of art literature arise from authors‘ needs to express their own visions and feelings. The aim of popular literature is to appeal to the widest range of readers and to satisfy their elementary needs. Popular literature prefers easy reading, it means that texts are intelligible without complicated thinking while art literature requires progressive and patient decoding of art communication. Popular literature builds its works on a detail and episode while texts of art works are characterized by complexity of their structure. Unlike art literature, popular literature describes problems of human existence in a much simplier and straightforwardlier way. It puts emphasis on basic emotions like love, hatred, fear and sadness and it does not want to depict and analyse them but only evoke them.

11 Mocná deals with characters and plots in popular literature which are archetypal. The characters are short of psychological multiformity but they have mythic power which impresses readers. Stories describe some period life and institutions, present social problems and changes of lifestyle; this technique makes popular literature attractive for readers. The world, which popular literature depicts, is well arranged, it is clear what is good and bad and it has firm value rules. The author states that popular literature takes into account emotional identification of readers with the work and its characters, a reader should submit to ‘hypnotic influence‘ of the work. For this reason, popular literature arouses basic instincts in readers. Popular literature makes use of routine stereotypes, respects usual codes and takes over approved procedures of art literature. It does not avoid using figurative expressions but it prefers metaphors and symbols with unequivocal meaning. That is the reason why popular literature is sometimes termed as kitsch. Popular literature has its own genre system which differs from art literature. It uses some basic genre paradigms corresponding with archetypal cultural patterns. Mocná enumerates five genre groups: the first narrates about heroic deeds (westerns, thrillers), the second about love (penny dreadfuls, novels for girls), the third solves mysteries (detective stories), the forth narrates about complicated human relations (social melodramas) and the last depicts confrontation of human and non-human world (horrors, sci-fi, fantasy). (Mocná, D. p. 501-503)

It seems that popular literature is getting more and more popular with readers, on the other hand, literary experts and critics are rather worried. Most of the books become bestsellers and they are sold in large quantities. The authors choose such themes which might be attractive and such techniques which make their stories suspenseful and interesting. The stories are written in such a way in order to appeal the taste of general public. As Wikipedia states, critics blame Hailey for certain pandering and adaptability to readers‘ taste. Furthermore, critics often dismissed Hailey’s success as the result of a formulaic potboiler style in which he centered a crisis on an ordinary character, then inflated the suspense by hoping among multiple related plotlines. However, despite the criticism, Hailey’s novels are translated to many languages and they are still in great demand.

12 I would not define Hailey‘s novels as kitsches which can not be read because of their shallowness or dullness. It is true that his works show some elements of kitsch which Kulka describes, but definitely not all of them. We have to confess that Hailey tries to include not only a realistic element in his stories which differs his works from other kitsches. His aim is to catch readers‘ attention by describing settings and giving information which they might find interesting and informative. He takes them to such places where an uninitiated person hardly gets and thus readers learn a lot of things relating to the settings. I think, if Hailey had not used these elements in his stories, the books would not be readable as it probably might have been the case with his first writing attempts.

1.3 Hailey and his place in popular literature I would like to explain in this chapter why Hailey wrote these novels, and whether they are really kitsches or bring something positive to readers. Considering he published eleven novels and nearly all became bestsellers, we have to admit that he must have enchanted his readers with something I will try to define. There are several reasons why people write books. Either, they want to express their feelings or opinions or describe real life with all circumstances pointing out shortages of a society, or their aim is to amuse people with fictitious stories. Hailey concentrated on writing stories which are partly realistic and partly fictional. It is hardly to say why he started to write stories about big companies facing different problems which occur there. One of the reasons might be that he looked for a topic or techniques which had not appeared in literature yet and thus might enable him to become a successful writer. Hailey’s wife Sheila wrote a book I Married A Best Seller where, besides other things, she depicts his effort to become a writer. She says that Hailey was a passionate reader since childhood and tried to write some stories when he was a young man. But they were probably of a bad quality because nobody wanted to publish them. Then he started to write television plays. His first play Flight into Danger was so successful that one publisher asked him to write a novel. Hailey refused and declared: ‘I do not think that I have a talent for writing novels.‘ (Hailey, S. p.64) However, the publisher urged him to try it and at last, Hailey complied with his requirement. Sheila Hailey desribes how her husband got an idea to write a story about an endagered plane. He flew by a new big plane from Vancouver to Toronto and he

13 imagined what might happen if both pilots got ill and if he would able to fly the plane.(During the Second Word War he was a flight lieutenant). When he got home he had a plotted script in his head. ( Hailey, S. p.59-60) At first the story was written as a television play, later Hailey remade it and created his first novel. This his first work has only one hundred and twenty-three pages while the further novels contain about four to five hundred pages. As soon as his first novel appeared it was a great success. What caused the success? Was it the quality of the work or the topic which found readers so attractive? It is true he did not write this novel himself but with the assistance of the expert on planes J. Castle. In this thin book he does not describe the setting in detail as much as in his next novels. The plot happens mainly on board the plane, where both the pilots are poisoned with some bad meal and consequently one of the passengers has to pilot the plane. The story is thrilling, the author focuses primarily on instructions how to fly a plane and to land. The book was succesful and probably encouraged him to write more books with similar themes. In his novels, Hailey concentrates primarily on the realistic description of different settings. For this reason, he is sometimes classified as a realist because of the realistic information from different places. But what is the main difference between Hailey and realists is the fact that Hailey uses only the realistic description of the settings whereas the rest has nothing to do with realism. Ousby defines realism and its main features in the book The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English : ´Realism observes and documents contemporary life and everyday scenes as objectively as possible in low-key, unrhetorical prose, drawing its characters from all social levels and reproducing the flavour of their colloquial speech in its dialogue.´ (Ousby, I. p.780)

According to this definition we can analyse whether Hailey´s novels have something to do with realism. Although it is true that Hailey´s stories are set in the present, he does not, in fact, observe and document contemporary life. The life which he describes here is fictional and closely connected with the setting. Everyday scenes can not be as objective as possible in realism because the fictional setting requires fictional scenes to attract the readers. As far as his characters are concerned, it might be said that he uses characters of all walks of life but does not draw them in detail. For example in the book Hotel there is a wide scale of characters, ranging from nobility to a poor black worker. The characters 14 are stereotypical, they do not develop, each of them plays what is expected of him or her. Either, the character is good and it remains so or it is bad and even circumstances will not change it. The language is rather simple, intelligible for less proficient readers, there are short chapters and short paragraphs. In the dialogues, mostly standard English is used, but in dialogues among less educated people he uses their slang. Individual chapters depict one event. Then suddenly the action is interrupted and followed by another that develops a different story. Thus a reader is forced to read more than twenty pages to learn e.g. whether a black dentist will stay or not. Some chapters are without dialogues, they describe, for instance, how a thief is preparing to rob his housemates. His main heroes are mostly men, women are depicted mainly as devoted wives supporting their husbands, in spite of the fact they are aware of their sins. Men sometimes have lovers but after some time they leave them not to put their marriage at risk. However, the refused lovers do not stop loving the men and help him quite unselfishly. If the main hero is single, two women usually appear on the scene trying to win his favour. The hero is confused, he goes out with both of them because they appeal to him but each of them offers him something else. Finally, the man chooses the one he considers for an ideal wife. The main hero is mostly a positive man who is either a chief of the place where the story takes place or he holds a high office. He appreciates his work, trying to work dutifully and wants to be fair to equals and subordinates. He is so connected to the setting that he can not imagine leaving it and starting somewhere else. This man has mostly a record on his reputation from the past which he wants to get rid of by his conscientious work and good manners. As an example, I can mention Peter from Hotel . Peter started a decent career in a famous hotel but one day he was caught red-handed with a woman in a hotel room. Consequently he was dismissed and what is more, he got on a black list. No hotelier wanted to employ him except one and only who ran the bankrupt hotel St. Gregory. Here Peter gets a wretched salary for hard work but he takes it as a challenge to eliminate his misconduct. Finally, he is awarded and rewarded properly for his behaviour and work. In other novels, his main heroes are similar so we can speak about stereotypes appearing almost in each story. It does not concern the main heroes only. In each story there are some good and bad people and among them there is a down-and-out who

15 endangers either the lives or properties of other people. However, the setting or society are to blame for this desperate act because he was not allowed to work his way up. Sometimes they also cause the problems themselves by drinking or gambling. Hailey is particularly tough to this sort of people and punishes them mercilessly. Sheila Hailey says that the success of his novels lies in his intensive work. She insists that each successful writer has to have a lot of negative qualities to achieve his aim. She describes him as a moody, inconsiderate, oversensitive, impatient, unresonable, selfish, intransigent and mainly hard-working. (Hailey, S. p.7) The author wrote his novels at home, it took him about three years to finish a next novel. As his wife states, Hailey set himself a target to write six hundred words a day that took him six hours. He strictly observed this rule and nobody was allowed to disturb him. ( Hailey, S. p.78) The topics for his novels were immensely important for him. Hailey chose such themes which comprised some challenge, they were exacting and caught the press attention. Also the theme had to be interesting for him otherwise he would not be able to finish the novel. When he opted for a theme he started to read all available literature. Then he arranged an appointment with a public relations vice president to get general information and a permission to enter spaces of the company. He spoke with directors, officers, employees and everybody who could inform him about important and interesting things. He was a courteous and attentive listener, during conversations he never used a notebook or a recorder, he supposed that it could discourage his respondents. Hailey remembered all information and later wrote them down or recorded. When collecting material for his novel he stayed some months out. Sometimes his wife helped him to get further materials and handed detailed descriptions of characters or events to him.( Hailey, S. p. 86-87) When Hailey wrote his stories he tried to be meticulously accurate and paid immense attention to details. Everything he mentioned in his novels had to be absolutely exact. He did not write a sentence about working of a device unless he was sure that all facts are true and did not show consideration if these subsidiary details are importart for the main plot or not. Hailey says: ‘If a plumber reads the sentence and finds out that it is a nonsence, he will have doubts about the credibility of the whole story.‘ (Hailey, S. p.88-89)¹ ______¹ my translation

16 For this reason he examined each setting minutely. He probably visited completely all places, was present at all operations and questioned plenty of people. For instance, when he was colecting materials for his second novel The Final Diagnosis he observed amputation of extremities, an operation for heart, a childbirth etc. This novel achieved an extraordinary success and was approved by expert criticism excellently. (Hailey, S. p.65) It is interesting how the author chose names for his characters. His aim was to use names which readers can easy recognize and was wary of similar names. He used fisrt names from a list which he got in a maternity hospital and the source of surnames is Manhattan’s phone directory. Hailey got plenty of letters from his readers from different countries, some of them were favourable, some expressed harsh criticism. Readers‘ opinions were ispiring for him, he tried to avoid similar mistakes in his next novels. (Hailey, s. p.131) The author accepted criticism as unseparable part of creative work. Sheila divided reviews of his novels into three categories: exceptionally favourable, harsh and offensive and envious. Hailey declared in one interview: ‘I have never complained about unfavourable criticism. Everything is a constituent of a game; it forms an integral part of writing and each author, who is not able to bear criticism, should make use of his skills in another job.‘ ‘I know that I cannot desribe my characters as some writers… I think that my power lies in art of storytelling…I will never belittle my work, I put much time and hard work into my books and I wrote them just as I was able to do it.‘ (Hailey, S. p.238)

Hailey belongs to prolific writers, because he used to write thrillers which have attractive settings. He describes the settings realistically but he does not describe realistic life inside these settings. The plots and the characters are just figments of his imagination. His books are full of optimism, sometimes you come across romantic scenes. The good people are awarded for their deeds, bad heroes have to face the consequences of their actions. Sometimes some of his books remind us of fairy tales ending in a happy end. On the other hand, some stories have open endings, the author lets readers invent the end of a story themselves. In conclusion, I would like to summarize that popular literature addresses more and more readers. It has become an unseparable part of mass culture which surrounds us. It offers products accepted by majority of consumers. Popular literature offers readers many genres, like detective stories, thrillers, love stories etc., which they find attractive

17 and appealing. Most novels are published in large quantities and become bestsellers. Some authors of such literature are very prolific and produce one book after each other and they are obviously not worried about quality.

