Customer Reviews

Corridors of Power

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Apparently, it was Snow who coined the phrase "corridors of power" in an earlier book. This one is all about English politics, and the machinations that go on in trying to change policy. I suspect it was far more riveting to an English reader who knows more about the workings of Parliament than I do. Rather dry, and involved, with many, many characters. Only in the last fifty pages or so is there any semblance of suspense. As usual, Lewis Eliot is the narrator and at the heart of matters. Exactly how he got to be such a confidante of Roger Quaife, who seems to be a Minister in another department, I never could figure out. Snow, I suspect, lived these times and questions, but perhaps he was too close to see that his reader might need a little more explanation. Quaife is trying to disengage England from the nuclear arms race, a thoroughly admirable position, but one which would have required Parliament to own up to the fact that England was no longer a super power, a hard pill to swallow indeed. Many times, throughout the book, one or another character expresses the thought that no man can really do much of anything, that government will go on in its own way no matter who is at the helm. If you like to read about power and politics, all the weavings in and out, and subplots, the goings on behind the top, this book would probably rate high with you. I do not think it Snow's best. Once again, he is too detached. Too close to the heartbeat of things.

This book is probably the best-known of a series of novels by Snow, which he wrote almost after the manner of Dickens, about one every couple of years, starting in 1940 with 'Strangers and Brothers'. He gave the same name to his series of I believe eleven titles. (Snow got off to a false start with a detective novel; then a story about science fraud, which H G Wells liked - Snow had a science background, but couldn't or wouldn't make a career of it).

Snow was something of a poor boy made good, as Muggeridge pointed out - a similar type to Melyvn Bragg and Clive James. Ambitious, and certainly not willing to rock the boat. In my view, his novels give a highly realistic picture of conventional life in Britain both before and after the Second World War. Even if Snow ever harboured dangerous thoughts, he would not have put them into his novels, except in the actions of flawed characters, which of course his novels have. (E.g. a convinced technical Communist; an unsatisfactory wife; a scheming head of an Oxbridge college).

'Corridors of Power' fits into all this... as a shrewd reviewer here noted, there is in fact very little about actual 'corridors of power' - Prime Ministers, Civil Servants, Cabinet Ministers, military heads, nuclear physicists, directors of research establishments, and so on. The action is outsider stuff looking in - candidates for Parliament, backbenchers, people in country houses, acquaintances. Snow is incurious about the 'Hitler War' as he calls it, the 'Cold War', Churchill - he accepts all the usual attitudes. He accepts the oddities of the Oxbridge system, has no criticism of the legal system (his protagonist is a lawyer), believes in removing capital punishment because progressive did. If you're looking for something of this sort - an evocation of England in the 30s, 40s, and 50s - I think Snow's series must be high on a list of consistent portrayals of the period as perceived by people in Britain who hadn't learned to look below the surface.

This book concerns the efforts of an ambitious Conservative politician on the rise - at the start of the book, he becomes a Minister in a newly formed Cabinet. With his power, he wants to prevent Britain's clinging to an independent nuclear deterrent in the late 1950s (Suez makes a brief appearance). Some interesting questions are raised as to whether the moral rightness of this goal -- of which Snow, channeling the scientists who opposed even the use of the bomb at Hiroshima, clearly has no doubt -- can/should be compromised in the interests of furthering the minister's political rise (at the summit of which he can, presumably, do more good) and, too briefly, in the interaction of public opinion with 'informed' expert opinion. The accounts of the English civil service and its interactions with elected officials are excellently-drawn. But as a guide to the intracacies of parliamentary procedure, this book is a bit of a letdown. Much of the action takes place at dinner parties at various aristocratic homes, and the real focus is less on the policy questions than on various characters' love lives. Reason, not emotion, is Snow's strong suit in description and narrative, and so while his language -- at once crisp and dense -- often has a real appeal, it does not move one to care as much about the characters as one is probably supposed to. All in all, an interesting read, but not an essential one. The policy issues, by the way, were real: if they are of interest, they are better explained (and, despite being more or less contemporary with _Corridors_, in a less dated manner) in Richard Neustadt's forgotten gem "Alliance Politics" and the report on the UK's "Skybolt" nuclear deterrent Neustadt wrote for John F Kennedy in 1963, now declassified and published by Cornell University Press.

This book was first published in 1964 as part of the STRANGERS AND BROTHERS series. Lewis Eliot and his wife Margaret are to dine at Roger Quaife's house. Quaife is a Conservative politician. Lewis works in the department of Sir Hector Rose which has someting to do with defense.

Roger Quaife is an effective public speaker. Roger notes that a politician lives in the present. One must first get power and then do something with it.

He perceives that it is not realistic for England to possess its own atomic weapons. He seeks the assistance of Lewis to arrange a meeting with the scientists, Walter Luke and Francis Getliffe. The game being played by Roger is that he seeks the ministry held by Lord Gilbey.

Lewis and Margaret become the guests of a great hostess, Diana Skidmore, at Basset, Diana's house in Hampshire. The subject of Roger's wife's brother comes up during the weekend. Roger claims that in observing etiquette, truth has suffered.

Just following the weekend, Lewis and Margaret are invited to see Douglas and Mary Osbaldiston. Douglas is a highly placed fellow civil servant. Lord Gilbey becomes very ill. Lewis and others visit at the clinic. It is believed that whatever the physical outcome of Lord Gilbey's circumstances, Roger will get his post, unless he has damaged his chances in defending his wife Caro's brother Sammikins.

While visiting Lord Gilbey Lewis earns that he has received a telegram from a former acquaintance of Lewis, Ronald Porson. When Lewis travels to see Porson and complain of his act, he is stopped by the obvious drunken state of the man. Later Lord Gilbey receives the news that he is being removed from office. Roger Quaife is appointed to take his place.

Francis Getliffe is a radical through conscience. He does not want to be a member of a scientific advisory committee but yields to the pressure of Lewis and Roger. A Michael Brodzinski, a person holding diametrical views, is also to be on the committee.

The book concerns, interestingly, the formation of political opinion. The story takes place at the time of the Suez crisis and Suez drives the story inasmuch as a certain sort of jingoism arises in reaction to the French and British embarassment over Suez. Possible defects in Roger's character may have also contributed to the defeat of Roger's policy. He is made to live with the fact that his unfaithfulness to Caro may be disclosed.

As things develop though the machinations of Brodzinski, whose strong held views verge on madness, Lewis and Francis Getliffe become subject to enquiries concerning their political stances in the 1930's. Cold war issues intrude in the alliance with the United States. Lord Lufkin, an aerospace manufacturer and Lewis's former employer, warns him that he knows secrets dangerous to Roger Quaife's official position.

Caro Quaife's world is not kind. It is tolerably good-natured. If you are really in trouble you are on your own. Roger Quaife is compelled to resign. Lewis then submits his own resignation to Sir Hector Rose. A novel of politics resembles a novel of manners in Snow's excellent rendering.