Diffugere nives

A terrible pun to start off – “the snows are all fled away” from Horace’s famous ode, merely to mark the end of my reading of C P Snow’s Strangers and Brothers series, eleven full length novels spanning British life and politics from just before the 1914-18 war  until the 1970s.  I have written about all the individual novels over the past few months – see the C P Snow tab under “categories” – and I do not propose to reprise them now.

 

But I did want to attempt some overall evaluation.  The first point is that re-reading these novels – for perhaps the third or fourth time – was in no sense drudgery or a burden, even though there must be over 3,500 pages or so.  This may have been because I spread them out over several months, always allowing a fortnight or so to elapse between novels, which gave me a chance to read something else, and to tune into a different locale and a different chronology.  They were a delight, and I recommend them warmly; they can easily be read as independent novels (especially, I judge, The Masters and The New Men), but they gain immeasurably in richness by being read as a sequence.

 

They are warm, disconcertingly honest, and very knowledgeable and wise; they occupy a different social milieu to Powell’s Dance To The Music of Time, a more robustly workaday one, more concerned with the tasks and enterprise of power and the struggle to form and manage relationships, and less with Powell’s interest in the emotional and psychological drama of power and love.  Both are acute social and personal observers, though Powell is clearly the finer writer and the more easily applicable to different periods and different personalities – though Snow has his strengths here too.  Powell’s style is quite different, as well – more light and allusive, while Snow is normally a more “straightforward” writer, both in terms of plot construction and prose, though anyone who thinks this is an easy matter of “writing down what happens” has clearly not tried it!

 

Finally, a word about Snow’s other books.  There are other novels, few of which I have read – but there are two crime novels, too, both well worth reading.  Early in manner – a writing finding his feet – is Death Under Sail, an enjoyable mystery on a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads; it is slightly old fashioned, and has a few lively characters who perhaps veer too close to caricature.  But A Coat of Varnish is much more assured, a formidable novel about a brutal murder in an affluent but declining square in west London; the violence breaks through the thin coat of varnish which is all that civilisation is, covering and hiding our animal natures.  Soon, you know who the murderer is – but can the police prove it?  And what does this sudden irruption of violence mean for the serenity and security of the people who live in the square? – a fine murder thriller, worthy of the top shelf.

Comments

[Lindsay]

I'd definetely read them in the order of the narrative - but at the beginning, they're so tangled up, it makes little difference at times! But start with Time of Hope, for sure! Enjoy - and let me know how you get on!

[Rose City Reader]

Do you recommend reading the series in the order of publication, or in the chronological order of the narrative?

I was looking for a complete list of the series and Wikipedia suggests this order:

Time of Hope (1949)
George Passant (first called Strangers and Brothers) (1940)
The Conscience of the Rich (1958)
The Light and the Dark (1947)
The Masters (1951)
The New Men (1954)
Homecomings (1956)
The Affair (1960)
Corridors of Power (1964)
The Sleep of Reason (1968)
Last Things (1970)

[Rose City Reader]

The Snow series has been hovering on the edge of my radar for years. I too appreciate your comparison with Dance -- I've wondered how they stack up.

Now I really want to find the series and start at the beginning. I'd better start looking. They don't exactly jump off the shelves at me over here.

[glo]

Just stopping by briefly to say hello, I have not been very focused lately. But I want to make the most of the longest days of the year.
I was trying to spot the differences between Snow and Powell in between the lines of your posts, and I have now my answer.
I quite like the e e cummings poem but I need to reread it more carefully. And I still have to read accurately the Tennyson on the Arthurian tale. Have a nice day... and week end, if I don't show up tonight.

[Lindsay]

Oh dear, I have clearly failed. I'd say they are not depressing, but actually life affirming, but this entails a look at the tragedies and disappointments as well as the triumphs. After, the overarching narrative is "poor midlands boy makes (very) good and is happy, too"! They are well worth reading, so do try one, perhaps The New Men?

[Cornflower]

I am interested to read your summing up, and in particular your description of the series as "warm, disconcertingly honest, and very knowledgeable and wise". The impression I've received from the individual posts - and one not necessarily at odds with your evaluation - is that the books sound terribly depressing (maybe your "disconcertingly honest" is key here). Am I right, and would a reader preferring to avoid literature about 'disappointed lives' be advised to leave the series on the shelf, or is it in fact quite life-affirming stuff?