18

2. HOTEL

2.1 The location and the prospects of the St. Gregory For his novel Hotel Hailey chooses a place in New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. As his wife states in her book, the inspiration for writing the novel was his few weeks‘ stay in the old hotel Roosevelt just in New Orleans. Hailey was living there as a house guest and during his stay they made it possible for him to see and observe all places and to speak to the staff and management. Thus he got a lot of information which he used in his novel, however, he never revealed the origin of any of his characters. (Hailey, S. p. 82-83) He called his fictional hotel St. Gregory and it ranks among the largest and the best hotels in the city. The further asset, which Hailey ascribes to his hotel, is its independence. The author presents the hotel like a big building which takes up the whole block. There are fifteen floors, four lifts and rooms of different prices and services there. The author describes actually only two rooms for guests, the best and the worst. Each hotel offers rooms of a different quality and prices to satisfy its customers and it is the same in our hotel. The best room, which he called the Presidential Suite, is luxuriously furnished and available only for nobles or high state officials. In his story, Hailey accommodates here nobles from England who took a fancy to this hotel and pay it regular visits. This suite is favoured by these prominent people because it respects guests´ privacy, including indiscretions, if any. This sort of people has all privileges in the hotel which the other guests lack. During his stays in hotels Hailey seems to have noticed that hotel rules get sometimes broken by guests and mainly by the rich. The worst room is left for the guests who do not look wealthy or who accept anything that the reception offers them. Hailey probably found out by observations that each hotel has at least one the called “ha-ha-room“ which is never rented until everything is full. The author depicts here a room which is not suitable for accommodation neverthless receptionists use it when the hotel is full and they want to oblige guests. Hailey puts the room next to the service elevator which makes it noisy and inside the room he placed all sorts of pipes which meet there. It makes the room unbearably hot and guests complain about it and demand to change it. It is hard to say why the author just prefers independent hotels to hotel chains. The whole story is about whether the hotel will remain independent or not. Before

19 writing the book, Hailey had read plenty of books about hotel industry carefully and also spent some time in different hotels to observe as much as possible. Perhaps, during his stays in these hotels he experienced that independent hotels offer their guests more comfort and consideration than hotel chains. For this reason he decided to support independent hotels and tries to explain to readers what advantages these institutions provide. On the other hand, he points out some disadvantages in hotels belonging to hotel chains, for instance, impersonal treatment of guests. At the beginning of his book Hailey sets up the right atmosphere to capture the readers. On the very first pages he opens several storylines by starting to enumerate problems which accumulated on one summer day. Their solving and denouement promise thrilling reading. Here we can show some problems which become the main landmarks in the story: ´We´ve a complaint from the eleventh floor about some sort of sex orgy; on the ninth the Duchess of Croydon claims her Duke has been insulted by a room-service waiter; there is a report of somebody moaning horribly in 1439; and I´ve the night manager off sick, with the other two house officers otherwise engaged.‘ (Hailey, A. p.2)

Anybody that would have an opportunity to observe the operation in hotels as Hailey, could learn that plenty of things happen under the hotel roof every day. These are common things connected with hotel business and also unusual things just make the hotel a dynamic setting with all its problems which might occur there. Hailey probably found out that to run such a big hotel efficiently and stack up to competition requires keen mind and ability to accommodate to new trends. But it is not possible in our hotel where the hotelier refuses to make all changes or even some hints of some changes as it is the case in our story. Hailey depicted the character of the hotelier as a grumpy old man who suffers from sciatica. It is natural that he lives in the hotel and the author accommodates him in a luxury private six-room suite on the fifteenth floor. Beside common things, his home is equipped with a private barber parlour where it is possible to find a steam cabinet, a sunken Japanese style bath and a built-in aquarium with tropical fish. The hotelier is a widower with no children and relatives and his hotel is the only thing he has. And now it seems that he will lose it if he does not change his opinions and the hotel management, too. It is probable that when collecting information about hotels and their operation Hailey encountered problems some independent hotels were confronted with. So he uses 20 the information and creates his fictional hotel which has to solve a lot of problems. I would like to mention some of them. Firstly, the hotel is inefficient in many ways and in recent years it has basked in the shadow of its former glory. Further, it is facing a financial crisis which might cause drastic transition whether its proprietor is in favour of it or not. Thirdly, the hotel does not have a firm management, not very effective commands result in department heads having quite extraordinary powers in some cases. Hailey points out some shortages which occur in his hotel. For many years the hotel used to enjoy an excellent reputation but now it is behind the times. This situation is partly caused by bad rules which have to be strictly observed, and partly by the attitudes of employees to their work. The hotel is in debt and the owner is not able to pay mortgage so it is possible that he might lose it. The worst thing that could happen to his hotel is the fact it might become a part of impersonal hotel chains. The St.Gregory ranks among hotels with a big accommodation capacity so it is not possible to occupy all rooms with common guests. The management has to offer the hotel to different unions or organisations for holding congresses or meetings. These different congresses and conferences comprise a great number of participants and are in fact the props of hotel incomes. But in our case, some congresses, mainly trade unions ones, cancelled their reservations because the St.Gregory keeps the policy of discrimination and segregation. This relentless attitude seems to bring the hotel on the brink of ruin. At the time when Hailey was writing his book, segregation and racial discrimination was a normal and common phenomenon especially in southern states. Some hotels were advanced and provided accommodation to black guests but our hotelier was unyielding even in spite of the danger that the dentist congress could move to another hotel. The hotel refused to accommodate a very famous and a highly regarded black dentist, even though his reservation had been confirmed. The participants of the dentist congress were indignant and they wanted to leave the hotel, which might cause big financial losses. However, the owner did not budge an inch and kept on his policy of segregation. When Hailey went through individual parts of hotels and spoke to people working there or being in charge of devices or machines, he found out some shortages which might endanger or spoil guests‘ lives. Thus he used the information in the St. Gregory to make readers familiar with problems which they can encounter. Some mechanisms in the

21 hotel are not up-to-date but there is no money left for changing or putting them right. Particularly the lifts are in bad conditions, the chief engineer often warned the management about this state. But money for engineering was overdrawn so people had to believe and pray for the lifts to endure. In the case of the St.Gregory, wishes and prayers fell on deaf ears until one lift fell down and it resulted in a catastrophe. When an accident like this happened, the management realized what they neglected. To make the story more interesting Hailey chooses mostly extreme weather conditions which give a hard time not only for employees but also guests or customers. In this novel the plot takes place during five scorching hot days which have a negative effect on human psyche. It is summer and the whole city is sweltering in heat and humidity, producing tensions all around. The air conditioning in the hotel is running at full power, nevertheless, it is unable to make the building and rooms cooler. There is a danger that such overloaded mechanism would stop working and put the hotel operation at risk. People are irritated and it gets reflected in their work, behaviour and decisions. However, at the end of the story, not only problems but also weather clear up.

2.2 Everyday duties, everyday worries The author puts up many guests in his hotel, both ordinary and prominent people who come here to relax, work, commit something dishonest or just ‘whoop it up‘. Two big conventions take place there and there is also a heavy influx of other guests, so is no wonder that difficulties pour in. When a lot of problems arise, everybody at hand has to solve them quickly, discreetly and to the guests‘ satisfaction without upseting the running of the hotel. Hailey found out by observation that life in hotels starts very early and nights are very short. About five in the morning night cleaning parties finish their work after eight hours of hard work. They had to clean public rooms, lower stairways, kitchen areas and the main lobby, other rooms are cleaned during a day. After their hard work floors gleem, wood and metalwork shine and everything smells pleasant of fresh wax. However, Hailey revealed that not all cleaners are reliable and honest, some of them are often very imaginative how to come to some extra money. The author describes here one cleaner who has stolen meat for years and nobody has noticed it: ‘One cleaner, old Meg Yetmein, who had worked nearly thirty years in the hotel, walked awkwardly, though anyone noticing might have taken her clumsy gait for tiredness. The real reason, however, was a three-pound sirloin steak taped securely to the inside of her thigh.‘ (Hailey, A. p.57)

22

It is not clear if Hailey himself met with this experience or it is only a figment of his imagination. But I think that in such a big hotel with many employees it is not possible to check everything and everybody so people always find a way how to improve their situation. In my opinion, Hailey describes the cleaner intentionally to amuse readers and point out possible vices which can happen in such a setting. Further, Hailey makes readers familiar with the work of telephonists. At the telephone exchange, switchboard operators start their wake-up calls and from early morning hours to seven a.m, they wake up guests in quarter hours intervals. After seven o’clock the tempo increases. The peak is usually about 7:45, about two hundred guests demand this service and operators are snowed under work. The next room, which is situated two floors below the street level, is an engineering control room. The author describes work of a third-class stationary engineer. He walks around this room each hour to check if the mechanism is in operation. He has to check the hot-water system, if the time-controlled thermostat is doing its job or not. It is necessary to have enough warm water because eight hundred or more guests might decide to take morning baths or showers at the same time. This worker also controls the massive air conditioners and according to needs he switches individual compressors on or off. Hailey does not forget to depict also unanticipated events which can occur and the hotel management has to be prepared to deal with them immediately. For example, during the day or night an interruption in the city power supply can arouse. In this case the engineer switches over to emergency power, supplied by the hotel generators which perform efficiently. It takes only a few minutes before the generators start to work at full power. The guests mostly do not notice it but all eletric clocks are about some minutes slow. A maintenance man has to reset each clock which takes most of the following day. Hailey is famous for his descriptions of details which complete the setting credibly. It is possible to see here what trivialities he notices and uses in his story. The place which really captures readers‘ attention is a waste incinerator in a torrid, odorous room. Hailey depicts this room as the very hell where is not easy to work at all. However, one black man sorts all waste from the hotel here, earns little money and has to work in horrible conditions during the whole night: ‘Few people in the hotel, including staff, had ever seen Booker T.‘ domain, and those who did declared it was like an evangelist’s idea of hell. But Booker T., who looked not unlike an amiable devil himself – with luminous

23 eyes and flashing teeth in a sweet-shining black face – enjoyed his work, including the incinerator’s heat.‘ (Hailey, A. p.59-60)

This man, even though badly paid, saves the hotel much money. It seems that each hotel management has to solve problems with waste, because hurrying waiters or busboys often throw out leftovers together with dishes or cutlery into bins. Such a hotel loses considerable sums of money in this way because it is possible to find there bottles, glasses, knives, forks, spoons, silver soup turrens and guests‘ valuables which they often demand or require compensations. Hailey obviously found out that such rooms really exist in some hotels and that is why he used one in his story. When describing the room and the work of the black he is sure that he is able to elicit different emotions in readers. The back man is depicted here as a hard working, reliable and upright worker who appreciates his work and respects authorities. It is interesting that Hailey‘s blacks who appear in his novels have rather good qualities and they do not rank among characters ch committing bad deeds. The next place where workers start very early is the kitchen. Hailey describes work of helpers and cooks who have to prepare all ingredients and make more than thousand breakfasts and then about two thousand dinners. These workers move quickly between simmering cauldrons, mammoth pipes, ovens and fridges. Hailey also pays attention to a laundry in the hotel. He depictes it as a bustling steamy province where the staff work hard to wash about twenty-five thousand pieces of linen and clothes – towels, bed sheets, waiters‘ and kitchen whites, greasy coveralls from enginers, etc. This laundry is not a part of the main building but it is connected to the main St. Gregory structure by a wide basement tunnel. Hailey examines here one problem which he might have noticed during his stays or might have been told by a laundriness. Every day the workers have to solve problems with tablecloths which were scribbled on by businessmen doing some calculations with ball-point pens. It is not possible to clear away the stains by routine handling so the best spotter has to work all day with carbon tetrachloride to remove them. The manageress of the laundry is rightly exasperated: ‘Would the bastards do it at home?‘ Mrs. Schulder snapped at the male night worker who had separated the offending tablecloths from a larger pile of ordinarily dirty ones. ‚‘By God! – if they did, their wiwes’d kick their arses from here to craptown. Plenty of times I’ve told those jerk head waiters to watch out and put to stop it, but what do they care?‘ (Hailey, A. p.62)

24 Hailey enumerates other parts of the hotel as service departments, offices, carpenters’shop, bakery, printing plant, plumbing, purchasing, design and decorating, storekeeping, garages, TV repair shop etc., but he does not set here any characters or plots. Hailey showed us around the hotel from the top floor to the places where a common guest rarely gets and perhaps he does not know that such places exist in hotels. These individual parts of the hotel and the characters create together a setting which makes the story interesting and instructive.

