Summary of TRAVEL BY TRAIN - J.B. PRIESTLEY

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TRAVEL BY TRAIN - J.B. PRIESTLEY
About JB Priestly: J. B. Priestley, (born Sept. 13, 1894, Bradford, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Aug. 14, 1984, Alveston, near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire), British novelist, playwright, and essayist, noted for his varied output and his ability for shrewd characterization.
Priestley served in the infantry in World War I (1914–19) and then studied English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1922). He thereafter worked as a journalist and first established a reputation with the essays collected in The English Comic Characters (1925) and The English Novel (1927). He achieved enormous popular success with The Good Companions (1929), a picaresque novel about a group of traveling performers. This was followed in 1930 by his most solidly crafted novel, Angel Pavement, a sombre, realistic depiction of the lives of a group of office workers in London. Among his other more important novels are Bright Day (1946) and Lost Empires (1965).
Priestley was also a prolific dramatist, and he achieved early successes on the stage with such robust, good-humoured comedies as Laburnum Grove (1933) and When We Are Married (1938). Influenced by the time theories of John William Dunne, he experimented with expressionistic psychological drama—e.g., Time and the Conways and I Have Been Here Before (both 1937) and Johnson over Jordan (1939). He also used time distortion as the basis for a mystery drama with moral overtones, An Inspector Calls (1946). Many of his plays featured skillful characterizations of ordinary people in domestic settings.
An adept radio speaker, he had a wide audience for his patriotic broadcasts during World War II and for his subsequent Sunday evening programs. Priestley’s large literary output of more than 120 books was complemented by his status as a commentator and literary spokesman for his countrymen, a role he sustained through his forceful and engaging public personality. Priestley refused both a knighthood and a peerage, but he accepted the Order of Merit in 1977. Short Summary: J.B. Priestly is a versatile writer. He is good at writing novels, essays and plays. He is known for his minute observation and portrayal of incidents in a humorous manner. The essay “Travel by Train” presents various types of train passengers. First, the author talks about a middle-aged woman traveller. He describes her as a person with a rough voice and face of brass. She loves to invade smoking compartments that are already filled with a quiet company of smokers. She is always accompanied by her dog. Then he describes the heavy carriers. There are some passengers who carry all their odd chattels and household utensils and parcel them up in brown paper. They also carry baskets of fruits and bunches of flowers to add to their own and other people’s misery. Priestley talks about the non- stop eaters. Once they settled in their seats, they pass each other tattered sandwiches and mouthful scraps of pastry and talking with their mouths full, and scattering crumbs over the trousers of fastidious old gentlemen. The author talks about children’s behavior in the train. Some children don’t make good travelling companions, throughout a journey they will spend all their time daubing their faces with chocolate or trying to climb out of the window. Then, he describes about the cranks. The cranks will always insist us to open the windows in the trains on the bleakest days but in the hot season they don’t allow a window to be opened.
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Then, the author describes about innocent travelers who always find themselves in the wrong train. They neither bother about the railway time-tables nor ask the railway officials for advice. They get into the train that comes first. In the midst of the journey, they enquire, whether they are on the right train or not. The writer has often wondered whether these people will ever reach their destination. Then, he talks about the mighty sleepers. He envies the mighty sleepers. Once they settled in their seats, they sleep in a moment. Two minutes or so from their destination they wake up, collect their baggage and go out. Priestley calls them as descendants of the Seven of Ephesus. According to the author, Seafaring men are good companions on a railway journey. They are always ready for a pipe and a crack with any man. They talk entertaining matter. Then it is about confidential strangers, who are rarely seen and compared to a very dull dog. They take pleasure in talking of their own interest. At last, the author talks about the elderly man who always seated in a corner. They talk and his talk will be all of trains. The author advices the readers to be aware of the elderly man, for he is the Ancient Mariner of railway travelers who will hold you with his glittering eye.
Another Summary:
Years ago, which now seems like aeons, if not a previous life, when we were in school (we meaning me and my classmates), we had this essay, the one this post's title mentions, by J.B Priestley. They say technology has come a long way, and you can find almost anything with Google, but this was not exactly the case when i tried find this particular essay. However, good sense and persistence prevailed and I managed to find something that, according to my recollection of the essay, thanks to our English teachers' hounding, seems right. The only thing I can't seem to remember is how it ends. So I don't know if the text below is in its entirety.
Remove an Englishman from his hearth and home, his centre of corporal life, and he becomes a very different creature, one capable of sudden furies and roaring passions, a deep sea of strong emotions churning beneath his frozen exterior. I can pass, at all times, for a quiet, neighbourly fellow, yet I have sat, more than once, in a railway carriage with black murder in my heart. At the mere sight of some probably inoffensive fellow-passenger my whole being will be invaded by a million devils of wrath, and I 'could do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.'
There is one type of traveller that never fails to rouse my quick hatred. She is a large, middle-aged woman, with a rasping voice and a face of brass. Above all things, she loves to invade smoking compartments that are already comfortably filled with a quiet company of smokers ; she will come bustling in, shouting over her shoulder at her last victim, a prostrate porter, and, laden with packages of all maddening shapes and sizes, she will glare defiantly about her until some unfortunate has given up his seat. She is often accompanied by some sort of contemptible, whining cur that is only one degree less offensive than its mistress. From the moment that she has wedged herself in there will be no more peace in the carriage, but simmering hatred, and everywhere dark looks and muttered threats. But everyone knows her. Courtesy and modesty perished in the world of travel on the day when she took her first journey ; but it will not be long before she is in hourly danger of extinction, for there are strong men in our midst.
