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Strangers and Brothers #4
The Light and the Dark
The Light and the Dark is the fourth in time sequence of narrative (although published as the second of the series) 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.
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.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
25 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
C.P. Snow
94 books124 followersKnown British scientist Charles Percy Snow, baron Snow of Leicester, wrote especially his 11-volume series
Strangers and Brothers
(1940-1970).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
August 3, 2018
I can see why, for some, this is a desperately hard novel to understand. For myself, it is all to easy. I am somewhere between Roy Calvert and Lewis Eliot: like Roy, chronic depression and mood swings have been an integral part of my identity for my whole life, and academia and intellectual pursuits provide a seductive exit from reality; like Lewis, I withdraw from people and guard myself scrupulously. This novel got everything perfect.
The title of this novel reflects Roy’s bipolar swings, but it also works on another level. Throughout, one gets the impression that despite his chronic melancholia, Roy is the sun to Lewis’ moon: through this portrait of the one we get to see how he illumines our ever-elusive narrator. Despite their similarities they also act as excellent foils, in politics, in background, in personality, and that is essentially what this novel is about—the pure, unconditional love between the two. It is the most accurate depiction of the Greek concept of agape I have ever read.
Snow is a firmly middlebrow novelist, and his touch is disconcertingly light. Ergo, it’s hard to describe the Strangers and Brothers sequence as an epic as usually defined in twentieth-century literature, much as one wouldn’t desrcibe the Forsyte Saga as an epic. Yet it’s an incredible portrait of a certain group of people against the changing sociopolitical landscape, and this book of all of his explemlifies this.
The title of this novel reflects Roy’s bipolar swings, but it also works on another level. Throughout, one gets the impression that despite his chronic melancholia, Roy is the sun to Lewis’ moon: through this portrait of the one we get to see how he illumines our ever-elusive narrator. Despite their similarities they also act as excellent foils, in politics, in background, in personality, and that is essentially what this novel is about—the pure, unconditional love between the two. It is the most accurate depiction of the Greek concept of agape I have ever read.
Snow is a firmly middlebrow novelist, and his touch is disconcertingly light. Ergo, it’s hard to describe the Strangers and Brothers sequence as an epic as usually defined in twentieth-century literature, much as one wouldn’t desrcibe the Forsyte Saga as an epic. Yet it’s an incredible portrait of a certain group of people against the changing sociopolitical landscape, and this book of all of his explemlifies this.
September 6, 2021
The Light and the Dark is the fourth book in the Strangers and Brothers series that C.P. Snow wrote in the years between 1940 and 1970. I started reading the series a few years back for all the wrong reasons: I had high hopes it would be of a kind with Anthony Powell's magnificent sequence of novels that make up A Dance to the Music of Time. The Snow series covers somewhat the same period of time and in many structural ways is quite like Powell's, but it lacks the genius. Not to say that Snow wasn't a genius (he was a world-renowned physicist), but his genius wasn't literary. Novels were just a distraction for him, including some quite admirable ones. He was a Renaissance man, just not up to the high bar set by Anthony Powell.
In spite of this quibble, I have found much to admire in the Strangers and Brothers series so far: strong characters and memorable situations. Having read the first four novels, I detect a theme that comes as a surprise to me: Each of the novels features a self-destructive character. Now that might sound like a downer, but it somehow isn't. We've all met self-destructive people at some time or other and they are often tragic but never dull. I think what is intriguing about them is that there is something of the same nature at work in all of us: a miserable temptation to sabotage one's own work to avoid the terrifying possibility that it will be the very best we could offer but still not good enough for the harsh judgment of the world.
The self-destructive impulse in The Light and the Dark is religious. The main character, a brilliant academic and researcher, condemns himself for his lack of sufficient faith and eventually takes his own life. I found this idea particularly troubling because I see it around me too often. Since so many of the world's religions preach that nobody's faith is really sufficient, of course the adherents of those religions tend to believe that of themselves. They seem positively soaked in religion to my agnostic eye, but they're continually beating themselves up for not being religious enough. Thankfully, none of the ones I know have taken that to its ultimate conclusion . . . .
In spite of this quibble, I have found much to admire in the Strangers and Brothers series so far: strong characters and memorable situations. Having read the first four novels, I detect a theme that comes as a surprise to me: Each of the novels features a self-destructive character. Now that might sound like a downer, but it somehow isn't. We've all met self-destructive people at some time or other and they are often tragic but never dull. I think what is intriguing about them is that there is something of the same nature at work in all of us: a miserable temptation to sabotage one's own work to avoid the terrifying possibility that it will be the very best we could offer but still not good enough for the harsh judgment of the world.