2.3 The employees Such a big organization, which Hailey created, has to have a large number of employees as chambermaids, maintenance staff, cooks, helpers in the kitchen, boiler tenders, chairwomen, bellboys, accountants, waiters etc. Here he set characters who carry out their duties conscientiously but also negative characters who mainly look after their own profits and follow their own rules. For instance, the chief receptionist is depicted here as a totally bad person. He accommodates some guests secretly and if they want he sends them girls which yields him a pretty sum of money. If he is asked to do something extra, he is unwilling to help or even cheeky. Sometimes he even uses or abuses employees who have inferiour status or he hires people who will serve his intentions. Hailey descibes here a situation which really amused me. The cunning receptionist chooses old greyish men as the right men for being porters, they have to play-act, and guests are taken in: ‘Someone who had to struggle and grunt a bit with heavy luggage was likely to earn bigger tips than a youngster who swung bags as if they contained nothing more then balsa wood. One old-timer, who actually was strong and wiry as a mule, had a way of setting bags down, putting a hand over his heart, then picking them up with a shake of his head and carrying on. The performance seldom earned less than a dollar from conscience-stricken guests who were convinced the old man would have a coronary around the next corner.‘(Hailey, A. p.4)

Hailey probably found out that also some barmen are very inventive concerning the ways how to enrich hemselves. They know a lot of ways how to make some extra money, for example, by pouring short measure to get one extra drink from each used bottle; by bringing their own purchased liquor into the bar so an inventory check does not show a shortage; or by not entering every sale into the cash register. There is another way how to get money. Hailey describes it as ‘the liquor butt hustle’and he states that it takes place in many hotels. The guests who were drinking

25 alcohol in their rooms alone or with friends usually leave bottles on dressing tables half- full. They do not want to take them along because the bottles would leak in their baggage or they want to avoid airline excess baggage charges. Some employees learned how to use these half-empty bottles. They collected them, poured the same brands into one bottle and then they sold them to the bars nearby. The another character who appears in the story is the best captain who looks after all arrivals and departures. Hailey sets his office centrally in the lobby, beside one of the fluted concrete columms which extends to the heavily ornamented ceiling above. The best captain also keeps order there and observes if there do not appear people that might endanger guests or cause some troubles. Because the man keeps a good track of everything that happens in the hotel he also uses this knowledge to his benefit. The hotel doctor and hotel detective are described here as negative characters who take advantage of everything the hotel provides them. They are both accommodated in the hotel for free in return for their availability. However, they are mostly unavailable when a patient or a robbed guest needs their services. Hailey depicts the doctor as an alcoholic who is rarely sober and the detective as a very fat and lazy man who lives in the hotel under strange circumstances. The hotel management is responsible for reservations. Hailey explains to the readers how the management confirms reservations to make sure that the hotel will be full the most of the time. All hotels regularly accept more reservations than there are free rooms. They gamble on the assumption that some people who made reservations will not arrive. Most of the time, experience and luck allowed hotels to come out exactly, with all rooms occupied which is the ideal situation. But sometimes it happens that an estimate is wrong and in this case the hotel gets seriously in trouble and the manager experiences a hard time: ‘The most miserable moment in any hotel manager’s life was explaining to indignant would-be guests, who held confirmed reservations, that no accommodation was available. He was miserable both as a fellow human being and also because he was despondently aware that never again – if they could help it – would the people he was turning away ever come back to his hotel.‘ (Hailey, A. p.71)

The management in St. Gregory is represented by an owner and two young people.The owner is old, grumpy and conservative man whereas two young people are full of life and willing to make changes. The girl is the owner’s secretary and the man holds the post of a deputy director. These employees try to work best to ward off all

26 problems which they are faced with. They are absolutely good people and their moral principals are firm. And what is more, they both had caught the misfortune in life which made them tougher. Christine lost her family in an air crash, she could not finish university because she had to find a job. She started to work in the St. Gregory and became a very capable secretary who is able to manage all problems. She considers Peter, the deputy director, to be a convenient partner who would help her to heal her wounds and start a new life. Peter is a bright and intelligent young man who was married but his marriage did not work out. After graduating from university he started to work in a reputable hotel and his career seemed to be promising. However, he had an affair with one woman a guest in the hotel and he was caught in the act. He was immediately dismissed and what is more, he got on a black-list. Therefore it was difficult for him to find a job, so he ended in the St. Gregory as a deputy director but with restricted authority and a miserable salary. Next person whom Hailey ascribes good qualities and indespensability is a credit manager. It might be interesting to watch him every day as he checks accounts of each guest and supervises if the guests have enough money. He has to pay attention mainly to such a sort of people who check-in and immediately order a bottle of liquor charged to their room. The guests automatically arouse the credit manager’s suspicion. Here Hailey depictes how the credit manager has to be prudent. Most of new arrivals, who want a drink quickly, order a mixed drink from the bar in the lobby. But the guests who want a bottle in their room often get drunk and might not intend to pay or cannot pay. In this case, the credit manager sends a maid to the room to check the guest and his luggage. If she finds reasonable luggage and good clothes then everything is all right. Sometimes it happens that solid and respectable citiziens rent a hotel room because they want to get drunk and if they are solvent and do not bother anyone, that is their own business. Unless there is adequate luggage or other sings of substance, the credit manager himself turns up: ‘His approach would be dicsreet and friendly. If the guest showed ability to pay, or agreed to put a cash deposit on his bill, their parting would be cordial. However, if his earlier suspicions were confirmed, the credit manager could be tough and ruthless, with the guest evicted before a big bill could be run up.‘ (Hailey, A. p.76-77)

27 However, as Hailey states, most hotels, even the posh ones, do not care about morals of those staying in their rooms because they would lose a great deal of business. Their concern is to focus themselves mind on one question – could a guest pay?

2.4 Services and troubles Hailey does not have in his hotel only rooms for guests but there are some large halls which can be used for different purposes like congresses, conventions, lectures or balls. These activities are the main source of income. The hotel management goes around different organizations and trade unions and offers them this hotel. The author describes here a lot of services which his hotel provides. He does not forget trivialities which make guests comfortable. I like the part when the hotel is making preparation for the arrival of an important man. When the hotel is honoured by eminent people, there is a habit to prepare a basket of fresh fruit and flowers as welcome. It is also necessary to put the suites right; polished furniture, spotless and correctly folded linen in bedrooms and bathrooms, dry and shining basins and baths, scoured toilet seats, gleaming mirrors and windows. The indispensable thing are the Gideon Bibles which must not miss in each room, even though they sometimes serve for other purposes than for praying. The fist pages of the Bibles are dotted with call girls‘ phone numbers and experienced travellers knew where to seek this kind of information. The hotel seems to be able to meet all the guests‘ demands. If some guests need some extra services, for example, they are handicapped or too tall or fat, they have to ask the reception for the service in advance and the hotel will do everything to satisfy them. When one guest in our story is more than two metres tall, hotel carpenters rearrange a bed and the housekeeping provides special sheets and blankets. Washing and ironing are part of services with long-time tradition and it goes for Hailey’s hotel, too. But it would not be Hailey if he did not put a plot here. Also in this branch valets discovered how make some extra money. Washed clothes are delivered to their owners by two different men. One of them collects dirty clothes in the morning and the other one brings them back. In both cases they get tips which they pool and divide. It is clear that life in our hotel does not pass only peacefully otherwise the readers might find the story boring. Sometimes the management has to resolve very unplesant situations, such as a rape, a murder, thievery, injuries, arguments and so on. In these

28 cases it is necassary to act quickly and discreetly in order not totarnish the hotel reputation. In the story Hailey describes a situation when a young girl from a high-ranking family was nearly raped in one of the hotel rooms. Perpetrators were youths from noble families who got bored and also drank some alcohol. The girl resisted and called for help. A young black man, who was passing the room by chance, overheard her calling. Here comes about a paradox. The black boy who risks his life to help a white girl is immediately accused of attempted rape by the manager when found on the crime scene. When the girl explains what happened, the manager apologizes to him and wants to call the police. Hailey describes here reactions of the black boy who is disgusted and objects: I’d have to be a witness. An‘ let me tell you, Mr. McDermott, no court in this sovereign State of Louisiana is gonna take a nigger boy’s word in a white rape case, attempted or otherwise. No, sir, not when four upstanding young white gentlemen say the nigger boy is lying. Not even if Miss Preyscott supports the nigger boy, which I doubt her pappy’d let her, considering what all the newspapers and such might make of it.‘ (Hailey, A. p.40)

Thiveries are obviously a common issue in each hotel. Hailey installs here a professional thief who leaves nothing to chance in his story. He checks-in under a name which is known but not much. He gets hotel keys by different tricks and towards morning his work begins. Unsuspicious and sleeping guests wake up in the morning and find out that they were robbed. In most cases the thieves are not caught because they work faultlessly so hotels have to pay a certain sum to damaged guests. There is no doubt that the hotel kitchen belongs to the most important parts of a hotel. It is possible that hotel kitchens were Hailey’s favourite place because he paid big attention to them in his story. He insists that when a guest has a bad night sleep, a good meal can put him in a better mood. If this does not happen, the hotel can be sure that the customer never comes back and what is more, they tell other people about their bad experience. The kitchen in St. Gregory is obsolete and has bad management. The old chef does not like new ideas and buys cheap dishes to save money. No wonder that such dishes become soon useless and can cause unpleasant moments. Hailey depicts here the situation when flaking frying pan caused that hundreds of chickens fried in it were so disgusting that they had to be thrown out. What really captivated me was the way how Hailey describes the protocol which was probably kept in big hotels at that time. If the manager wanted to solve some 29 problems with the chef he had to follow the same protocol as in any royal household. In the kitchen, the chef de cuisine or the sous-chef was the undisputed king. It was unthinkable to enter the kitchen without being invited. The kitchen is the busiest place in the hotel. A lot of employees try to satisfy all guests‘ demands. Cooks in starched white clothes, their assistants and helpers are everywhere. In steam and waves of heat, some helpers strive with heavy trays, pans and cauldrons while other push trolleys full of meals. Waiters and waitresses run around with trays high above their heads. On steam tables the cooks are portioning and preparing meals for the menu, in the soup section giant cauldrons are full of different soups, specialist cooks are preparing special orders, others canapés and hot hors-d’oeuvres, pastry chefs desserts. Everything requires perfect organization, nothing can be forgotten or overlooked.

