Strangers and Brothers: Time of Hope

The first novel in C P Snow’s Strangers and Brothers sequence is Time of Hope, although it was not the first to be written; it describes the early life of Lewis Eliot, the central figure of the sequence, although he is often observer and reporter as well as main protagonist; he is not the anonymous, almost reclusive observer and analyst that Anthony Powell makes Nick Jenkins, for example.  Eliot is a highly autobiographical figure, though his life diverges significantly from Snow’s on occasion - so they were both born in lower middle class families in Leicester, but Snow became a scientist, but makes his leading figure a barrister.  Published in 1949, it covers an extended period in Eliot’s life, from about 1914, just before the war started, when Eliot is about nine, until he is 28, in 1933 – though we will visit parts of this period again in the sequence.  (The cover design shown here is by David Gentleman).

This is an interesting novel, though I personally find the first half, when the pace is slower and more considered, more interesting than the later passages.  Snow is very good on the small family issues – the pride of the family in being a step or two better off than others, and the consequent shame of bankruptcy; the portrait of a too domineering aunt and a too complaisant father; the exaggerated emotions of childhood – grief at his mother’s death, humiliation in front of other boys; and the sexual and professional frustrations of adolescence.  Snow shared much of this himself – and although he came to make his mark as fellow of a Cambridge college, novelist, member of the House of Lords, and junior member of the Government in the 1960s, he remembers it well.

His approach to a long sequence of novels is quite different to Powell’s.  He is a lesser novelist, of course, but not an inconsiderable one, and certainly a more traditional teller of stories.  But the sequence did not start here, and it is probably easier to read the Snow novels completely independently of each other than it is the Powell.  Indeed, it is not always easy to decide what is the best order to read them in.  I personally, just by chance, started with The Light and the Dark, which is the first of the sequence written, but normally placed fourth in the order.  So this novel has some odd features; the first is that there are at least two themes in it which are surprisingly sketchily developed – George Passant’s career and legal difficulties, and Charles March’s struggle with his family – and you are bound to think, why are these mentioned at all, if we are not to hear more?  The answer is, of course, they are expounded at full length in “later” novels, and not to include them here would have been incomprehensible in the light of what was to follow.

But this is a novel about a young man making good, though with real difficulties – financial, professional, and especially sexual and matrimonial.  And his cup does not run over – he becomes aware that  his career, though perfectly respectable, is slowing, and his private life becomes a cross which he feels unable to bear or to discard:

I had longed for a better world, for fame, for love.  I had longed for a better world; and this was the summer of 1933.  I had longed for fame: and I was a second rate lawyer.  I had longed for love: and I was bound for life to a woman who never had love for me and who had exhausted mine.

It is at times very moving, and it is, I think, a fine portrait of the period.  I would encourage you to read Snow, and I think you’ll enjoy this, but I might suggest that newcomers – if they can bear the thought of not reading the books in sequence – might start elsewhere (recommendations in later posts!).

Comments

[JenDee]

I have begun to read the 'The Masters', which is my first book by CPSnow, and so far I am enjoying the read. I have also read Powell's 'Spring', in the sequence of novels called 'Dance to the Music of Time'. It was the title which made me pick up the book. Both sets of books are good but in different ways. And I will continue to read both authors.

[Cornflower]

The passage you've quoted reminds me of J. M. Barrie's lines: "The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it".