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There are other types of railway travellers, not so offensive as the above, which combines all the bad qualities, but still annoying in a varying degree to most of us ; and of these others I will enumerate one or two of the commonest. First, there are those who, when they would go on a journey, take all their odd chattels and household utensils and parcel them up in brown paper, dis- daining such things as boxes and trunks ; furthermore, when such eccentrics have loaded themselves up with queer-shaped packages they will cast about for baskets of fruit and bunches of flowers to add to their own and other people's misery. Then there are the simple folks who are for ever eat- ing and drinking in railway carriages. No sooner are they settled in their seats but they are passing each other tattered sandwiches and mournful scraps of pastry, and talking with their mouths full, and scattering crumbs over the trousers of fastidious old gentlemen. Sometimes they will peel and eat bananas with such rapidity that nervous onlookers are compelled to seek another compartment.
Some children do not make good travelling companions, for they will do nothing but whimper or howl throughout a journey, or they will spend all their time daubing their faces with chocolate or trying to climb out of the window. And the cranks are always with us ; on the bleakest day, they it is who insist on all the windows being open, but in the sultriest season they go about in mortal fear of draughts, and will not allow a window to be touched.
More to my taste are the innocents who always find themselves in the wrong train. They have not the understanding necessary to fathom the time-tables, nor will they ask the railway officials for advice, so they climb into the first train that comes, and trust to luck. When they are being hurtled towards Edinburgh, they will suddenly look round the carriage and ask, with a mild touch of pathos, if they are in the right train for Bristol. And then, puzzled and disillusioned, they have to be bundled out at the next station, and we see them no more. I have often wondered if these simple voyagers ever reach their destinations, for it is not outside probability that they may be shot from station to station, line to line, until there is nothing mortal left of them.
Above all other railway travellers, I envy the mighty sleepers, descendants of the Seven of Ephesus. How often, on a long, uninteresting journey, have I envied them their sweet oblivion. With Lethe at their command, no dull, empty train journey, by day or night, has any terrors for them. Knowing the length of time they have to spend in the train, they compose themselves and are off to sleep in a moment, probably enjoying the gorgeous adventures of dream while the rest of us are looking blankly out of the window or counting our fingers. Two minutes from their destination they stir, rub their eyes, stretch themselves, collect their baggage, and, peering out of the window, murmur : ' My station, I think.' A moment later they go out, alert and refreshed, Lords of Travel, leaving us to our boredom.
Seafaring men make good companions on a railway journey. They are always ready for a pipe and a crack with any man, and there is usually some entertaining matter in their talk. But they are not often met with away from the coast towns. Nor do we often come across the confidential stranger in an English railway carriage, though his company is inevitable on the Continent and, I believe, in America. When the confidential stranger does make an appearance here, he is usually a very dull dog, who compels us to yawn through the interminable story of his life, and rides some wretched old hobby- horse to death.
There is one more type of traveller that must be mentioned here, if only for the guidance of the young and simple. He is usually an elderly man, neatly dressed, but a little tobacco-stained, always seated in a corner, and he opens the conversation by pulling out a gold hunter and remarking that the train is at
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least three minutes behind time. Then, with the slightest encouragement, he will begin to talk, and his talk will be all of trains. As some men discuss their acquaintances, or others speak of violins or roses, so he talks of trains, their history, their quality, their destiny. All his days and nights seem to have been passed in railway carriages, all his reading seems to have been in time-tables. He will tell you of the 12.35 from this place and the 3.49 from the other place, and how the 10.18 ran from So-and-so to So-and-so in such a time, and how the 8.26 was taken off and the 5.10 was put on; and the greatness of his subject moves him to eloquence, and there is passion and mastery in his voice, now wailing over a missed connection or a departed hero of trains, now exultantly proclaiming the glories of a non-stop express or a wonderful run to time. However dead you were to the passion, the splendour, the pathos, in this matter of trains, before he has done with you you will be ready to weep over the 7.37 and cry out in ecstasy at the sight of the 2.52.
Beware of the elderly man who sits in the corner of the carriage and says that the train is two minutes behind time, for he is the Ancient Mariner of railway travellers, and will hold you with his glittering eye.
1.What was JB Priestley famous for?
Priestley served in the British army during the First World War, volunteering to join the 10th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment on 7 September 1914, and being posted to France as a Lance-Corporal on 26 August 1915. He was badly wounded in June 1916, when he was buried alive by a trench-mortar.
2.What did JB Priestley believe in?
In the 1930's, Priestley became very concerned about the consequences of social inequality. During 1942, he and others set up a new political party, the Common Wealth Party, which argued for public ownership of land, greater democracy, and a new 'morality' in politics.
3. Was JB Priestley a socialist or capitalist?
Priestley was influenced by G.B Shaw- a significant playwright who was also asocialist. In 1912 the titanic sank, this represents capitalism- it is dying and also sinking. In 1912 England was a mainly capitalist country. ... J.B Priestley feels passionately towards socialism but is strongly against capitalism.
4. What did JB Priestley study at university?
Trinity Hall Cambridge
University of Cambridge
J. B. Priestley/College
5. Is JB Priestley religious?
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J. B. Priestley was a socialist who believed that everyone was created equally and should be treated equally. He believed in this despite his lack of faith. ... Priestley'smoral is mixed between his politics and the beliefs of a Christian.