Hailey’s novel Hotel is full of different characters and their problems but they all have one thing in common. Their lives are somehow connected with the St. Gregory. They spend long or short time in the setting of the hotel and the setting has a good or bad influence on each of them. Somebody experiences trauma, others have a good time and they together create an inseparable group. It is clear that Hailey had to spend a lot of time in hotels in order to be able to describe some operations in such detail. His descriptions of different places or operations are intelligible, even a weak reader can imagine the process. In some chaptures he is not occupied himself only with the hotel and its setting but he also informs us a bit about the history of New Orleans or lives of gold-diggers. He outlines here also some racial questions, segregation and discrimination which posed an acute problem at that time. In his opinion it could seem that he considers the blacks as normal people who should have the same opportunities as the whites. In his story there are two blacks and both of them are very intelligent. The former young boy studies law and keeps the hotelier company and the latter is a famous dentist who is not allowed to stay in the hotel. It is strange that the hotelier is on the one hand an avowed defender of segregation but on the other hand he does not mind having a black boy as a servant and company. Hailey may want to show that people will have to get used to living with the blacks in solidarity which was not possible at that time. To sum up, Hailey does not describe only the setting in the hotel and stories of his characters but also the political setting of that time. Perhaps, for this reason and for some

30 others mentioned above are his books in great demand. He proves to be a masterful narrator because each of his novels increased his mastery of his craft.

31 3. AIRPORT

The novel Airport is a fictional story, fast paced, exciting, rich textured with memorable characters. Arthur Hailey employed here the same multi plot techniques which he had used in Hotel . And, as usual, he wrote an engrossing, enjoyable tale, packed with little-known and fascinating information. For example, how smugglers trip themselves up with customs; how to get free drinks on economy flights; what is an airport ‘Conga Line‘; how much an airline will pay on the spot for a damaged luggage claim; how stewardess pregnancy programs work and why airport insurance booths are heated by airline pilots… but the main hero is the airport itself, viewed through the eyes of a good storyteller. The inspiration for writing Airport was the real event from Denver, Colorado, that happened at the beginning of the sixties. A young man had insured his mother, who flew to Alaska to see her daughter, for a high amount. He put twenty packets of dynamite into one of her luggage, set the bomb and the plane crashed 32 miles from Denver. In the time when Hailey wrote this novel, the aviation was not as developed or commercial as it is now. Since that time a lot of services have improved, further modern and highly frequented airports have been built as the main hero of the story Mel Bakersfeld imagined it. New kinds of planes have been constructed, for example Concords, which were able to cover a large distance in incredibly short time. Since 11 September 2001, most airports have abided relatively strict safety measures. These measures have been introduced for safety of all passangers and not designed, as some thought, for the purpose of discrimination.

3.1 The place and the weather The novel Airport is a sequence of dramatic events which happen at a fictional airport during one day. Hailey choses for his stories another place every time. The story is set in the state of Illinois and the author called it Lincoln International Airport. The airport is a very important aviation crossroad of the world. As far as the first pages are concerned, the author depicts here problems which accumulated due to etreme weather. In Hotel it was hot weather, this time it is cruel winter which gives employees and management of the airport a hard time. The roughest snow storm is raging in this part of the country and complicates not only employees‘ but 32 also passengers‘ lives. In such weather other airports closed their air terminals only our airport resists, even though it is not possible to abide by regular flight schedule because of heavy snowfall, poor visibility and strong wind. As it is usual in his novels, Hailey starts to enumerate a lot of problems which the storm brings. Poor visibility caused that a pilot from a big plane of Mexican Airlines went a bit off the flight path and sank into drenched soil near the longest and the most employed runway called three-zero. This plane blocked the runway for some hours and it was necessary to remove it which was early impossible under these conditions. The passengers and the whole load had to get off the plane and wait until the plane gets on the runway again. The air-traffic-controllers have to reassess all operating modes and restrict arrivals from the nearest airports. In the air, there are twenty planes circling above the airport and waiting for permission to land. Some of them are running out of fuel and on the ground a double number of planes is waiting for instructions to take off. The planes, which have just landed, had to wait in a holding area, which pilots called the penalty box, until gate positions became vacant. Hailey’s wife states that at the time when her husband finished writing his novel, the main American airlines really had to face bad conditions on airports which complicated airport traffic. There was a shortage of runways so many planes had to wait for permission to take off and others to land. Some planes had to circle in the air for hours before a ranway was cleared. (Hailey, S. p.81) In our story there are five runways. The longest and widest runway is just the three-zero which is put out of operation because of the Mexican jet. It is nearly two miles long and as wide as a small block of houses. The other runways are shorter and narrowed by about half a mile. The author removes the very best runway from service to increase tension in readers. The problems with this runway last from the beginning to the end of the story. Hailey expands on hard work of employees who sometimes have to work under inhumane conditions to save a plane or endagered passangers. Hailey also describes in detail how the workers look after the airport surface to secure flying safety. Since the storm has begun, the runways are permanently cleaned, vacuumed, brushed and sanded because there are strict rules for using them. The maximum permitted extent was half an inch of slush or three inches of powder snow for jet planes. Bigger amount would be drawn by engines and a flight might be endangered.

33 For this reason no plane can use a freshly cleared runway until the surface has been inspected and declared safe. The airport surface in our airport is very busy, different vehicles move from one side to the other. The vehicles surrounding each plane are called ‘ramp lice‘ by airport staff. They supply planes with things which will be transported with passengers. Special vehicles with service crews try to remove snow from aircraft wings and then they spray glycol to retard ice formation. The men of the crew are exposed to the snowstorm and they are covered with snow from head to toe and chilled to the bone. Hailey learned interesting things regarding airport traffic during his observations and interrogations. Each airport has a crew looking after cleaning and maintaining runways. But in extreme conditions they are not able to manage everything so the permanent number of workers is supplemented by auxiliary hands from employees‘ ranks, for instance, officers, police, carpenters, electricians etc. Their work is managed by a man who does this work also only in the case of emergency. Otherwise, he works in a planning department but now he is sitting at the Snow Desk and sweating. The Snow Desk is in operation only in winter, it is deserted for the rest of the year. Further problems, which Hailey describes, occur also in car parks outside the airport. The parking supervisor has to resist to irritated complaints from marooned car owners for several hours. They do not seem to have understanding for this complicated situation and demand their rights: ‘People were asking: didn’t whoever ran the airport know it was snowing? And if they did, why didn’t someone get on the ball and move the stuff so a man could drive his car anywhere at any time, as was his democratic right?‘ (Hailey, A. p.13)

Nevertheless, they have to become reconciled to the situation because it is not possible to procure all service in such adverse weather conditions.

3.2 The departure lounge

The departure lounge in Hailey’s story is a place where a lot of interesting things happen. The bad weather caused that thousands of passengers are jammed in the main concourse and everything is in chaos. Some flights were cancelled and some postponed. A food truck, loaded with dinners for passengers got lost somewhere in the snowstorm so the planes could not take off. In the waiting rooms, all seats are engaged, baggage in piles

34 everywhere, newspaper stands and inquiry offices are enclosed by a crowd. Queues of waiting people in front of airline windows are endless, sellers of plane tickets are reinforced by further colleagues who had to stay overtime. The snowstorm caused not only delays but also transfers of passengers to other flights. The sellers try to satisfy all customers even though a lot of patience and self- control is needed. Some passengers do not want to come to terms with the difficult situation, they insist on their flights and they are rude and vulgar to the sellers. So it is no wonder that some of them cannot stand the pressure and react not very professionally. I like the part when a man insists on flying only in such a plane where will be shown the same film he had missed. The seller, who served him, lost her temper and threw a timetable on his head. Then she realized what she had done and was sure that she would lose her job. However, Hailey is sympathetic to the girl and explains that in such charged situations it is possible to tolerate some offences if they do not tarnish a good reputation of the company. When observing airports Hailey may have noticed that the aviation in the USA is up to standart but it has some shortages, too. As all branches in the USA, also the aviation has to be confronted with lack of money. A city council invests money in things that are visible so that passengers can judge the airport by the way it looks or what kind of services it offers. The main passenger terminal is depicted as a brightly lit space with air conditioning. It is built of gleaming glass and chrome, impressively spacious and next to crowded halls there are elegant waiting areas. The passengers can choose from a wide choice of services, from six specialty restaurants ranging from a gourment dining room with gold-edged china and matching prices to hot dogs stalls. Each visitor waiting for his flight can do the shopping, rent a room with a bed, take a steam bath with massage, have his hair cut, or his clothes ironed, and even die and has his or her funeral arranged by a funeral home. Hailey also points out some lacks which can occur in each airport. Since the main terminal in our story looks opulent, it could seem that everything at the airport works as it should. Hardly any passenger knows that the whole system of runways is inadequate and therefore hazardous. There is not enough money for building or repairing runways so the work of the air traffic controllers is formidable. Runways and taxiways are dangerously overtaxed, on two main runways, there are takeoffs or landings every thirty seconds. So there are moments when air traffic controllers hold their breath and pray.

35 An inseparable part of each airport is a warehouse where different things wait for their flight. The warehouse in our story is bursting at the seams due to the storm. Supervisors are walking around the goods restlessly because some sorts of the goods go bad quickly. That is why it is necessary to transport them immediately to their places and if possible in fresh condition. We can find here flowers for New England, cheese for Alaska, frozen peas for Iceland, live lobsters for England or France or several thousand turkey poults, hatched in incubators only a few hours earlier. Such cases take a priority over human VIPs included.

3.3 The community of Meadowood To make the story more suspenseful, Hailey mentions some problems which make employees‘ work more difficult. The airport does not have problems only with the storm, but also with a village which lying nearby. Inhabitants of the village permanently send letters of complaint to the airport management because of excessive noise. Although the airport was established long before the community, Meadowood residents complain incessantly and bitterly about noise from aircraft overhead. However, these people had been warned by airport management when they wanted to buy new houses there, but they ignored the arguments and got their way. After long negotiations the both sides agreed that jet takeoffs and landings directly over Meadowood would be restricted but under special circumstances, as it is in our story, the airport have the right to fly over the village. It was also agreed, that plane taking off Meadowood would almost at once, after becoming airborne, follow noise abatement procedures. The pilots protested against these regulations and considered them dangerous. Nevertheless, the management ordered the pilots to conform to the procedures because they were aware of public furor. Today’s weather is a further pretext for spoiling the work of the airport management. Because the runway zero-three is out of use, planes have to fly just above the community and the pilots refuse to choke engines in such weather. The phones from the village ring after each takeoff and the situation becomes inbearable: ‘I suppose you’ve told the people who’ve called that we’ve a special situation – the storm, a runway out of use.‘ ‘We explain. But nobody’s interested. They just want the airplanes to stop coming over. Some of ´em say that problems or not, pilots are still supposed to use noise abatement procedures, but tonight they aren’t doing it.‘

36 ‘Good God!– if I was a pilot neither would I. How could anyone of reasonable intelligence, Mel wondered, expect a pilot, in tonight’s violent weather, to chop back his power immediately after takeoff, and then go into a steeply banked turn on instruments – which was noise abatement procedures called for.‘ (Hailey, A. p.11)

Hailey occupies himself with a problem which exists not only in the airport but also somewhere else. People buy houses or plots near airports, industrial zones or shopping centres and when they move there they start complaining. They call for their rights, hire lawyers who pick their money as it is in our story. Finally, the people understand that they have no choice, either to tolerate the noise or to move. The author described here quite impressively a scene when the residents have a meeting against the airport and claim financial damages for noise. One cunning lawyer is willing to promise them the moon in order to earn fortune even though he knows that the case is lost beforehand.