The self-destructive impulse in The Light and the Dark is religious. The main character, a brilliant academic and researcher, condemns himself for his lack of sufficient faith and eventually takes his own life. I found this idea particularly troubling because I see it around me too often. Since so many of the world's religions preach that nobody's faith is really sufficient, of course the adherents of those religions tend to believe that of themselves. They seem positively soaked in religion to my agnostic eye, but they're continually beating themselves up for not being religious enough. Thankfully, none of the ones I know have taken that to its ultimate conclusion . . . .
June 4, 2012
C.P. Snow isn't everyone's cup of tea--he was famously described as "Proust without the filaments" and that does capture something of his plain style--but his depictions of character ring true, and nowhere more than in this book, my favorite of the series, in fact my single favorite novel, followed by Robertson Davies' "Fifth Business". Snow 's depiction of Roy Calvert, a factionalized version of the brilliant scholar C.R.C. Allberry, who translated the Manichean Psalmbook, is harrowing, intense, yet shot through with gusts of comedy. A novel of friendship, politics, loss and and courage (autocorrect added "corkage" and in view of the amount of booze put away I'm inclined to adopt it). Highly recommended.
September 16, 2015
Roy Calvert is one of those characters who I fail to understand. He doesn't really touch upon much of my experience, so I can't really say that I have experienced someone like him. I think that you would have needed to in order to understand this book. On the face of it, Roy Calvert has everything that one could ask for. He has youth, vitality, good looks, charm, intelligence, position, and a good independent income. I could name many, including myself, who would swap with that amount of good fortune. Yet he does not feel this is enough. What more could he want?
Despite all of his advantages, he feels that he is lacking spiritually. He is unable to live spiritually, which means that he feels that he is unable to live a full life. The book is a narrative of how he struggles with the light of the spirit and the dark of the flesh. It is a story of a journey to discover a spiritual heart, only to find that one does not exist. Eventually the story leads into tragedy - a novel form of suicide. I found the twist at the end - suicide by active war service - to be something ironic. Nowadays we would consider this to be heroic, but the book strips out the nobility of sacrifice and suggests that the character's death was something a little self centred.
In the course of coming to this conclusion, we touch upon a number of plot lines that are developed in previous and subsequent volumes. We are told of the episode of the cigarette case, which opens the story of George Passant. We are introduced to the Cambridge college, which is touched upon in The Conscience Of The Rich, and developed more fully in The Masters. And we are made acquaintance with the characters of The Masters, who are developed further in The New Men. To that extent, this is a pivotal volume in the story of Lewis Eliot. It links his early years to his later years.
As always, I found the book a delight to read. The plot moves along at quite a good pace, the prose is not at all difficult, and I have a great deal of sympathy with most of the characters, if not all of them. I think that the one minor character who interests me the most is Bidwell, the scout in college. He has a tale of his own to tell.
The book is best recommended as a link text in the whole Strangers and Brothers series. It ties up a lot of loose ends from the earlier years, and prepares the ground for the works covering the later years. On that basis would I recommend it.
Despite all of his advantages, he feels that he is lacking spiritually. He is unable to live spiritually, which means that he feels that he is unable to live a full life. The book is a narrative of how he struggles with the light of the spirit and the dark of the flesh. It is a story of a journey to discover a spiritual heart, only to find that one does not exist. Eventually the story leads into tragedy - a novel form of suicide. I found the twist at the end - suicide by active war service - to be something ironic. Nowadays we would consider this to be heroic, but the book strips out the nobility of sacrifice and suggests that the character's death was something a little self centred.
In the course of coming to this conclusion, we touch upon a number of plot lines that are developed in previous and subsequent volumes. We are told of the episode of the cigarette case, which opens the story of George Passant. We are introduced to the Cambridge college, which is touched upon in The Conscience Of The Rich, and developed more fully in The Masters. And we are made acquaintance with the characters of The Masters, who are developed further in The New Men. To that extent, this is a pivotal volume in the story of Lewis Eliot. It links his early years to his later years.
As always, I found the book a delight to read. The plot moves along at quite a good pace, the prose is not at all difficult, and I have a great deal of sympathy with most of the characters, if not all of them. I think that the one minor character who interests me the most is Bidwell, the scout in college. He has a tale of his own to tell.
The book is best recommended as a link text in the whole Strangers and Brothers series. It ties up a lot of loose ends from the earlier years, and prepares the ground for the works covering the later years. On that basis would I recommend it.
February 10, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in January 2004.
