On 11/09/24 08:07, William Hyde wrote:
much snippage
I'm a long term fan of Snow's "Strangers and Brother" sequence, but it
holds to a very different view than either Davies or Durrell. There is
some humour, especially of character, but the books are largely
underlain by ethical issues (appeasement, the atomic bomb, class) as
well as the narrator's flaws - invisible to him, of course.
Some find the series to be too earnest, ........ in any event
the richness of character more than compensates.
I started with the fifth book, "The Masters", which is about a
long-delayed election for the mastership of a Cambridge college in the
appeasement era. The book is packed with characters whose nature is
revealed in their reaction to the election. Human and political
motivations intermingle in complex ways. It echoes and personalizes
the larger struggle taking place in the world at that time.
If you don't like that book, best avoid the rest of the series. But
if you prefer to start at the beginning, either "George Passant", the
first written, or "Time of Hope", the first chronologically, will do.
Having decided to read them in publication order, I began with "George
Passant" about which I have already briefly written.
"The Light and the Dark" was about Roy Calvert, brilliant but subject to melancholy and unable to control his self destructive impulse to mock conventions and appearances at inappropriate times. The "Light" refers
to the Manichee religion's concept of man's spirit, the "Dark" to man's
flesh and their eternal battle so a similar main issue to George Passant
from a higher social standing with different circumstances and events.
The Manichee religion is "the most subtle and complex representation of
sexual guilt". It was a bit of a struggle as I didn't really understand
the main character, Roy, and the book often dragged. Perhaps that was deliberate for the reader to empathise with Roy's frequent depression.
"A Time of Hope" about the narrator himself, was fascinating as a tale
of difficulty in upward social mobility, principally financial. Work
customs and relationships were also fascinating but I didn't understand
his relationship with the neurotic woman who became his neurotic wife.
"The Masters" as described by William above, was brilliant. The
characters created their natural conflict and I could now understand Roy Calvert from "The Light and the Dark" a lot better and I was pleased I
had persevered with that.
In general, as you say, the characters are so well defined in their
attitudes and temperament that the ethics society demands of the middle
class in the early 20th Century are examined.
As each in the series is stand-alone, stories are compartmentalised,
with the events of "A Time of Hope" and "George Passant" concurrent but
hardly mentioning each other and the 300 plus pages of "The Masters" is
covered in a page and a half in "The Light and the Dark". However the
secondary characters common to several books also have a depth of
richness. The narrator and most others have almost implausibly high
levels of integrity but a "A Time of Hope" was more cynical.
I can't help feeling that I am missing something as I have not
identified any difference between the narrator's behavioural reasons and
events so I have not yet identified his flaws apart from vanity.
Between books I have been reading the Australian crime author, Garry
Disher - a different universe! Thank you for the recommendation.
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