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Strangers and Brothers #2
George Passant
A wise, moving novel about a mentor and his protégé: “The central character . . . is immensely appealing . . . a peculiarly haunting and sympathetic figure.” —The New York Times
In late 1920s England, Lewis Eliot is building a career in law and has found a mentor in George Passant. The quirky small-town solicitor’s clerk has much wisdom to share from his years of experience—during which he has also managed to hold on to his idealism. Eliot is just one of the many young devotees drawn to Passant, hoping for guidance from the man who’s always ready to extend a loan or a listening ear. However, the young men will have to learn to fly on their own—and come to Passant’s aid themselves—in this absorbing novel by “an extremely shrewd observer of men and society” (Commentary).
“An enlightened discussion of questions of conscience and conduct and commitment. . . . Filled with the concerns which are so fundamentally and essentially a part of this writer’s work and have attracted a firm following.” —Kirkus Reviews
Originally published under the title Strangers and Brothers
In late 1920s England, Lewis Eliot is building a career in law and has found a mentor in George Passant. The quirky small-town solicitor’s clerk has much wisdom to share from his years of experience—during which he has also managed to hold on to his idealism. Eliot is just one of the many young devotees drawn to Passant, hoping for guidance from the man who’s always ready to extend a loan or a listening ear. However, the young men will have to learn to fly on their own—and come to Passant’s aid themselves—in this absorbing novel by “an extremely shrewd observer of men and society” (Commentary).
“An enlightened discussion of questions of conscience and conduct and commitment. . . . Filled with the concerns which are so fundamentally and essentially a part of this writer’s work and have attracted a firm following.” —Kirkus Reviews
Originally published under the title Strangers and Brothers
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
44 people are currently reading
219 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 34 reviews
April 18, 2025
Note to Readers: now that the entire sequence of the early as well as late, controversial though they are - biographical novels, Strangers and Brothers, is slowly being republished in sparkling new covers, it seems an opportune moment for discussing the first one in the series.
***
Oh, East is East and West is West
And never the Twain shall meet!
A workaholic’s just deserts are a full wallet and an arid heart:
C.P. Snow and I live in two radically different worlds.
Not that the book isn’t good or that he wasn’t a good man. It is and he was. But his vision of economic success - to be gained by hard competitive struggle - seems so distantly impersonal and empty to an old, introspective man like me.
If you were around in the sixties, and a member of my generation, you’ll remember he controversially declared that there are two very different worlds on this planet.
He called his book The Two Cultures.
He wrote it when he was not far from my age, still believing that science and progress could resolve the sins of the world. Poor man, he died from anxiety - felled by complications from a stomach ulcer.
We all need the oasis of a modicum of peace in our life, especially now!
His thesis, though, still is apparent today: that the world is ruled by two vastly different hierarchies of being... on one side (his side) the coolly logical, clinical and scientific group; and on the other the warm, imaginative and artistic group.
Doers and dreamers. Snow was a doer.
And each one has a vast influence on our lives.
For dreamers can have a vast influence on us too! And if your dreams when young centre on money, you may just end up reaping the whirlwind.
But if you dream of peace in your life, the dreams you sow when young may well produce a peaceful and bountiful harvest - for yourself and others! Unless the doers change that: their interference in our lives is inevitable.
This novel tells the story of a group of highly individual, disparate young people - from less privileged backgrounds than the norm.
And that quality is key to Snow’s sense of noble ambition.
For he roots for the underdogs - even though, remember, for Orwell underdogs (the pigs) were once quite harmlessly living their little piggy lives under the farmer’s not unpleasant watch. Losers can become demagogues.
These kids are thrown into a greedy, phony world in which they’re victims and strangers. They are young and anxious to achieve a place in that world.
Shades of Animal Farm? But Orwell remained a socialistic thinker throughout. Snow’s disillusionment, unlike Orwell’s creative catharsis, remained within - and gnawed at his celebrity physically.
For Snow later became a politician, a calling in which there is no possibility of peace.
His dialogue and characterization here is, admittedly, vigorous, sharp, and sparkling with new ideas. It’s a story of young underdogs doing well, against all odds. I enjoyed the strong characterizations.
It stirs you and urges you forward, pressing you to see what new and incontrovertible roadblocks to success these kids will encounter.
You may like where this is going, but I couldn’t finish it, as to me it seemed like a journey without end (and the novel is only the first in a very long succession of similarly competitive sagas)!
Vanity, saith the the preacher!
Snow’s cut-and-thrust manner, and the sense that these kids think a niche in society (at last) and a good income are all you need to ‘arrive’, is all foreign to me.