Though the Strangers and Brothers sequence as a whole is basically a semi-autobiographical narrative describing one man's life in England in the middle third or so of the twentieth century, here the focus of attention is not narrator Lewis Eliot himself but a younger friend. The Light and the Dark is set during about a decade starting in the early thirties, just after Lewis Eliot has been elected a Fellow of a minor Cambridge college. There, he befriends Roy Calvert, a brilliant linguist but a manic depressive. The story of their enduring friendship is set first against the background of academic politics and then administrative work in London during the Second World War. The title doesn't just refer to Calvert's moods, of course, but to the gathering clouds of the coming war; the novel contains a fair amount of the intellectual conversation about Fascism and Communism recorded more centrally in Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point. (Many of the chapter headings also reflect the title, being full of references to light or to times of day.) Eliot spends the novel worrying about Calvert - what he might do to himself when down, how he could alienate others when up.
Like all of Snow's novels, The Light and the Dark is concerned mainly with relationships between men, particularly the small scale politics of the (still single sex) Oxbridge college. There are female characters in the novel, mainly there to provide some love interest for Calvert (Eliot is married, but his wife plays no part in the novel except for the occasional passing reference). Within its limits, though, the writing is superb. You get the feeling that Snow hits his stride once he can begin writing about the human interactions behind committee meetings, and even to someone like myself who hates them, he makes them fascinating.
Though the Strangers and Brothers sequence as a whole is basically a semi-autobiographical narrative describing one man's life in England in the middle third or so of the twentieth century, here the focus of attention is not narrator Lewis Eliot himself but a younger friend. The Light and the Dark is set during about a decade starting in the early thirties, just after Lewis Eliot has been elected a Fellow of a minor Cambridge college. There, he befriends Roy Calvert, a brilliant linguist but a manic depressive. The story of their enduring friendship is set first against the background of academic politics and then administrative work in London during the Second World War. The title doesn't just refer to Calvert's moods, of course, but to the gathering clouds of the coming war; the novel contains a fair amount of the intellectual conversation about Fascism and Communism recorded more centrally in Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point. (Many of the chapter headings also reflect the title, being full of references to light or to times of day.) Eliot spends the novel worrying about Calvert - what he might do to himself when down, how he could alienate others when up.
Like all of Snow's novels, The Light and the Dark is concerned mainly with relationships between men, particularly the small scale politics of the (still single sex) Oxbridge college. There are female characters in the novel, mainly there to provide some love interest for Calvert (Eliot is married, but his wife plays no part in the novel except for the occasional passing reference). Within its limits, though, the writing is superb. You get the feeling that Snow hits his stride once he can begin writing about the human interactions behind committee meetings, and even to someone like myself who hates them, he makes them fascinating.
March 6, 2014
5) 'The Light and the Dark'
blurb - Eliot spent the first years of the war scared stiff, and he was right to be. He was about to find himself at the heart of a project that would threaten the future of civilisation. They were fighting the Germans, the Americans weren't yet in the war, the League of Nations had fallen apart, and the enemy was poised to invade Europe. His private life was in shreds - his wife, a suicide. He shut up his Chelsea house and at age 35 he was living ridiculously, wandering between his club, a Pimlico bed-sit, and rooms in a Cambridge college of which he was a Fellow. Those of his Cambridge colleagues with any vim had gone into the war effort. Eliot was in Whitehall, in a close, consultative role with energy minister Sir Thomas Bevill. Bevill's Permanent Secretary and Eliot's immediate boss was the self-regarding Hector Rose. One Autumn afternoon he was summoned for a little talk.
Dramatised by Jonathan Holloway from C. P. Snow's 1947 novel, "The Light and the Dark".
With Adam Godley [Lewis Eliot], Adam Levy [Roy Calvert], Juliet Aubrey [Margaret Davidson], Rupert Vanisttart [Hector Rose], Anne-Marie Duff [Rosalind Calvert], Peter Marinker [Houston Eggar], Anthony Calf [Gilbert Cooke], Kenneth Collard [Willie Rumtofski], Carla Simpson [Betty Vane] and David Haig [The Narrator].
blurb - Eliot spent the first years of the war scared stiff, and he was right to be. He was about to find himself at the heart of a project that would threaten the future of civilisation. They were fighting the Germans, the Americans weren't yet in the war, the League of Nations had fallen apart, and the enemy was poised to invade Europe. His private life was in shreds - his wife, a suicide. He shut up his Chelsea house and at age 35 he was living ridiculously, wandering between his club, a Pimlico bed-sit, and rooms in a Cambridge college of which he was a Fellow. Those of his Cambridge colleagues with any vim had gone into the war effort. Eliot was in Whitehall, in a close, consultative role with energy minister Sir Thomas Bevill. Bevill's Permanent Secretary and Eliot's immediate boss was the self-regarding Hector Rose. One Autumn afternoon he was summoned for a little talk.
