Sir Lewis Eliot returns to his hometown in the tenth, and penultimate, novel in the Strangers and Brothers sequence.
Although now mature in the world of affairs and in possession of a knighthood, the older Lewis has much to contend with - his eyesight is failing and a risky operations is on the horizon, his father is dying, and his old mentor, George Passant, has asked him to observe the trial of his niece - a young woman accused of the torture and murder of a child . . .
Written in the wake of the notorious Moors murders, The Sleep of Reason depicts an ageing generation struggling to understand the new, more permissive society of the 1960s, with great insight and sensitivity.
A meticulous study of the public issues and private problems of post-war Britain, C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers sequence is a towering achievement that stands alongside Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time as one of the great romans-fleuves of the twentieth century.
Praise for the Strangers and Brothers sequence
"Together, the sequence presents a vivid portrait of British academic, political and public life. Snow was that rare thing, a scientist and novelist." Jeffrey Archer, Guardian
"Balzacian masterpieces of the age" Philip Hensher, Telegraph
"Through [the Strangers and Brothers sequence] as in no other work in our time we have explored the inner life of the new classless class that is the 20th century Establishment" New York Times
"A very considerable achievement ... It brings into the novel themes and locales never seen before (except perhaps in Trollope)." Anthony Burgess
"The most comprehensive, the most informative and, all in all, the most impressive portrait of modern England that any novelist has yet given us." Michael Millgate, Commentary
Rezensionen / Stimmen
It contemplates the passing of time, the slippage of power, the assertion of a new generation and the painful vagaries of human nature. * Kirkus Reviews * The book of his which I think is the most powerful, because it is so honest. -- Peter Hitchens * Daily Mail *
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Zielgruppe
Interest Age: From 18 years
Maße
Höhe: 203 mm
Breite: 133 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5098-6440-9 (9781509864409)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
C. P. Snow was born in Leicester in 1905 and educated at a secondary school. He started his career as a professional scientist, though writing was always his ultimate aim. He won a research scholarship to Cambridge and became a Fellow of his college in 1930. He continued his academic life there until the beginning of the Second World War, by which time he had already begun his masterwork - the eleven-volume Strangers and Brothers sequence, two of which (The Masters and The New Men) were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1954. His other novels include The Search, The Malcontents and In Their Wisdom, the last of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1974.
Snow became a civil servant during the war and went on to become a Civil Service commissioner, for which he received a knighthood. He married a fellow novelist, Pamela Hansford Johnson, in 1950 and delivered his famous lecture, The Two Cultures, that same year. C. P. Snow died in 1980.