For this is the world of enlightened ambition and getting even by making good. Snow was like so many young adults in the thirties who thought they could mitigate the mess their parents had polarized so badly.
A lot like my generation thought in the sixties, after the wars of the Greatest Generation.
But I and my friends were dead wrong, and so were our parents. And so was Snow!
The corruption of the world begins anew with each new generation.
No, give me the simple, great books, the classics that direct their readers to start with fixing themselves rather than the world.
This world may never find peace - though WE can, personally and individually.
But Snow’s world is a world of relentlessly driven unrest.
The old, old story of the Two Roads!
Of which I chose the less travelled.
***
Oh, East is East and West is West
And never the Twain shall meet!
A workaholic’s just deserts are a full wallet and an arid heart:
C.P. Snow and I live in two radically different worlds.
Not that the book isn’t good or that he wasn’t a good man. It is and he was. But his vision of economic success - to be gained by hard competitive struggle - seems so distantly impersonal and empty to an old, introspective man like me.
If you were around in the sixties, and a member of my generation, you’ll remember he controversially declared that there are two very different worlds on this planet.
He called his book The Two Cultures.
He wrote it when he was not far from my age, still believing that science and progress could resolve the sins of the world. Poor man, he died from anxiety - felled by complications from a stomach ulcer.
We all need the oasis of a modicum of peace in our life, especially now!
His thesis, though, still is apparent today: that the world is ruled by two vastly different hierarchies of being... on one side (his side) the coolly logical, clinical and scientific group; and on the other the warm, imaginative and artistic group.
Doers and dreamers. Snow was a doer.
And each one has a vast influence on our lives.
For dreamers can have a vast influence on us too! And if your dreams when young centre on money, you may just end up reaping the whirlwind.
But if you dream of peace in your life, the dreams you sow when young may well produce a peaceful and bountiful harvest - for yourself and others! Unless the doers change that: their interference in our lives is inevitable.
This novel tells the story of a group of highly individual, disparate young people - from less privileged backgrounds than the norm.
And that quality is key to Snow’s sense of noble ambition.
For he roots for the underdogs - even though, remember, for Orwell underdogs (the pigs) were once quite harmlessly living their little piggy lives under the farmer’s not unpleasant watch. Losers can become demagogues.
These kids are thrown into a greedy, phony world in which they’re victims and strangers. They are young and anxious to achieve a place in that world.
Shades of Animal Farm? But Orwell remained a socialistic thinker throughout. Snow’s disillusionment, unlike Orwell’s creative catharsis, remained within - and gnawed at his celebrity physically.
For Snow later became a politician, a calling in which there is no possibility of peace.
His dialogue and characterization here is, admittedly, vigorous, sharp, and sparkling with new ideas. It’s a story of young underdogs doing well, against all odds. I enjoyed the strong characterizations.
It stirs you and urges you forward, pressing you to see what new and incontrovertible roadblocks to success these kids will encounter.
You may like where this is going, but I couldn’t finish it, as to me it seemed like a journey without end (and the novel is only the first in a very long succession of similarly competitive sagas)!
Vanity, saith the the preacher!
Snow’s cut-and-thrust manner, and the sense that these kids think a niche in society (at last) and a good income are all you need to ‘arrive’, is all foreign to me.
For this is the world of enlightened ambition and getting even by making good. Snow was like so many young adults in the thirties who thought they could mitigate the mess their parents had polarized so badly.
A lot like my generation thought in the sixties, after the wars of the Greatest Generation.
But I and my friends were dead wrong, and so were our parents. And so was Snow!
The corruption of the world begins anew with each new generation.
No, give me the simple, great books, the classics that direct their readers to start with fixing themselves rather than the world.
This world may never find peace - though WE can, personally and individually.
But Snow’s world is a world of relentlessly driven unrest.
The old, old story of the Two Roads!
Of which I chose the less travelled.
March 24, 2019
And so with the others of George’s group … George had set us moving, lent us money: he never seemed to think twice of lending us money … It was the first time we had been near to a generous-hearted man. We became excited over the books he told us to read and the views he stood by … We were carried away by his belief in human beings and ourselves.
Having recently completed Anthony Powell’s 12-volume fiction A Dance to the Music of Time, I’ve now read the initial volume of C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers 11 novel sequence. It’s quite impossible not to compare the recent read to the long experience of reading Powell.
Powell and Snow were both born in 1905. Snow was educated at Alderman Newton's School, at Leicestershire and Rutland College, finally at Christ's College, Cambridge; Powell at New Beacon School, then Eton, lastly Balliol College, Oxford. Powell obtained a “third class degree” at completion of his university years in 1926. Snow started college years reading chemistry, ended them with both Master’s and PhD degrees in physics around 1930. The two authors are thus seen to have started off their post-education lives at different ages, with different educational experiences, and with quite different interests.