Dramatised by Jonathan Holloway from C. P. Snow's 1947 novel, "The Light and the Dark".
With Adam Godley [Lewis Eliot], Adam Levy [Roy Calvert], Juliet Aubrey [Margaret Davidson], Rupert Vanisttart [Hector Rose], Anne-Marie Duff [Rosalind Calvert], Peter Marinker [Houston Eggar], Anthony Calf [Gilbert Cooke], Kenneth Collard [Willie Rumtofski], Carla Simpson [Betty Vane] and David Haig [The Narrator].
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2014
I really loved this book and, its main character, the fact that he was based on a real person and most events were factual definitely contributed to my enjoyment. I feel like the book not only entertained but, taught me something as well.
Aside from this there are several great quotes, especially for those who tend towards melancholy.
Aside from this there are several great quotes, especially for those who tend towards melancholy.
January 26, 2017
A wonderful novel! What impressed me was the realism and the writing style. This novel proved to me that C.P. Snow was a writer of extraordinary ability and insight.
March 24, 2021
I'm reading the Strangers and Brothers sequence in the order that they were published so this is #2 as far as I'm concerned. (In the Penguin #1824 4 shillings and sixpence.) This one is particularly good on the lives of the 'stuffed' (as the novel's protagonist Roy Calvert would describe them) living their peculiar lives in their out-of-time Cambridge college. Thankfully, the book opens out with Calvert's travels to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Berne and this gives the book a broader horizon than the first in the series. There is a lot of the narrator's supposition about the the psychology and drives of those around him and while this is insightful it can also be a tad tedious.
Halfway through I started developing the theory that perhaps Roy Calvert was finding it so difficult to live the life that had been laid down in front of him because some aspects of it were contrary to his nature which was best expressed by his affection if not love for the narrator Lewis Eliot. I'm not sure this is what C P Snow intended, it was never hinted at by the object of Calvert's affection in his multifarious analyses of Calvert's depressive states, but the notion stayed with me until the end despite Calvert's reputation as a womaniser and his eventual marriage.
Towards the end of the book we reached 1939 and alongside the onset of war there was a sudden transformation in the text. Gone (except for the old dons in Cambridge) were the strangulated circuitous modes of speech which were replaced with a new modern directness. The writing was suddenly uncorseted from the restrictions of the conventions of the time. It was like C P Snow had lifted a veil of his own deliberate obfuscation.
I'm interested: did anybody else notice this metamorphosis or was it (as with my 'gay' theory) a product of my imagination.
Halfway through I started developing the theory that perhaps Roy Calvert was finding it so difficult to live the life that had been laid down in front of him because some aspects of it were contrary to his nature which was best expressed by his affection if not love for the narrator Lewis Eliot. I'm not sure this is what C P Snow intended, it was never hinted at by the object of Calvert's affection in his multifarious analyses of Calvert's depressive states, but the notion stayed with me until the end despite Calvert's reputation as a womaniser and his eventual marriage.
Towards the end of the book we reached 1939 and alongside the onset of war there was a sudden transformation in the text. Gone (except for the old dons in Cambridge) were the strangulated circuitous modes of speech which were replaced with a new modern directness. The writing was suddenly uncorseted from the restrictions of the conventions of the time. It was like C P Snow had lifted a veil of his own deliberate obfuscation.
I'm interested: did anybody else notice this metamorphosis or was it (as with my 'gay' theory) a product of my imagination.
Read
May 14, 2021Next to The Masters this is probably Snow's best book. The understanding of what we would call today 'bipolar' depression is masterful. The loving portrait of Roy Calvert is a wonderful expression of men's friendship. The way he manages to intertwine this plot with that of The Masters is brilliant.
Snow had an extraordinary ability to capture the spirit of an age. The other two, The New Men (the atomic bomb development), and The Affair (a fightback against McCarthyism) are excellent as well.
But I have to confess that I find the rest of Snow turgidly unreadable, which is a sadness. But for me The Masters and The Light and the Dark have been annual re-readables for 30-odd years. Our copies are held together with elastic bands, the spines having given up.
Incidentally, I had thought (in the first few years) that Roy's work with Sogdian was an invention.
Stupid me: Great Religions along the Silk Road: Zoroastrianism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehOwC...
