The Light And The Dark (Strangers and Brothers) [Paperback]

Charles Percy Snow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2008 | Series: Strangers and Brothers

The Light and the Dark is the second in the Strangers and Brothers series. The story is set in Cambridge, but the plot also moves to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Switzerland. Lewis Eliot narrates the career of a childhood friend. Roy Calvert is a brilliant but controversial linguist who is about to be elected to a fellowship.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

C.P. Snow was born in Leicester, on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age 11 at Alderman Newton's School for boys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for an astounding memory. In 1923 he gained an external scholarship in science at London University, whilst working as a laboratory assistant at Newton's to gain the necessary practical experience, because Leicester University, as it was to become, had no chemistry or physics departments at that time. Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Master of Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Snow went on to become a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as a tutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched into other areas of activity. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in Nature, and then The Spectator before becoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. However, he was also writing fiction during this period and in 1940 'Strangers and Brothers' was published. This was the first of eleven novels in the series and was later renamed 'George Passant' when 'Strangers and Brothers' was used to denote the series itself. Discovery became a casualty of the war, closing in 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with the Royal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientific talent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He served as the Ministry's technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, Snow became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government. He also returned to writing, continuing the Strangers and Brothers series of novels. 'The Light and the Dark' was published in 1947, followed by 'Time of Hope' in 1949, and perhaps the most famous and popular of them all, 'The Masters', in 1951. He planned to finish the cycle within five years, but the final novel 'Last Things' wasn't published until 1970. He married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950 and they had one son, Philip, in 1952. Snow was knighted in 1957 and became a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the City Leicester. He also joined Harold Wilson's first government as Parliamentary Secretary to the new Minister of Technology. When the department ceased to exist in 1966 he became a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords. After finishing th

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: House of Stratus (October 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842324292
• ISBN-13: 978-1842324295
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #876,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An engaging but melancholic novel set in the changing English society of 1935-1943, January 7, 2006

By 

Alejandro Teruel (Caracas, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Light And The Dark (Strangers and Brothers) (Paperback)

C.P. Snow (1905-1980) is probably best remembered for having postulated, in 1959, the existence of a growing gulf between the sciences and the humanities ("The Two Cultures"). A physicist who later successfully served in government, he also wrote a very interesting, albeit stylistically simple, sequence of self-contained novels ("Strangers and Brothers") roughly stretching from the 1920s to the 1960s, whose narrator, Lewis Eliot progresses from rather humble origins in an English provincial town to law school, a practice in law, a fellowship at Cambridge and government work during and after the second world war. Eliot is a decent, human and sympathetic character who is, at first, Snow`s device for exploring for exploring more brilliant or outstanding characters -in this respect Eliot sometimes reminds one of a more intelligent and senstive version of Conan Doyles' Dr. Watson. Snow`s novels quickly become more concerned with exploring routine struggles for power and influence in the changing English society of his time.

"The Light and the Dark", written just after the second World War (1947), is a tale about one of Eliot`s friends, Roy Calvert, a brilliant young linguist at Cambridge who suffers from maniac-depressive bouts. There are four parts to the novel. In the first part, set circa 1935, we meet Roy as a graceful and gifted graduate student and see how he moves through a slough of despondency, rises to a peak of reckless, destructive behaviour and then is impelled to a blindingly harsh and absoluteless cheerless intuition about reality. At the same time, Snow regales us with an excellent portrayal of the academic manoeuvres in the closed college world which culminate in a fellowship for Roy. In the second part, we watch as Roy`s (and Eliot`s) hopes that he can overcome his condition are dashed, how other of Roy`s most intimate friends gradually become aware of his problem and their futile attempts to help him. This is set aginst a fascinating background of how torn and polarized pre-War Britain was on the subject of Nazi Germany, to the point of setting lifetime friends and members of the same family against each other. In the third part, Roy himself spends some time in Germany and, to the horror of his friends, is quite sympathetic to the nazi regime and even invites Eliot to Berlin in the forelorn hope of converting him. War breaks out, and we get a very interesting glimpse of how part of English academia was coopted into the war effort. Roy himself is initially drafted into Intelligence while Eliot is concerned with planning and becomes involved in fighting against a strategic decision to escalate air bombing. By this time, Roy has reached the end of his tether and when Eliot unsuspectingly and bitterly mentions that the highest casualty rates will be amongst airmen, Roy requests his own transfer and is killed on a bombing mission.

The book tends more to the dark than to the light, as befits the years that are portrayed, but the author exercises a quiet control to prevent the novel from slipping into sentimentality or pampleteering and strives to presents some sort of balance between the light and the dark. Roy himself is a complex character who deeply marks those who know him, who know that they can never be or feel the same way after they have fallen under the spell of this gifted, charming, proud man unsuccessfully struggling to master his own illness.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars no title, February 7, 2006

By 

C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Light and the Dark (Board book)

A terribly bittersweet, hauntingly powerful novel about Roy Calvert, first seen in "Time of Hope". A manic-depressive, I think. Perhaps it was not so recognized in the 30's and early 40's when this takes place. A very memorable and sensitive portrait of the love and friendship that can exist between two heterosexual men, as it delicately portrays the compassion and caring they come to share, Roy, and Lewis Eliot, the narrator. Melancholic and sad, yet a wonderful book. Just as striking as two others, "Time of Hope" and "The Conscience of the Rich", but even more poignant. The last line could not be more perfect. Snow is a master of the human psyche and condition.