Powell published Afternoon Men, his first novel, in 1931; and had six other books published between then and 1951, when the first volume of A Dance … appeared. Snow published his first novel, Death Under Sail, in 1932. The volume I read, originally titled Strangers and Brothers but renamed later George Passant after its leading character, appeared in 1940. Thus Snow started a decade sooner than Powell on his series.
The eleven volumes of Strangers and Brothers, are listed in publication order below. Bracketed numbers at the left indicate the narrative order of the books. After the first three, Snow wrote the remaining volumes in order of the narrative time – with the exception of The Conscience of the Rich, the seventh novel written, which jumps way back to the third position in the narrative.
[2] George Passant (first called Strangers & Brothers) - 1940
[4] The Light and the Dark - 1947
[1] Time of Hope – 1949
[5] The Masters – 1951
[6] The New Men – 1954
[7] Homecomings – 1956
[3] The Conscience of the Rich – 1958
[8] The Affair – 1959
[9] Corridors of Power – 1694
[10] The Sleep of Reason – 1968
[11] Last Things – 1970
Both series have a first-person narrator: Lewis Elliot for Snow, Nick Jenkins for Powell. Each series is basically a fictional memoir of its narrator, starting in their youth and extending into their retirement years. Powell’s narrator becomes a writer, and when relating the professional experiences of his circle of friends and acquaintances, is dealing with the “arts” loosely speaking: writing, painting, music. Snow’s Elliot becomes a lawyer, then a Cambridge Don, finally a senior civil servant – all reflecting Snow’s own experiences. Besides these professional settings, Snow, from his college studies, brings the world of the scientist into Eliot’s narrative. (Snow himself, of course, gave a very famous lecture in 1959, The Two Cultures, in which he discoursed on, and lamented, “the gulf between scientists and literary intellectuals".)
The book
I’ve rated George Passant as a four-star read, all of Powell’s volumes as five stars. What’s the difference?
First, I found it a bit difficult to get really interested in Snow’s book. The names of characters are thrown about freely in the narrative, with almost no initial description of them, which only comes bit by bit later. So it was hard for me to hold onto any idea of who “Roy” was, who “Olive” was, etc. I had to backtrack more than once, on the second or third mention of a character, to figure out where they’d been introduced and what I was supposed to know about them.
Eventually, these difficulties surmounted, I became more comfortable reading the story, hence began finding it interesting. George Passant, the protagonist, is a young lawyer, working for a small firm in a provincial town. There’s a college nearby, and Passant spends much of his time (and no small amount of his limited funds) gathering a group of students around him, with the aim of interesting discussion, and sort of a “mutual aid” society. One of these students is the narrator, Lewis Elliot, who is himself studying law at the college.
The story quickly became a page-turner for me. Elliot’s narrative is comprised, naturally, of the telling of events which comprise several plot-lines. Besides this, there are his reflections on the other characters involved. It seemed to me that Snow uses conversation to form the narrative somewhat less than Powell, though there are, as in Powell, a few set-pieces in which many characters are involved in conversation.
The latter part of the story, which takes place several years after the opening, introduces a surprising twist to the story. This is played out over a considerable portion of the novel, almost as a legal mystery. It held my interest very closely, and its resolution requires a major reevaluation of the narrator’s (and the reader’s) views on more than one character. I thought it was well done, and could have pushed the rating up close to five.
But there was one element, one so imbued into me by my many reads of Powell this year, that is missing from Snow – humour. Though Snow’s story certainly tells of people drinking, laughing, having a great time, making jokes, it’s all narrative. It doesn’t cause the reader to laugh, or even to smile much. In general, Snow’s narrative style just can’t measure up to the style of Powell, which is much more entertaining.
Finally, my impression of Elliot was that he didn’t seem as real a character as Nick Jenkins does. When Elliot waxes philosophical about human emotions or desires, it seemed to be more Snow’s own insights being advanced – Elliot not being real enough to have such intuitions.
I’ll be reading more of this novel sequence, and will be quite interested in the second volume, to see if some of the small issues I had with the first become less of a concern.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Hearing Secret Harmonies A Dance to the Music of Time
Next review: Manchild in the Promised Land autobiography
Older review: Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
Previous library review: Good Morning Midnight Rhys
Next library review: The Hobbit Tolkien
Having recently completed Anthony Powell’s 12-volume fiction A Dance to the Music of Time, I’ve now read the initial volume of C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers 11 novel sequence. It’s quite impossible not to compare the recent read to the long experience of reading Powell.