Snow had an extraordinary ability to capture the spirit of an age. The other two, The New Men (the atomic bomb development), and The Affair (a fightback against McCarthyism) are excellent as well.
But I have to confess that I find the rest of Snow turgidly unreadable, which is a sadness. But for me The Masters and The Light and the Dark have been annual re-readables for 30-odd years. Our copies are held together with elastic bands, the spines having given up.
Incidentally, I had thought (in the first few years) that Roy's work with Sogdian was an invention.
Stupid me: Great Religions along the Silk Road: Zoroastrianism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehOwC...
March 24, 2021
An unexpectedly incredible book, which depicts many people who are absurd and shows an academia which is distressingly rigid, ritualized and unchangeable, and then carries them both through, the people becoming tragic in their grief, and the academia nostalgic in its unrepentant determination to carry on. I felt that Lewis's idea of 'predestination' was a lie that was central to the story--it was how he made sense of Roy's life, and yet also the reason he couldn't help him. It depicts a bit of Lewis's own problems with anxiety and difficulty with expressing emotion. Already in tears at the end, one line depicting grief struck me strongly, and I will record it here. "It was dark in the sunshine, and difficult to see."
December 30, 2020
The fourth in Snow's series Strangers and Brothers. This one follows the story of Roy Calvert, a brilliant scholar who today we would recognise as bipolar: deep depressions and insomnia punctuated by bouts of elation and occasional self-destructive gestures. Much of the book is set in a Cambridge college, and looks at the closed-group politics of the fellows there; another important strand features the rich and titled families that Calvert, and Lewis Eliot, the narrator, move among. There's a fair amount of social comedy. But the real achievement of the book is in its portrayal Calvert: complex, charismatic, tortured.
December 10, 2011
FRom BBC Radio 4 Extra:
As the Second World War erupts, Lewis Eliot heads to Whitehall where his love life takes an unexpected turn.
As the Second World War erupts, Lewis Eliot heads to Whitehall where his love life takes an unexpected turn.
March 24, 2021
I'm reading the Strangers and Brothers sequence in the order that they were published so this is #2 as far as I'm concerned. (In the Penguin #1824 4 shillings and sixpence.) This one is particularly good on the lives of the 'stuffed' (as the novel's protagonist Roy Calvert would describe them) living their peculiar lives in their out-of-time Cambridge college. Thankfully, the book opens out with Calvert's travels to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Berne and this gives the book a broader horizon than the first in the series. There is a lot of the narrator's supposition about the the psychology and drives of those around him and while this is insightful it can also be a tad tedious.
Halfway through I started developing the theory that perhaps Roy Calvert was finding it so difficult to live the life that had been laid down in front of him because some aspects of it were contrary to his nature which was best expressed by his affection if not love for the narrator Lewis Eliot. I'm not sure this is what C P Snow intended, it was never hinted at by the object of Calvert's affection in his multifarious analyses of Calvert's depressive states, but the notion stayed with me until the end despite Calvert's reputation as a womaniser and his eventual marriage.
Towards the end of the book we reached 1939 and alongside the onset of war there was a sudden transformation in the text. Gone (except for the old dons in Cambridge) were the strangulated circuitous modes of speech which were replaced with a new modern directness. The writing was suddenly uncorseted from the restrictions of the conventions of the time. It was like C P Snow had lifted a veil of his own deliberate obfuscation.
I'm interested: did anybody else notice this metamorphosis or was it (as with my 'gay' theory) a product of my imagination.
Halfway through I started developing the theory that perhaps Roy Calvert was finding it so difficult to live the life that had been laid down in front of him because some aspects of it were contrary to his nature which was best expressed by his affection if not love for the narrator Lewis Eliot. I'm not sure this is what C P Snow intended, it was never hinted at by the object of Calvert's affection in his multifarious analyses of Calvert's depressive states, but the notion stayed with me until the end despite Calvert's reputation as a womaniser and his eventual marriage.
Towards the end of the book we reached 1939 and alongside the onset of war there was a sudden transformation in the text. Gone (except for the old dons in Cambridge) were the strangulated circuitous modes of speech which were replaced with a new modern directness. The writing was suddenly uncorseted from the restrictions of the conventions of the time. It was like C P Snow had lifted a veil of his own deliberate obfuscation.
I'm interested: did anybody else notice this metamorphosis or was it (as with my 'gay' theory) a product of my imagination.