3.4 Air Traffic Control The most important room in each airport is the radar room. It is obvious that this room charmed the author because he describes the equipment and operation of the room and the work of conrollers really in great detail. I liked the parts of the story concerning air traffic control because there are a lot of information which I found very interesting and instructive. Hailey‘s radar room is placed in a control tower, one floor down from glass tower cab from which air traffic control direct movement of planes on the ground and in the nearest airspace. The radar department cooperates with the nearest air traffic controls which are usually situated miles away from each other. There are not any windows in the radar room. Every day and every night ten radar controllers and supervisors work in perpetual semidarkness under dim moonglow lights. Around them, there is tightly packed equipment on the walls as radarscopes, controls, radio communication panels. The controllers usually work only in shirts because the temperature in this room is maintained at twenty-one degrees to protect delicate electronic devices. Bright white shirts are a uniform for controllors even though there is no rule for wearing them. In the radar room calmness predominates. However, Hailey may have intuited or he was told that there is a constant nervous strain under this calmness. Tonight, the strain is increased by the storm. On the screens there is an extraordinary number of planes. The flat screens, which become the centre of attention, are horizontal glass circle, the size of a

37 bicycle tire. Their surface is dark green and green points of light show all planes in the air within a forty-mile radius. All controllors in the dark, tightly packed radar room sweat every day and especially tonight. Even though a controller is nervous or in a bad mood, his voice has to be firm and clear without hints of pressure and tension. This evening the pilots are swamped with work, the planes are tossed by storm and fly solely on istruments, there is hardly any visibility outside the cockpits which multiplies demands on their skills . The controllors try hard to maintain their concentration to retain a picture about theirs sectors and each plane in it. It requires constant memorizing of identification marks, positions and types of aircraft, speed, altitudes, sequences of landing etc., even in quiter times the controllors work in unceasing mental strain: ‘Tonight, the storm was taxing celebral effort to its limit. A controller’s nightmare was to ‘lose the picture,‘ a situation where an overtaxed brain rebelled and everything went blank. It happened occasionally, even to the best.‘ (Hailey, A. p. 78)

Hailey writes that controllers have to work hard and conscientiously. Their work requires to concentrate firmly, consciously and deliberately, and everybody has to manage it, otherwise they could not do this work. Another demand is a controlled, studied calmness during their shift. The two requirements, which are contrary to human nature, exhaust them mentally and at last, brought them some inconveniences. Many controllors suffer from gastric ulcers but they hide this disease not to lose their jobs. Consequently they are affected by other diaseses, for instance, hypertension, heart attack, tachycardia, psychiatric breakdowns plus some lesser ailments. There are also other things which pose a danger not only to their health but also to their social life. Some controllors are mean and irascible at home or they have fits of rage which is a natural reaction to suppressed emotions at work. Irregular hours of sleep and work disturb their household and it is no wonder that it results in a lot of broken marriages and divorces. Air traffic emergencies occur several times a day in any kind of weather, on the clearest day or during a storm. Fortunately, only few people know about such cases because it was almost always possible to solve them safely. Even pilots in the air are rarely told the reason of different delays or abrupt instructions they have to follow. Ground emergency staff like crash crews, ambulance attendants and police are always on alert as well as the airport management. There are three categories of declared alarm which Hailey mentions in his story: 38 ‘Category one was the most serious, but was rarely invoked, since it signaled an actual crash. Category two was notification of imminent danger to life, or physical damage. Category three, as now, was a general waring to airport emergency facilities to stand by; they might be needed, or they might not. For controllers, however, any type of emergency involved additional pressures and aftereffects.‘ (Hailey, A. p. 81)

Hailey does not forget to state all information concerning the work and life of controllers. He discovered by observation that each controller has to keep regular breaks and in his story they spend them in a locker room which is a smaller room with one window, some metal lockers and a small wooden bench in the middle. On a notice board there is an untidy collection of official bulletins and notices from airport social groups. The controllors spend here only short time to have a snack or lunch or just relax. The author also occupies himself with the attitude of the superiors to the work of controllers. Their work is so exhausting that doctors treating them reported to relevant authorities of airlines and urged Congress to allow them to retire at the age of fifty, or after twenty years of service. After more than twenty years they are totally exhausted and potentially useless. It might happen that something inside them, psychical, mental or often both, inevitably breaks down. But Congress ignored this warning and refused the bill. What is interesting, the salaries of controllers do not correspond to their effort. Along with pilots they are the most skillful specialists but pilots earn thirty thousand dollars a year while senior controllers about ten thousand. These amounts, of couse, relate to the time when the book was written and I suppose that a lot of things have changed since that time.

3.5 Services Before each takeoff and after each landing a of work has be done. Hailey really notices all details connected with airport traffic. He writes about services which form an unseparable part of each flight, though, passengers hardly know anything about it. So the author tries to describe all services even the unpleasant ones. When a plane lands, a special car called ‘a honey wagon‘ comes quickly to the plane to pick up a smelly four-hundred gallon load of contents pumped out from aircraft toilets. This load is rejected into a shredding machine in a special building which other airport employees avoid like the plague. Mostly the procedure works easily, except for the cases, when passengers report losses of different items like purses, wallets, dentures,

39 even shoes which were dropped into the toilet by accident. It happens once or twice a day and in this case the load has to be sifted. The workers pray to find the missing item very quickly. Even without incidents, the sanitary crew has a busy night because the worse weather, the bigger demand for toilets on the ground and in the air. The airport sanitary supervisors receive weather forecasts every hour and according to them they plan if it is necessary to provide extra cleaning and increased supplies. The air mail is the most widespread and the fastest in the world. The airport post office watches on airline schedules a minute-to-minute. They know exactly where their mailbags are and if some delays occur, postal employees switch mail quickly from one airline to another as was the case of the stranded Mexican jet. So the mail from Aéreo Mexican will reach its destination more quickly than passengers. In his story Hailey deals with services which are offered to passengers by insurance companies. Perhaps, the author himself does not know if such services are good or neccessary for passengers. On the one hand he defends them as the main hero Mel but on the other hand he agrees with opponents. In the departure lounge there are some booths where passengers can take out an air trip insurrance. These insurance booths and insurance policy vending machines are a thorn in some pilots‘ side and they want the management to abolish them. In their opinions, airport insurance vending is a ridiculous, archaic hangover from flying’s early days and now they insult commercial aviation which is considered the safest means of the transport. The air trip insurance is accessible nearly for everybody because it is cheap and anybody can get a life insurance promising vast sums for few dolars. The transactions are under quick way and officials hardly ever have enough time to reveal potential mentally disturbed people. These possibilities play directly into the hands of psychopats, madmen, conscienceless mass killers. On that account, pilots insist on cancellation of the booths at airports. If travellers really want to take insurance they can go to insurance companies or travel agents where officers have more time to check out different things. In our story this offender is a mentally ill man who went bankrupt and needs to sustain his family by a mad action. His plan is to take a bomb on board the plane to set it above the ocean and nobody finds wrecks. It was a condition how to get money from an insurance company, no wrecks, no evidences. If the company does not find any evidences about the accident it is obliged to pay the bereaved a certain sum of money. Our man uses the service just from above mentioned booths. He is waiting for the last moment before

40 the departure and demands a policy for seventy hundred dollar. The girl working in the booth is very ambitious, she takes part in a competition offering an electric toothbrush for the seller who sells the most policies. So she wrote out an amount policy of three hundred dollars even though it was evident that the man was short of money and his behaviour was strange. The girl was hesitatant for a while but, at last, her greed won.

3.6 Preparation of a flight and a flight The plane which Hailey chooses to describe in his story is a Boeing 707-320 B which flies at the cruising speed of six hundred and five miles per hour. At that time it was quite a powerful plane which was airline’s pride and joy. It could fly six thousand miles at maximum weight which is the straight line distance from Iceland to Hong Kong. It could carry one hundred and ninety-nine passengers and twenty-five thousand U.S. gallons of fuel and cost six and half million dollars. The work of air mechanics is also described in great details, so that readers get a general picture of what happens in air hangars. Provided that there is a problem with a plane it is immediately moved into a hangar and a crew of mechanics is prepared to find and fix the trouble. The inspection has to be careful because one small mistake could endanger passengers‘ lives. This inspection costs a lot of money and moreover, when a plane stands in a hangar it does not earn money and the airlines suffer heavy losses. But they have to come to terms with these losses in order to meet high safety standarts. Aircraft mechanics take a close interest in the operational flights of planes which they serviced. They observe the repaired plane and are delighted when the plane functions well as it happens in many cases. After repairing a plane an air test is required and only then the aircraft is prepared for a flight. Hailey pays considerable attention to plane supply and describes individual operations. As soon as a plane gets at its gate, plenty of different workers bustle inside and around it. At first, it is necessary to transport food to the board. The first class section gets six extra meals, economy section has the same number of meals as passengers. The first class passengers can have a second dinner if they want to, but economy passengers cannot. However, each passenger has to have his meal even though he has a special demand: ‘Despite the exact count, a last-minute passenger would always get a meal. Spare meals – including Kosher meals – were available in lockers near the

41 departure gate. If an unexpected passenger went abroad as doors were closing, his food try was passed in after him.‘ (Hailey, A. p.189)

The next important item is liquor. The first-class passengers can drink to their heart content, but tourist passengers have to pay a dollar for a drink. If stewardesses cannot give change back, their instruction is to give the passenger his or her drinks free. Some regular travellers from tourist classes misuse it and enjoy free drinks. Not only food and drinks are delivered to a plane but also blankets, pillows, airsick bags, nappies, Gideon Bibles, trays, newspapers etc. All the things are accessible so passengers often leave the plane with these things in their suitcases. Airlines never check if anything is missing because it is replaced immediately. Problems with baggage did not occur only at the time when Hailey wrote his novel but they still persist. The moment passengers leave their suitcases they never know if they ever see them again. The author states that despite inovation and modernization of these services sometimes it happens that baggage gets lost: ‘Baggage handling-airlines conceded privately-was the least efficient part of air travel. In an age where human ingenuity could place a capsule the size of a houseboat in outer space, it was a fact that an airline passenger’s bag could not be counted on to arrive safely at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, or Minneapolis- St. Paul, or even at the same time as the passenger. An astounding amount of airline baggage-at least one bag in every hundred-went to wrong destinations, was delayed, or lost entirely.‘ (Hailey, A. p.191)

A man at the load control desk has a very responsible job. He looks after the weight of a plane, he has to count exactly the whole load including passengers, baggage, mail, goods, fuel and so on. The weight of the load has to be divided equally in the whole plane and the plane has to be balanced to remain stable in the air. Pilots‘ work is not only to fly the plane but they have to carry out other tasks, too. During the flight and before takeoff they have to check the fuel flow, temperature of oil, engines, turbines, hydraulic system, speed, course etc. The next task is to communicate with air traffic controls in English which is an official language. When planes fly on longer distances there should be two pilots and they split duties. Hailey regards stewardesses and male crew members as captains, first and second officers as people of high-caliber. They all achieved their positions after tough, exacting process of elimination in which the less talented failed. The few, who remained, are the best and brightest. They are considered as perceptive personalities with a zest for life and the abilities to appreciate each other. Hailey describes them in his story in such a way, that it is evident he seemed to be fascinated by these people. 42 We can hardly imagine flights without stewardesses. Hailey’s stewardesses are nice and pretty women but he also points out some of their offences. They are clever girls and know how to earn more money. Because nobody checks them they take some things from the plane, for example, surplus food, blankets, pillows, towels, glasses, silverware or liquor which passengers did not want. So after some time each stewardess gets basic equipment for her household. A problem comes about when a stewardess becomes pregnant and it is interesting how the company reacts in this case. No airlines want to lose stewardesses for any reason because their training was expensive, so qualified stewardesses represent a big investment. And there is another thing, it was hard to find right girls with good appearence, style and personality. If the pregnant stewardess does not plan to get married she can return to her job when her pregnancy is over. She receives official leave of absence and a personnel department helps her to arrange a medical care or a stay in a sanatorium. When a stewardess does not want to have an abortion and gives birth to a child she must agree that her baby will be surrendered for adoption immediately after its birth. The author divides pilots into two groups and describes their changeover from domestic to international operations. Pilots who did not have enough experience and an adequate number of flown hours could fly only domestic operations. When a pilot wants to be an international captain he has to make two transatlantic flights with a regular line captain who has instructor’s qualification. After these two flights he had to pass a final check by a senior supervisory captain before being accepted for international transport. The pilots of all airlines had to undergo an aerial scrutiny of ability and flying habits once in six months. These checks take place on ordinary scheduled flights and passengers can recognize it only when they notice the presence of two four-striper captains. Both captains control each other carefully, the tests, both regular and special, are usually strict and exacting, the pilots themselves desire it. It seems that Hailey did not forget to visit rooms for crews and stewardesses. He depicts them as simply furnished offices with a big board. On a notice board there is a schedule which is made out monthly. It shows the dates when captains and first and second officers will fly, in stewardesses’ room there is a similar board. Each pilot or stewardess can choose the route, but those who are seniors get the flight which they want. Just before departure, stewardesses finish last preparations and pilots study weather forecast and flight plans.

