The Masters (Strangers and Brothers)

Rating:
Summary: A splendid novel.
Review: C.P.Snow has some fine qualities; he is succinct, perceptive and astute. This novel, perhaps to a greater extent than any of his others, reflects these qualities as "The Masters" is a triumph of characterisation. Jago, Brown, Calvert, Nightingale and Gay will live long in the memory and the understated way in which Snow brings them to life is most adroit. Ultimately, however, like all of the Strangers and Brothers sequence, it is a novel about the narrator, Lewis Eliot; the relationship between tale and teller here is particularly impressive. The reader becomes unconsciously embroiled in and fascinated by his life - here is a narrator who is both partial and impartial, intense and detached. The claustrophobic, parochial and insular world of academic life is captured perfectly here. I recommend it highly; for anyone who has read it and enjoyed it, I commend to their attention "The Affair" by the same author. Set in the same Cambridge college, many of the characters reappear and it is another very fine read.

Rating:
Summary: One Would Think This Book Might Involve More
Review: How does an assortment of 13 professors at an English university choose the next head of their college? "The Masters" examines the personal and university politics that shape this decision through the narrative style of C. P. Snow. This captures a brainy professorial world through heavy reliance on complex and conditional dialogue, acute but unspoken observations, and highly abstract character analysis. Here's an example of his approach: "His manner was deliberately prosaic and comfortable. He was showing less outward sign of strain than any of us; when he was frayed inside, he slowed his always measured speech, brought out commonplaces like an amour, reduced all he could to the matter-of-fact." Still, the story, while minutely imagined, doesn't go deep. It's a tempest in a teapot.

Rating:
Summary: Genuine classic
Review: I'd urge you to read this one. Few people describe the inner life of men, or at least his class of 20th century Englishman, so well as Snow. The characterisations are the strength, all vanities and motivations probed as if by a surgeon, though the "closed" politics plot is entertaining enough. Other reviewers list their favourite characters, I'd plump for Winslow and Brown myself. Beautiful writing style.