Read
May 24, 2020Snow tends to cover and recover bits of his ongoing narrative. The death of the master of the college at Cambridge in this novel will become pretty much the central feature of the next novel in the sequence. In this manner Lewis Eliot’s memories keep reverting to the late 1930s and progressing through the war into the 1950s, with some material repeated. The style never quite works for me as well as Anthony Powell’s does. Powell will occasionally leave strict chronological sequence, but more in the conventional sense of flashback, or to tell what is essentially an entirely new story, or new part of the story—as in the bits of Casanova‘s Chinese Restaurant that overlap with A Buyer’s Market. Snow instead seems to settle on a focus for each novel no matter how much that particular focus might require him to repeat narrative material already used. Thus a significant character who dies in volume four will be with us again in volume five because volume five happens five years or more before volume four. Another oddity about Snow’s method is the way in which he treats Eliot’s first wife, Sheila. Having established that the relationship is utterly wrong in terms of each other’s satisfaction and mental health, Eliot as narrator more or less removes Sheila from the narrative altogether. She dies somewhere in the background. Similarly, though on a totally different scale, it’s something like the abdication of Edward VIII—which isn’t mentioned, at least not in the first volumes which cover 1937 or so. In short, the choice of focus is odd and I don’t as a reader find it particularly comfortable.
February 7, 2025
I ought to be concerned by how much of myself I saw in the young Roy Calvert. It's too difficult to objectively critique a novel that touches me so personally, however my experience of reading it simply descends far too deeply past the realm of interpretative thought and into the haunted carnival feeling that lives in the viscera, that lives in the subconscious of the dreamer that dwells in the darkness behind the curtains of intellect.
It's the first thing I've read of C.P. Snow; I bought it on impulse at a secondhand bookstore simply because I could feel by the phantom weight of it in my hand that it was going to be a sad book, and I desperately needed to read something sad at the time. I was taken by the prose right away. It reminded me of D.H. Lawrence, though with less romance, and, though echoing Lawrence's outsiderism, that outsiderism is portrayed voyeuristically rather than subjectively, such as a worldly academic might when depicting the more pagan impulses of the spirit with the most forward sense of compassion he may muster.
It is rare to find a book with such dynamic humanity.
It's the first thing I've read of C.P. Snow; I bought it on impulse at a secondhand bookstore simply because I could feel by the phantom weight of it in my hand that it was going to be a sad book, and I desperately needed to read something sad at the time. I was taken by the prose right away. It reminded me of D.H. Lawrence, though with less romance, and, though echoing Lawrence's outsiderism, that outsiderism is portrayed voyeuristically rather than subjectively, such as a worldly academic might when depicting the more pagan impulses of the spirit with the most forward sense of compassion he may muster.
It is rare to find a book with such dynamic humanity.
February 1, 2023
It's tricky when you stumble upon a series of books, but have the misfortune to find the fourth and the fifth in the series, first. Not the worst thing that can happen, of course, but it does leave me with the dilemma of what to do next. Should I go forward? Or back?
Anyway, this one deals with the mental health, romantic life and political stance of the narrator's best friend, Roy Calvert. I love the way Snow fleshes out his characters and brings them to life on the page. Also, the way he weaves real life events - such as WWII - into his narrative.
For the longest time, this was going to be a four star rating, but by the end, I realized that it had to be a five. It's the way he underlines the tragedy and waste of war that did it for me.
Anyway, this one deals with the mental health, romantic life and political stance of the narrator's best friend, Roy Calvert. I love the way Snow fleshes out his characters and brings them to life on the page. Also, the way he weaves real life events - such as WWII - into his narrative.
For the longest time, this was going to be a four star rating, but by the end, I realized that it had to be a five. It's the way he underlines the tragedy and waste of war that did it for me.
June 25, 2024
A bit long-winded, but reasonably well-written and moving. The characters are well-drawn, but Snow sometimes relies too heavily on little tics (Brown: "Put it another way...") and stereotypes to define the various personalities. Roy Calvert may be a little too idealized to be fully convincing, but his story is told clearly and sensitively. I do want to continue with at least some of the others in the Strangers and Brothers sequence. I plan to re-read The Masters, and the other ones that involve academics.
July 5, 2021
I got to know Roy and Lewis, who are drawn together by their underlying despondency. The depiction of academia and British "society" is quite humorous, and sad. Does Lewis appeal to predestination because he is unable to help Roy? or so he can deal with what he thinks is Roy's inevitable fate. Therein lies the tragedy, because it is the war that makes Roy's end inevitable and yet is also the catalyst for his marriage and fatherhood, which seem to kindle in him a desire to live.