43 3.7 Stowaways Perhaps, in each means of transport we can come across a stowaway. In our plane, such a stowaway is a little old lady who looks like a fairytale grandmother. I do not know why Hailey chose just a character of an old and fragile woman, maybe because she looks credibly and is not supposed to deceive the staff. The stowaway in our story gets in different planes by using a lot of tricks and lies and employees of airports are always taken in by her. The old lady flies to New York to see her daughter and because she does not have enough money for an air ticket, she makes use of different airlines. But her favourite airline is Trans America because its staff always behave politely to her. She stays with her daughter for two weeks and then she goes to the airline and confesses to her action. Then the airline sent her home in its plane with all services at their own expense. All airlines know that it happens very often. A stowaway boards a plane secretly and waits for a takeoff silently. If the stowaways do not travel in first class where is easy to identify passengers and if their flight is not fully occupied, there is less probability that they would be revealed. It is true that stewardesses count passengers but usually they do not search for stowaways because the flight would be delayed and it might result in passengers‘ and captains‘ complaints. So airlines assume responsibility for the stowaways and take them on the place where they took off. I like the information about stowaways, it seems incredible to me how inventive people are when they want to fly somewhere without a plane ticket. Hailey gives also information about beginnings of stow-aways in his novel: ‘There had been stowaways, Tanya recalled reading somewhere, as long as 700 B.C., on ships of the Phoenicians which plied the eastern Mediterranean. At that time, the penalty for those who were caught was excruciating death-disembowelment of adult stowaways, while children were burned alive on sacrificial stones. Since then, penalties had abated, but stowaways had not.‘ (Hailey, A. p.148)

In this story mainly inanimate things like weather, the place, the equipment, the aeronautical engineering, the airport spaces, runways etc., play the fundamental role. The plot is only minimal illustration of their functioning. The main hero Mel is also a honest and moral man just like Peter in the novel Hotel. He tries to keep the airport in operation in spite of unfavourable conditions. Mel is a sort of a man for whom his work comes first and he cannot imagine losing it. His marriage is breaking up because of his job and partly because of his wife who wants to get into the cream of society. Mel refuses to go with

44 her to parties because he hates it and she cannot go there without him. Cindy is depicted here as a simple woman and her only aim is to get on the first pages of a social bulletin. For this reason Mel leaves her and tries to find a woman who would be his equal partner. One of his colleagues seems to love him and he feels the same. However, there is another character which I found interesting. It is Mel’s brother Keith who works in the air traffic control and is traumatized by experiences from the past. His work is very demanding and exhausting so no wonder that one day during his shift one plane crashed and all people died. Keith considers it as his personal failure and wants to commit a suicide. Here Hailey tries to get into his mind and describes his complicated mental processes that we cannot find with his other characters. At the end, Hailey lets him live but Keith leaves his work to start a new life but without planes and airports. Other characters are stereotyped, no developement, they are still the same. The setting which Hailey describes here is very interesting for me. As I have never flown lot of information were new for me. It seems that the author did not miss out a place which exists in each airport. He depicts also problems with the outside village and its cunning lawyer, we visit places which are normally not accessible for common people. We learn a lot about air traffic control, watch men who work hard to free a plane from snow, keep our fingers crossed for the crew and passenger when the plane explodes. While in the novel Hotel Hailey implies probable course of events in Airport he leaves some stories unresolved. His wife Sheila states in his book how readers reacted to his novel Airport. The author got plenty letters from his enthusiastic readers and some of them suggested he should write a sequel because they wanted to know what happened with individual characters. One reader from England even sent a list of questions and demanded answers. Hailey was delighted that his characters charmed his readers and that they are interested in their fates. But Hailey had never thought about writing a next volume, because each novel was unique for him and also when his novel was published he had been collecting information for his new novel. (Hailey, S. p.143)

45 4. IN HIGH PLACES

The novel In High Places was published in the Czech Republic in 1992 for the first time. This book could not come out during the totalitarian power of the communists in our country. Actually, the author describes here the danger of war which could be set in the fifties of the last century by the Soviet Union which longed for world rule. The domestic censorship made it impossible for the book to be published, for us, the Soviet Union was our model and the peace protector. In contrast to Airport and Hotel where is endangered a limited community of individuals, in High Places the author focuses on the whole world which is in danger. And in this situation, we can follow a political fight between an imaginary party in power with a prime minister on the one hand and an opposition party on the other hand. The thrill is completed by a story of a captive on a merchant ship, who demands admission on the Canadian coast. Everything is fictitious but heavily informed and mimiced through observation, including a political scene with its soft intrigues, plots and meaness. What is politically good and beneficial does not have to either be virtuous or honest. It is not true that politics and politicians can be totally clean and honest. This book is a fiction but it has a special position. It differs from other books where problems are solved only in one place. It is a bomb prepared for an explosion. It is the matter of world disease which, perhaps, can never be cured completely and forever. Now, In High Places is a novel which describes the recent history. It is a fiction of that time, the contract about unification was never concluded. Fortunately, the war which was about to happen did not take place. When the book came out for the first time it was different because it extended a warning at that time, today it documents the then political situation. Hailey introduces to us high political places of a fictitious country, a government and characters. However, the wives of politicians, lovers, secretaries or political leaders as if they reflected the contemporary political scene.

4.1 The plot and setting In this novel Hailey brings us to Canada this time and initiates us into its system of government. The Canadian government got a task to save the world from a nuclear war which would be a destruction of the entire mankind. The story takes place in the sixtieth 46 of the last century when the cold war culminated and the world balanced over the chasm of the most destructive war. Hailey‘s story starts at the Christmas time when people are looking forward to calm holiday days, they buy presents to make their relatives and friends happy. However, they do not have an idea what a hard decision their Prime Minister has to make during these days. This time Hailey does not pay big attention to weather as it was in previous novels. He focuses here rather on international political climate and he invented a fantastic plot. The biggest enemy of the USA and the entire democratic world, the Soviet Union starts to obtain a great power in the military sphere which causes American government considerable worries. The government tries to win Canada over to create a strong coalition which could resist a potential military attack. It is necessary to convince Canada to take this step, it seems that Canada has no other choice. However, the American government does not take into account the hard and intransigent the Canadian Prime Minister. On the first pages Hailey unfolds three important events which are going on at the same time, even though, at first, they do not seem to have anything in common. Later, these three events came together, gave the ruling party a hard time and checked out its power and cohesiveness. The three events are held in different places, a reception in Government House, a top secret phone conversation between the President of the United States and the Canadian Prime Minister, and the last is anchoring the Liberian ship Vastervik in Vancouver. The first event which the author describes is a reception in Government House in Ottawa. When a calendar year ends, nearly all companies and organisations give parties to say goodbye to the old year. It is the same with the high places. Her Majesty’s Governor General holds an official reception and the guests are Members of Parliament and Ministers accompanied by their wives. Naturally, the Prime Minister and his spouse are respectable guests and they have to be welcomed with due appropriateness. A Mountie in a scarlet uniform is waiting for them outside the residence to salute them. When they enter Government House, they are led by a youngish lieutenant of the Royal Canadian Navy in a gold-trimmed uniform into the main hall. Other guests are waiting for them and after their arrival the reception is open. The setting is very formal, guests have to keep a fixed protocol because the reception takes place on the British ground.

47 The residence is described as a luxuriosly equipped building which represents Her Majesty Queen and the British monarchy. The Governor General is the highest official in the Dominion of Canada. A festive table is prepared for this special day and the food served on this occasion can be compared to the royal table. The chef employed in the residence kitchen is famous for his culinary skills. He has a good reputation, and once, a wife of other important statesman wanted to poach him from Ottawa to their country which nearly caused an international incident. The festive table offers the best delicacies: ‘Beluga malossol caviar, oysters Malpeque, pâté maison , lobster aspic, Winnipeg smoked gold-eye, foie gras Mignonette , cold roast prime ribs, galantine of capon, hickory-smoked turkey, Virginia ham.‘(Hailey, A. p.18)

Hailey occupies himself with problems which have weighed Canadians down for years. The fact that Canada belongs to the British monarchy worries not only common people but also high placed officials. They want to rid themselves of the cult of kings, queens and royal representatives and break away from the British monarchy. It seems that the royal opulences as quaint protocols, gilt coaches, court lackeys and gold dinner services are an anachronist of that time, and cancellation of ceremonies would save time and money: ‘Already a good deal of ceremony associated with the throne seemed mildly funny, like a good-natured charade. When the day came, as it would, when people began to laugh out loud, then decay would have begun in earnest. Or perhaps, before that, some backstairs royal scandal would erupt and the crumbling come swiftly, in Britain as well as Canada.‘ (Hailey, A. p.16)

But England does not want to allow Canada to free itself from its dominion. And what is more, the Queen herself forces the Canadian Parliament to be different from the USA and suggests to restore titles again. To use titles like Sir, Lord or Lady is unimaginable and ridiculous for Canadians. The reception takes place in a pleasant atmosphere, all guests have a nice time. Hailey describes conversations about common and also political things between individual Ministers and their wives. But suddenly, the author disrupts this peaceful reception. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration comes drunk and belligerent and provokes a quarrel. Such behaviour is unacceptable and insults the Governor General. Some Ministers try to march the offender out. But it is not possible, because, according to the protocol, nobody can leave until the Governor General does. In an effort to avoid further scandals, the Governor General leaves and the reception ends.

48 Hailey expands on problems with the immigration law in Canada. The subject of the quarrel were just some disagreements regarding the entry permit to Canada. The immigration problems have shaken other governments‘ authority more than once. Sometimes it is hard to keep the situation within acceptable bounds, and the people react in unpredictable ways when they hear heartbreaking stories about rejected immigrants. Canada was and still is a promised land for many people and each Canadian government has to regulate the influx of population with extreme caution. As far as immigrants are concerned, Canada was always very fussy: ‘Too many immigrants from one source, too few from another, could be sufficient to change the balance of power within a generation. In a way, the Prime Minister thought, we have our own apartheid policy, though fortunately the barriers of race and colour are set up discreetly and put into effect beyond our borders, in Canadian embassies and consulates overseas. And definite as they are, at home we can pretend they do not exist.‘(Hailey, A. p.25)

In Hailey’s opinion, some inhabitants welcome the immigrants, others refuse them and the reasons are different. For example, the employers who need further new labour forces, call for immigration, the others are afraid of flooding the country with undesirable people. The officials working in the Immigration Office have to follow strict laws which were passed by Parliament and are expected to observe them to the smallest detail. There are pre-established criteria which immigrants have to fulfil. If they do not comply with them, they are not allowed to enter to the country.

