The Spanish Gardener. Gracie Lindsay. Archibald Joseph Cronin

In the story “The Spanish Gardener” (1950), the outstanding Scottish writer Archibald Cronin (1896–1981) depicted several months in the lives of the main characters – the American consul Harrington Brand and his nine-year-old son Nicholas. Against the backdrop of the idyllic Spanish town of San Jorge, the story of their relationship with the gardener José, which is far from idyllic, develops. The theme of love – conjugal, paternal and filial – runs through the entire work as a red thread. Only at the end of it does Harrington, without realizing it, find in a book about birds a description of himself and an explanation of the main reason why the events in San Jorge turned out exactly the way they did and not otherwise.

The fate of Lindsay Gracie is a path from the “unbearable lightness of being” to the core of the meanings of human life. The drama of a young woman unfolds in a Scottish town at the beginning of the 20th century, when traditional Puritan morality is increasingly giving way to modern freedom of customs. But no disturbances mislead people who profess values ​​and live according to them. Although the reader can only guess what Daniel Nimmo, who guided his niece on a good path, thought and felt. Young people, and not only young people, will find in the story vivid descriptions of psychological traps that can arise in various relationships.