April 6, 2024
not an easy read
But the works of cp snow are worth the effort! I first read this series about 50 years ago but rereading it has been a different experience - seen with the experience of a lifetime. To those of you who enjoy detective novels or chick-lit- nothing wrong with these I enjoy them myself - give yourself a treat and read something of depth and soul. Currently on book 6 of 11 - I can’t wait to carry on the story!
But the works of cp snow are worth the effort! I first read this series about 50 years ago but rereading it has been a different experience - seen with the experience of a lifetime. To those of you who enjoy detective novels or chick-lit- nothing wrong with these I enjoy them myself - give yourself a treat and read something of depth and soul. Currently on book 6 of 11 - I can’t wait to carry on the story!
January 12, 2021
Quite a slow book but engrossing nonetheless. I was looking for a bigger read during lockdown and this is quite a good series for that. CP Snow uses quite an extensive vocabulary somewhat beyond the limits of the internal Kobo dictionary. The chronology of the series is interesting as it's not totally linear.
October 18, 2020
Reading the series in order of narrative events, on many occasion I found myself wishing this part was over so I could start on The Masters.
I remember there are some parts that are worthwhile reading, however I can no longer recall which bits.
I remember there are some parts that are worthwhile reading, however I can no longer recall which bits.
October 19, 2024
A melancholic scholar's life and struggle to come to terms with his nature, as told through his dearest friend. First time in a long time that I felt the need to tab a book. Might update this review to quote a few passages.
December 25, 2020
Incredibly life-affirming.
May 5, 2020
Wonderful writing, I loved chapter 22.
December 25, 2019
The Light and the Dark is a novel in the Strangers and Brothers series by C.P. Snow. The narrator throughout the series is Lewis Eliot, in part a fictional representation of the author himself. But the real antagonist of this episode in the series is Roy Calvert.
Calvert is viewed by some as a brilliant young scholar, an Orientalist whose area of expertise—the ancient Sogdian language—is about as esoteric as one can get in Middle Eastern studies. To others, especially several of the older scholars of Cambridge, Calvert represents something inappropriate in youth and potentially scandalous for the college, particularly considering the many rumors that have spread about concerning his affairs with various women.
Is there any truth to these rumors? Most certainly. Which is not presented by Snow as damning evidence of what is wrong with Roy Calvert. Rather, Calvert’s youthful enthusiasm and irrepressible individuality appeal to many, even members of the crusty upper class. Calvert touches people, inspiring in them perhaps a desire to embrace that which he seems to represent—a brilliant life.
Yet the narrator knows him better than this, knows Calvert better than any, and understands that Calvert’s life is far from blissful. And at the core of The Light and the Dark is not only this vibrant figure, Roy Calvert, but the deep, enduring compassion that he has engendered in Lewis Eliot. Many periods pass during which they are separated from one another, and even then, we read nearly nothing of what is happening in Eliot’s life, including his desperate relationship with his unstable, suicidal wife (which is at the center of another of the Strangers and Brothers novels).
Instead, through every development of the novel, whether ponderous, even pretentious in the world of Cambridge academia, or startling and sinister, particularly as World War II approaches and Calvert seems drawn to the Nazi movement, Eliot’s thoughts return ever and again to Roy Calvert. His hopes are for Calvert, and his sorrow seems ever near the surface whenever Calvert faces the depression that plagues him in his darkest hours.
In all, what often appeared to me to be a fairly mechanical view of the goings-on of a major institution of learning and its faculty and staff proved only barely to conceal a surprisingly passionate story. There is, in often condensed and even repressed form, a great deal of emotion in this tale. And all centered on a man whose star seems destined to rise, if only because Calvert appears so capable of unintentionally winning the hearts of others. Yet he is a man who in the end is much more drawn to a tragic fall, incapable as he is of finding what he truly needs—not the love that so many others are eager to grant him, but an enduring truth or faith or belief that he can embrace.
Roy Calvert is a man who is loved more than he wishes to be, promoted by those he endures if not detests, desired by women who mean nothing to him or, in the case of one woman, whom he suffers the guilt of having harmed—people, in other words, who are more than willing to commit themselves to him, even while he fails to find anything eternal to commit himself to. His life fluctuates between passion, pleasure, and pain, a pain that Lewis Eliot understands better than any, but a pain from which Eliot is unable to save his dear friend. Snow’s The Light and the Dark is, then, a fairly compelling story of friendship and love, desire and loss.
Calvert is viewed by some as a brilliant young scholar, an Orientalist whose area of expertise—the ancient Sogdian language—is about as esoteric as one can get in Middle Eastern studies. To others, especially several of the older scholars of Cambridge, Calvert represents something inappropriate in youth and potentially scandalous for the college, particularly considering the many rumors that have spread about concerning his affairs with various women.