4.2 The Prime Minister and his Cabinet The author presents his fictional government to readers but also states some facts. Canada does not have a president but a Prime Minister who is the head of the state. The leader of the political party which wins elections becomes the Prime Minister, but he also needs the trust of the majority of the House of Representative. The Governor General formally appoints the government and the Prime Minister, however, according to convections, he respects a Prime Minister‘s election. The Prime Minister has extensive political power and also appoints further high officials. The Prime Minister has an official residence at his disposal for the term of office. Hailey describes it as a big stone mansion with the view of the River Ottawa and the Gatineau Hills on one side and the Quebec shoreline on the other side. He lives here with

49 his wife, a steward and a girl attending to all their needs. The residence has several floors and rooms but the most favourite room for the ministerial couple is a big comfortable living room with upholstered sofas, Empire armchairs, a fireplace and heavy grey drapes. Hailey turns his attention to the financial situation of the Prime Minister. Although he lives in the luxurious residence but his incomes are low. It is very interesting that the Prime Minister makes decisions about the nations‘ destiny, but he receives less in salary and allowance than an American congressman. What is more, he has to use his own car with an inadequate allowance, so his family has to cut down their demands. It is a paradox that Canada is one of the richest countries in the world and neverthless, its leaders get paid miserably. I have found in Wikipedia that the present Prime Minister Stephen Harper lives in a residence and has the Harrington Lake and an armoured long- wheelbare Cadillac STS at his disposal. He can also use General Governer‘s cars and two planes for his state affairs. However, his incomes still do not reach staggering sums. When a Prime Minister’s term is over, he does not have any money at his account and draws only low pension from a contributory pension scheme. For this reason, Prime Ministers accepted the office in old age: ‘One result for the nation in the past had been that Prime Ministers tended to cling to office in old age. Others retired to penury and the charity of friends. Cabinet Ministers and MP’s fared even less well. It’s a remarkable thing, Howden thought, that so many of us stay honest.‘ (Hailey, A. p.36-37)

The Members of Howden’s Cabinet do not have an easy life. When the Prime Minister takes into his head to call an extraordinary meeting, they have to be available at whichever hour or day, whether it is Christmas or not, politics takes priority. In our story the Prime Minister calls an extraordinary meetings on Christmas Eve. The Ministers discuss important international questions in the Privy Council Chamber. The room has a high ceiling, on the floor there is a beige carpet, in the middle of the room there is standing a big oval table with twenty-four carved-oak and red-leather chairs. It has been the scene of most decisions affecting Canadian history since the Confederation. The Prime Minister has to convince his Ministers of the necessity to join the USA and to face their common enemy – the Soviet Union. The negotiations are not easy because Canada was always proud of its independent sovereignity and now it should be changed. After long talks the Ministers agree because they understood that there is no other way. Another place which Hailey mentions is the Rideau Club on Wellington Street in Ottawa. In his opinion the club is the place where the history of Canada is also made. He describes it as a quite common building from the outside even with no name. It is 50 possible to see Parliament Hill through the windows of this club, and the building is guarded at its doorway by a bronze statue of Queen Victoria. The Membership of this club is mainly Ottawa’s political elite, cabinet ministers, judges, senators, diplomats, military chiefs of staff, top civil servants, some trusted journalists and a few ordinary Members of Parliament who can affort to pay high fees. Inside the building the politicians or other important people meet and entertain or they think out different strategies how to change this or that, how to cheat the opposition or how to attract voters. Even though the meetings have different aims everything happens in a propriety: ‘Within the club, above a pillared entrance hall and broad divided stairway, the atmosphere is just as rarefied. There is no rule about silence, but most times of the day a sepulchral hush prevails and newer members tend to speak in whispers.‘ (Hailey, A. p.103)

Some Ministers are quite well off, for example, the mentioned Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. He has the most luxurious personal office suite in Ottawa. A well-upholstered throne, a deep grey carpet, pale grey drapes, a comfortable mixture of English period furniture, everything is perfectly harmonized and visitors are invariably impressed. However, just this Ministry nearly brought the government to ruin. The Immigration law was strictly followed and some verdicts outraged the public and it seemed that the government was going to lose favour with the public. But the government and mainly its leader turned out to be strong people who are able to cope with all uneasy tasks.

4.3 Vastervik and its stowaway The next plot, which Hailey develops, takes place on the Canadian West coast, where ships from around the world anchor to load or unload their cargo. One of the many ships anchoring in Vancouver harbour just before Christmas, is the ship called Vastervik . There is nothing interesting about this ship, perhaps only, there is a stowaway among the crew. But it is nothing extraordinary because from time to time, a stowaway appeared on a ship. Such a man was treated according to the laws of the sea. They did not have to work but he could do some work voluntarily, although, without claiming money. If they worked or not, they had the same rations as the ship’s crew.

51 The ship, where a part of his story is set, is past its prime. When three officials came to check the cargo and the crew, they are surprised that the ship is still able to sail and even to carry a cargo. From a distance and in the darkness, the Vastervik looks quite good but when you get closer, you can see sings of age and accumulated neglect: ‘Faded paintwork had great patches of rist extending over superstructure, doors, and bulkheads. Elsewhere the last remmants of painting hung down in peeled strips. From a solitary light bulb above the gangway a layer of grime was visible on the deck under their feet and near by were several open boxes of what appeared to be garbage. A short distance forward a steel ventilator had corroded and broken from its housing. Probably unrepairable, it had been lashed uselessly to the deck.‘ (Hailey, A. p.55)

Although, it seems that the ship can hardly remain on the surface, the captain’s cabin is always cosy and perfectly tidy. The mahogany furniture is polished, there is gleaming silverware with a white linen cloth on the table. The whole time, the Vastervik is anchoring by Canadian coast, the captain himself is wearing a brown serge suit and only his old fashioned carpet slippers on his feet spoil overall impression. What is special about the stowaway on Vastervik and how he is different from other stowaways? Hailey chooses a character who elicits immediate emotions in readers and he does it intentionally. His name is Henri Duval, he is a tramp without any identity, relatives and documents. For this reason, no country wants to give him an admission to get off the ship. He believes that Canada, which is considered to be the most liberal country in the world, will become his home. This man works hard on the ship and the captain sometimes gives him some money in order to buy necessary things. Henri also eats with the crew, so when the ship is at open seas, his life does not differ from other sailors. His hopes die when three officials come on the ship, the first is a customs officer, the second a shipping company agent and the third, the most important for him, a man from the Canadian Immigration. His request to stay in Canada is strictly denied and apart from that he is ordered to stay locked in a small metal room. Two journalists, who are interested in his life, want to help him. When they find him in his prison they wonder if it is possible a man could live in such a way: ‘It was a metal box – a cube approximately six feet square. Long ago the walls had been painted a drab ochre but now much of the paint had gone, with rust replacing it. Both paint and rust were covered with a film of moisture, disturbed only where heavier water droplets coursed down-ward. Occupying the lenght of one wall and most of the width inside was the single metal bunk. Above it was a small shelf about a foot long and six inches wide. Bellow the bunk was an iron pail. And that was all. There was

52 no window or porthole, only a vent of sorts near the top of one wall. And the air was foul.‘ (Hailey, A. p.56)

The journalists wrote an article about the boy without identity and native country. The article was published in Vancouver Post , flew round the world and caused different reactions. All leading newspapers printed a commentary to the topic and the Moscow Pravda quoted the incidents as an example of ‘capitalist hypocrisy‘. Some people feel sorry for him, they sent him some money or food, others cursed and damned officialdom and bureaucratic inhumanity. The government feels that this situation might result in a loss of voters and favour of people, so it is neccessary to solve it quickly and calmly. On the contrary, the opposition wants to exploit it for its benefit. Hailey entrusts Henri’s case to a young lawyer Alain and gives readers possibility to take a look into the world of legal practices. Alain has graduated recently, and he is asked by the opposition to take charge of this case. He tries to use all the legal possibilities and dodges to help the homeless to start new life. He asks Immigration office to take Henri’s request into account but he is refused. He collects some arguments and is going to submit the case to the Supreme Court as an application for habeas corpus. The judge accepted the case and gave the order ‘Nisi‘ which means that the stowaway has to be brought in front of the court and questioned. However, and according to some paragraphs Henri is considered to be a member of the prohibited class which do not fulfil the conditions of the Immigration Regulations. Henri is terribly disappointed, the lawyer shocked and disgusted and decides to charge the whole society: ‘Pilates who delude ourselves we are a Christian country. We allow in a hundred tubercular immigrants and beat our breast in smug self- righteousness, ignoring millions more, broken by a war from which Canada grew rich. By selective immigration, denying ‘We clothe our barbarism in politeness and call them civilized. We are Pontius visas, we sentence families and children to misery and sometimes death, then avert our eyes and nostrils that we shall not see or smell. We break, turn down, a single human being, rationalizing our shame. And whatever we do, for whichever hypocrisy, there is a law or regulation…‘ (Hailey, A. p.306)

After this inauspicious verdict, the lawyer starts the case with greater vigour. He and his colleague try to find a precedent in the Legal Library, where many legal cases are stored, which could help the unhappy man. It was necessary to find the right files which could restore the case. It is almost always possible to find a loophole in the law which

53 could reverse the verdict. And this happened in the case of the young stowaway who got a permission to stay in Canada for a certain time.

4.4 The summit meeting in Washington The third important place in the story is the White House in Washington. The negotiations among the USA and Canada will be hard and extraordinarily important. Accompanied by his wife and some Ministers the Prime Minister flies to the summit to Washington. Before each departure to different countries or places he likes having all the Ministers and other guests at the airport. Since his first term in office he demands welcoming ceremonials as well as formal partings. Not all people are very excited about his demands but they have to accept them: ‘Among cabinet members the process had become known familiarly as ‘the line-up‘. Occasionally there was mild grumbling and, once, world of it had reached James Howden’s ears. But his own attitude – defined to Brian Richardson, who had reported the complaints – was that the occasions were a demonstration of party and government solidarity, and the party director agreed.‘ (Hailey, A. p.195)

The Prime Minister goes by VIP plane, maintained by the Government for official flights. It is divided into three parts. The first part is a conventional forward section for staff, the second, the centre cabin is designated for ministers and their deputies. The last part is a comfortably upholstered drawing-room, decorated in pastel shades of blue with a small and cosy bedroom. In the rearmost suite designed originally for the Queen and her husband there are two deep soft seats, but now prepared for the Prime Minister and his wife. In the White House, the Canadians are the only guests because it is a top secret meeting. The gests are accommodated in the President’s spacious guest house which has a special charm for the Prime Minister and aroses different feelings in him. He realizes that these are the spaces where the most important decisions were made. The setting has a special influence on him, Howden feels like the former leaders who stayed here and were confronted with hard tasks, and he asks himself whether he is able to do such great things as his predecessors: ‘It was here in this room, he thought, that Lincoln had once rested and talked; that in later years the Trumans spent their leisure during the White House remodelling; here, in the library, that King Saud of Arabia slept guarded by his own soldiers, scimitar-armed; here that de Gaulle had

54 prepared to huff, Adenauer to charm, and Khrushchev to bluster…and so many others. He wondered if he himself would be remembered in that long procession. And if so, with what verdict.‘ (Hailey, A. p.234)

This summit takes place in the presence of only four people, the US President, the Prime Minister of Canada and two Ministers of Defence. As mentioned, the meeting concerns the question of unification of both countries. But it is easy to agree on a mutual compromise. No country wants to lose anything from their positions and securities, the negotiations are hard, however, finally they come to an agreement. What was actually diccussed in Washington? Hailey thought out here a fantastic thing. The both countries are worried about a potential war and mainly radioactive fallout which would make these countries uninhabitable.The Americans wants to save the most fertile areas in their country so they suggest Canada should provide its area as a war field. In return they pledged to supply Canada with food and other things. The US President was shocked when Canada demanded Aljaska as a compensation for their losses. After potential war Canada would like to build up a new agriculture there. During these stormy negotiations, it seemed that they part on bad terms, but at last, they both acceded to demands of the other country. They realized that they really needed each other if they wanted to survive. The negotiations in the White House turned out well for Canada so the Prime Minister leaves Washington with the sense of a great triumph and importance. But after landing he is welcomed by a crowd of exasperated people because of the case of the stowaway in Vastervik which disappointed him The people demand a residence permission for Henri. Everywhere at the airport you can see placards with following signs: ‘Immigration dept: Canada’s gestapo! Let Duval in, he deserves a break! Change fiendish immigration laws! Jesus Christ would be turned away here! Canada needs Duval, not Howden! This heartless government must go!‘ (Hailey, A. p.270-271)

This happens just at the time when the Prime Minister needs the full support of all people to bring his grandiose work to a sucessful conclusion. But Hailey’s main heroes are always able to cope with all problems.

