George Passant
Published on 22. February 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
444 pages
978-1-5098-6419-5 (ISBN)
Description
Lewis Eliot, the diffident protagonist of the Strangers and Brothers sequence, retreats to the background in this absorbing study of his mentor, George Passant, a charismatic solicitor's clerk.
In the years of economic depression between the wars, George - an idealistic radical bursting with notions of creating the world anew - gathers about him a group of young people who, restive and ambitious, trust him to emancipate them from the constraints of their provincial lives. But when his lofty aspirations become muddied with a need for money and desire for sexual freedom, his power over the group becomes a danger to them all.
Politics, people and the rapidly changing social landscape of inter-war Britain are narrated with Snow's trademark subtlety and precision in this fascinating analysis of a god with feet of clay.
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.
In the years of economic depression between the wars, George - an idealistic radical bursting with notions of creating the world anew - gathers about him a group of young people who, restive and ambitious, trust him to emancipate them from the constraints of their provincial lives. But when his lofty aspirations become muddied with a need for money and desire for sexual freedom, his power over the group becomes a danger to them all.
Politics, people and the rapidly changing social landscape of inter-war Britain are narrated with Snow's trademark subtlety and precision in this fascinating analysis of a god with feet of clay.
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.
Reviews / Votes
One of the best novels produced in England in my time -- Frank O'Connor * Spectator * Conducted with a sympathetic impartiality and a calm integrity of observation that are reflected in a style at once matter-of-fact and sensitively precise -- Desmond MacCarthy * Sunday Times * A remarkable book . . . the work of a man of wide intelligence and sympathy -- Edwin Muir * The Listener * 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 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
556 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5098-6419-5 (9781509864195)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
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.