Is there any truth to these rumors? Most certainly. Which is not presented by Snow as damning evidence of what is wrong with Roy Calvert. Rather, Calvert’s youthful enthusiasm and irrepressible individuality appeal to many, even members of the crusty upper class. Calvert touches people, inspiring in them perhaps a desire to embrace that which he seems to represent—a brilliant life.
Yet the narrator knows him better than this, knows Calvert better than any, and understands that Calvert’s life is far from blissful. And at the core of The Light and the Dark is not only this vibrant figure, Roy Calvert, but the deep, enduring compassion that he has engendered in Lewis Eliot. Many periods pass during which they are separated from one another, and even then, we read nearly nothing of what is happening in Eliot’s life, including his desperate relationship with his unstable, suicidal wife (which is at the center of another of the Strangers and Brothers novels).
Instead, through every development of the novel, whether ponderous, even pretentious in the world of Cambridge academia, or startling and sinister, particularly as World War II approaches and Calvert seems drawn to the Nazi movement, Eliot’s thoughts return ever and again to Roy Calvert. His hopes are for Calvert, and his sorrow seems ever near the surface whenever Calvert faces the depression that plagues him in his darkest hours.
In all, what often appeared to me to be a fairly mechanical view of the goings-on of a major institution of learning and its faculty and staff proved only barely to conceal a surprisingly passionate story. There is, in often condensed and even repressed form, a great deal of emotion in this tale. And all centered on a man whose star seems destined to rise, if only because Calvert appears so capable of unintentionally winning the hearts of others. Yet he is a man who in the end is much more drawn to a tragic fall, incapable as he is of finding what he truly needs—not the love that so many others are eager to grant him, but an enduring truth or faith or belief that he can embrace.
Roy Calvert is a man who is loved more than he wishes to be, promoted by those he endures if not detests, desired by women who mean nothing to him or, in the case of one woman, whom he suffers the guilt of having harmed—people, in other words, who are more than willing to commit themselves to him, even while he fails to find anything eternal to commit himself to. His life fluctuates between passion, pleasure, and pain, a pain that Lewis Eliot understands better than any, but a pain from which Eliot is unable to save his dear friend. Snow’s The Light and the Dark is, then, a fairly compelling story of friendship and love, desire and loss.
December 20, 2020
Having enjoyed a radio version of the Strangers and Brothers series I read The Masters. I loved it. (But then I have discovered I enjoy all realist authors.) So I bought the rest of the series and started at the beginning. I have to say they did not zing with the taughtness of The Masters, thought of as Snow's finest book. Was I stuck with a set of second rate books?
Snow really gets going with The Light and the Dark (the immediate precursor to The Masters in the series). The story of manic depressive Roy Calvert, brilliant Orientalist and ladies man, for whom the war brings terror and release from the pain of life.
Snow clearly shares the atheism of the narrator, as do many others. Those who have a faith have a pale, formal, comfortless imitation of true religion. The loss of faith in Twentieth Century Britain is writ large. Thank God for victory in the Second World War but it was won by a nation on moral principles that depended on foundations which were eroded and fragile.
You won't find comfort here for times when life is tough but you will find Stoicism and penetrating insight into the lives and losses of friends and acquaintances.
Snow really gets going with The Light and the Dark (the immediate precursor to The Masters in the series). The story of manic depressive Roy Calvert, brilliant Orientalist and ladies man, for whom the war brings terror and release from the pain of life.
Snow clearly shares the atheism of the narrator, as do many others. Those who have a faith have a pale, formal, comfortless imitation of true religion. The loss of faith in Twentieth Century Britain is writ large. Thank God for victory in the Second World War but it was won by a nation on moral principles that depended on foundations which were eroded and fragile.
You won't find comfort here for times when life is tough but you will find Stoicism and penetrating insight into the lives and losses of friends and acquaintances.
March 7, 2014
This is the second book that Snow wrote in the Strangers and Brothers series although I see it's listed as N°4 now - he presumably "filled in the gaps" later. Maybe he's rather dated but I find the books slow and one really does not know where he is going with the plot. They smack of inexperience as a writer - too much detail and not enough forward movement. One does not necessarily require a "story" as such, but a sense of direction. However as one does weave one's way through the book there is certainly matter for reflection - this book deals with manic depression and has some interesting insights.
January 4, 2013
My first CP Snow book from my parents' collection. I expected a novel of manners, but am pleasantly surprised by the depth of psychological insight.
August 10, 2012
best so far
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