55 In this novel the setting plays the main role again, but in this case it differs from Hotel and Airport . Whereas in these two novels Hailey describes buildings, devices, services, operations of big giants which people use for their business or holiday, In High Places he focuses, rather, on a political setting. But he also pays attention to descriptions of the ship and dwellings where characters live or stay. Readers learn about different practices and tricks used by people in high places. A longing for power is so strong that sometimes even a honest man has to do some dirty tricks and later try to justify them, saying that everything was only in favour of the state. Hailey means that policy is mainly male affair therefore the heroes in this story are mostly men, politicians, lawyers, sailors and journalists. Nearly all female characters are wives of powerful husbands, except for one woman who works as a secretary in Howden’s office. All women are stereotypical because they do what is expected from them and succumb to the influence of their husbands, boyfriends or social conventions. The main hero Howden is depicted as a very ambitious man who bears responsibility for the fate and welfare of his nation. He takes his role so seriously that he does not hesitate to commit a small election fraud in order to become the Prime Minister. His character does not develop, he has strong principles which he is going to keep at any cost, in spite of losing his position. He is so self-confident that he does not realise that it might happen. He succeeds in negotiating with Americans, but at last, he is almost removed from his throne by completely unimportant man from Vastervik . It is a paradox, that on one hand he manages to save the whole nation before destruction but on the other hand, a young homeless gives him a hard time. Maybe, he looks too high and rarely looks down. People in Howden‘s cabinet who are completely devoted to him, apart from some exceptions. If what Hailey writes about financial side of Canadian politicians is true, then ministers got better paid than the Prime Minister. You can wonder why Prime Ministers s were actually interested in their position. Perhaps, in Canada, it is a honest function and people do not intend to line their pockets how it is in our country. I like the character of a young lawyer Alain Maintland who takes charge of Duval’s case. This young man is very ambitious and works hard to help Henri. He is promised a big amount of money from the opposition if he starts to occupy himself with Henri’s case. The opposition uses him as a stooge which they can manipulate. When it seemed that Duval could win the case, the opposition tried to withdraw him. But Alain is so strong-willed that he brings the case to a successful end.

56 Henri gets an opportunity to stay in Canada for a certain time and a lot of people are delighted and readers are very satisfied with the result. But Hailey here describes the last scene where Henri is accommmodated in a hotel paid by journalists and he starts to give to unknown people things which he got from people. Here Hailey asked himself a question if it is possible for such a man live a normal wife and if he takes this opportunity to be a good citizien or just joins the crowds of undesirable people? Hailey leaves this question unsolved which is not typical of his novels. As far as the setting is concerned, the author set the story in the atmosphere of cold war which really existed at that time. A reader watches attentively if it is possible to deflect a threat from the East. It is fact, that the mankind was in danger of war which was fortunately stopped. It is interesting that Hailey chose as a saviour of the world Canada not the USA which takes up this position. The story is set about Christmas when people are more sensitive and understandable for a lot of things than in common life. For this reason, Henri’s case created such a furore. The excitement of the book is intensified by a story about a young stowaway and his difficult life. I think that there are a lot of people like these all over the world and nobody cares much. Henri is somebody who does not fit in forms and therefore he is treated like a thing not a human. It is highly probable that Hailey came across such a case and tried to describe difficulties of a man caught in an unenviable situation, and denied the right to a full life. I like the hint where Hailey describes reactions from different countries to the article of Vancouver Post . Moscow Pravda comments the situation about Duval as ‘capitalist hypocrisy‘ wich is very funny, because it is hardly possible to speak about some human rights in Russia at that time. I consider the novel as a quite successful work, especially for those who are not interested in politics because they have a posibility to have a look behind a political scene. The government which Hailey created in Canada is nearly ideal, I would like to believe that perhaps somewhere exists a similar government which looks after people’s needs and not only about its own.

57 CONCLUSION

The title of this thesis is The Treatment of Settings Novels by Arthur Hailey. Hailey is a representative of popular literarure which is very widespread at present. In his novels he concentrated primarily on realistic description of settings which deeply influenced the lives of the main characters. Other characters either use or abuse the settings but they are somehow connected with them. In the course of my work I was faced with some problems. I have read all Hailey’s novels because I wanted to get the big picture about his work. The first problem was to get hold all his novels because some of them were not available at all. Also, it was not easy to gather some information about Hailey‘s life and work. Even though he was famous for his novels I could barely find any notes in books which treat American or English literature. The only information I found was in Wikipedia, on book covers and in his wife’s book. Therefore I found it hard to evaluate Hailey’s work. I talked to many readers who had read some of his novels and they all have a high opinion of them. Hailey describes the settings so credibly as if they really existed. The author was able to use all his skills, knowledge, observations and feelings in such a way that all his works became bestsellers even though they are not of high artistic value. The settings in the three chosen novels Hotel, Airport, and In High Places differ in many ways, nevertheless, they have something in common. What joins them is a simple plot with many characters which occurs in all his novels. At the beginning of each novel the author starts several plotlines with many characters and therefore readers might be a bit confused until they learn who is who and how the lines relate. Five suspenseful summer days in a famous hotel in New Orleans is depicted in Hailey’s novel Hotel . Readers watch the plot from the point of view of guests but also from that of the management, the employees and also rival companies. The attractive setting of Airport brings readers into time when the airport has to fight with a crisis caused by a heavy snowstorm. There are tensions between the management and pilots but when one of their best planes carrying many passengers on board is endagered by a psychopath they demonstrate their cohesiveness. In High Places Hailey captures a dramatic action conflict at the time when the Cold War reached its climax. With a good knowledge of the setting, Hailey describes the actions of governments, ministries, parliaments and diplomats.

58 In conclusion, I would like to point out that all his novels are very readable and intelligible. Hailey describes the different settings in his novels minutely that it might seem that readers find it rather boring. But Hailey is a masterful narrator and he is able to enthuse his readers even by trivialities. The settings which he chose are attractive for readers and Hailey is aware of it. He uses them as ‘main heroes‘ in his stories whereas the characters are only installed in them. At the end of his stories he leaves these settings and pays attention to solution of different plots. Although the stucture of his novels is almost the same, Hailey always offers another setting which enthralls many readers.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

FICTION Castle, John – Hailey, Arthur. Let do nebezpe čí. [Trans. Müller, V.] Praha: Nakladatelství Svoboda, 1992 Hailey, Arthur. Airport . New York: Doubleday Company, Inc., 1968 Hailey, Arthur. Detektiv . Praha: Knižní klub, 1998 Hailey, Arthur . Hotel . New York: A Bantam Book, 1965 Hailey, Arthur. Hotel . [Trans. Žantovská, H., Žantovský, M.] Ostrava: Anagram s.r.o., 2006 Hailey, Arthur. In High Places . London: Pan Books Ltd., 1970 Hailey, Arthur. Kola . [Trans. Kyncl, K.] Praha: Riosport-Press, 1992 Hailey, Arthur. Kone čná diagnóza . [Trans. Hlínková, D.] Praha: Nakladatelství Svoboda, 1991 Hailey, Arthur. Letišt ě. [Trans. Pujman, P.] Praha: Knižní klub, 1993 Hailey, Arthur. Pen ězom ěnci . [Trans. Pellarová, L.] Praha: Riosport-Press, 1981 Hailey, Arthur. Přetížení. [Trans. Hora, J.] Praha: Talpress, 1992 Hailey, Arthur. Účinný lék . [Trans. Jungwirth, F., Kuberová, E.] Ostrava: Anagram s.r.o., 2008 Hailey, Arthur. Ve černí zprávy . [Trans. Tesa ř, R.,J.] Ostrava: Anagram s.r.o., 2008 Hailey, Arthur. V nejvyšších sférách . [Trans. Kettner,P., Kettner, Z.] Praha: Riosport- Press, 1992

SECONDARY LITERATURE Baštín, Štefan et al. Dejiny anglickej a americkej literatury . Bratislava: Vydavatelstvo Obzor, 1993 Bradbury, Malcolm et al. Atlas literatury . Praha: Ottovo nakladatelství, s.r.o., 2003 Chvatík, Kv ětoslav. Od avantgardy k druhé modern ě. Praha: Torst, 2004 Černý, Václav. Studie a eseje z moderní sv ětové literatury . Praha: Československý spisovatel, 1969 Eco, Umberto. Skeptikové a t ěšitelé . [Trans. Frýbort, Z.] Praha: Nakladatelství Svoboda, 1995

60 Elliott, Emory. The Columbia History of the American Novel . Chapter Popular Forms II by Brown, B. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991 Gaddis, John, L. Studená válka . Praha: Slovart, 2006 Hailey, Sheila. I Married A Best Seller . [Trans. B řezáková, H.] Praha: Talpress, 1993 Hart, James, D. The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford University Press, Inc., 1986 Hilský, Martin & col. Od Poea k posmodernismu . Praha: Odeon H &H, 1993 Kulka, Tomáš. Um ění a ký č. Praha: Torst, 2000 Mocná, Dagmar; Peterka, Josef et al. Encyklopedie literárních žánr ů. Praha – Litomyšl: Paseka, 2004 Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English . Cambridge: University Press, 1993

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Slovník české literatury po roce 1945. Kv ětoslav Chvatík . c. 1995, poslední revize 18.1.2009 Ond řej Sládek [cit.15.12.2009, 16:45] http://www.slovnikceskeliteratury.cz/showContent.jsp?docId=390

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„Arthur Hailey.“ Spisovatel. Autor: Marie Baboráková. 20.9.2009, 18:13 http://www.spisovatele.cz/arthur-hailey

„Arthur Hailey“ Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 17. Dec. 2009, 05:31 UTC. 1. Jan 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Hailey&oldid=332219971

Ji ří Urbanec. K terminologickému vymezení pokleslé literatury . 18.9.2009, 20:05 http://ubk.fpf.slu/pracovnici/urbanec/doc/k-terminologickemu.doc

„Thriller.“ Wikipedie: Otev řená encyklopedie . 28.8.2009, 14:10 UTC. 1.01.2010, 14:09 http://cs.wikipedie.org/w/index.php?title=Thriller&oldid=4343446

Slovník české literatury po roce 1945. Ji ří Urbanec. Autor Vladimír Novotný 1998. poslední revize 16.10.2007, 5.10.2009, 19:16 http://www.slovnikceskeliteratury.cz/showContent.jsp?docId=586 61 RESUMÉ

Tato diplomová práce nese název Pojednání o prost ředí v románech Arthura Haileyho . R ůzná prost ředí, kde se p říb ěhy odehrávájí, hrají hlavní roli v jeho knihách. Hailey si vybíral pro svá díla prost ředí, která jsou atraktivní pro v ětšinu lidí jako hotely, letišt ě, nemocnice, automobilový pr ůmysl, média, politiku na nejvyšší úrovni atd. D ěj je oby čejn ě chudý s jednoduchou zápletkou, hlavní postavy jsou oddané své práci, což ovliv ňuje jejich osudy. Tři vybrané romány Hotel , Letišt ě a V nejvyšších sférách jsou ukázkou jeho práce. Před napsáním každého románu strávil Hailey rok až dva sbíráním pravdivých informací o zvolených prost ředích. Byl natolik trp ělivým poslucha čem a pozorovatelem, že dokázal popsat sledovaná místa tak v ěrohodn ě, že se jeho knihy, i když nemají p říliš vysokou um ěleckou hodnotu, staly bestsellery. Hailey se řadí mezi spisovatele populární literatury, jeho knihy m ůžeme ozna čit jako thrillery protože jim nechybí dramatické scény a nap ětí .

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