Powell and Snow were both born in 1905. Snow was educated at Alderman Newton's School, at Leicestershire and Rutland College, finally at Christ's College, Cambridge; Powell at New Beacon School, then Eton, lastly Balliol College, Oxford. Powell obtained a “third class degree” at completion of his university years in 1926. Snow started college years reading chemistry, ended them with both Master’s and PhD degrees in physics around 1930. The two authors are thus seen to have started off their post-education lives at different ages, with different educational experiences, and with quite different interests.
Powell published Afternoon Men, his first novel, in 1931; and had six other books published between then and 1951, when the first volume of A Dance … appeared. Snow published his first novel, Death Under Sail, in 1932. The volume I read, originally titled Strangers and Brothers but renamed later George Passant after its leading character, appeared in 1940. Thus Snow started a decade sooner than Powell on his series.
The eleven volumes of Strangers and Brothers, are listed in publication order below. Bracketed numbers at the left indicate the narrative order of the books. After the first three, Snow wrote the remaining volumes in order of the narrative time – with the exception of The Conscience of the Rich, the seventh novel written, which jumps way back to the third position in the narrative.
[2] George Passant (first called Strangers & Brothers) - 1940
[4] The Light and the Dark - 1947
[1] Time of Hope – 1949
[5] The Masters – 1951
[6] The New Men – 1954
[7] Homecomings – 1956
[3] The Conscience of the Rich – 1958
[8] The Affair – 1959
[9] Corridors of Power – 1694
[10] The Sleep of Reason – 1968
[11] Last Things – 1970
Both series have a first-person narrator: Lewis Elliot for Snow, Nick Jenkins for Powell. Each series is basically a fictional memoir of its narrator, starting in their youth and extending into their retirement years. Powell’s narrator becomes a writer, and when relating the professional experiences of his circle of friends and acquaintances, is dealing with the “arts” loosely speaking: writing, painting, music. Snow’s Elliot becomes a lawyer, then a Cambridge Don, finally a senior civil servant – all reflecting Snow’s own experiences. Besides these professional settings, Snow, from his college studies, brings the world of the scientist into Eliot’s narrative. (Snow himself, of course, gave a very famous lecture in 1959, The Two Cultures, in which he discoursed on, and lamented, “the gulf between scientists and literary intellectuals".)
The book
I’ve rated George Passant as a four-star read, all of Powell’s volumes as five stars. What’s the difference?
First, I found it a bit difficult to get really interested in Snow’s book. The names of characters are thrown about freely in the narrative, with almost no initial description of them, which only comes bit by bit later. So it was hard for me to hold onto any idea of who “Roy” was, who “Olive” was, etc. I had to backtrack more than once, on the second or third mention of a character, to figure out where they’d been introduced and what I was supposed to know about them.
Eventually, these difficulties surmounted, I became more comfortable reading the story, hence began finding it interesting. George Passant, the protagonist, is a young lawyer, working for a small firm in a provincial town. There’s a college nearby, and Passant spends much of his time (and no small amount of his limited funds) gathering a group of students around him, with the aim of interesting discussion, and sort of a “mutual aid” society. One of these students is the narrator, Lewis Elliot, who is himself studying law at the college.
The story quickly became a page-turner for me. Elliot’s narrative is comprised, naturally, of the telling of events which comprise several plot-lines. Besides this, there are his reflections on the other characters involved. It seemed to me that Snow uses conversation to form the narrative somewhat less than Powell, though there are, as in Powell, a few set-pieces in which many characters are involved in conversation.
The latter part of the story, which takes place several years after the opening, introduces a surprising twist to the story. This is played out over a considerable portion of the novel, almost as a legal mystery. It held my interest very closely, and its resolution requires a major reevaluation of the narrator’s (and the reader’s) views on more than one character. I thought it was well done, and could have pushed the rating up close to five.
But there was one element, one so imbued into me by my many reads of Powell this year, that is missing from Snow – humour. Though Snow’s story certainly tells of people drinking, laughing, having a great time, making jokes, it’s all narrative. It doesn’t cause the reader to laugh, or even to smile much. In general, Snow’s narrative style just can’t measure up to the style of Powell, which is much more entertaining.
Finally, my impression of Elliot was that he didn’t seem as real a character as Nick Jenkins does. When Elliot waxes philosophical about human emotions or desires, it seemed to be more Snow’s own insights being advanced – Elliot not being real enough to have such intuitions.
I’ll be reading more of this novel sequence, and will be quite interested in the second volume, to see if some of the small issues I had with the first become less of a concern.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Hearing Secret Harmonies A Dance to the Music of Time
Next review: Manchild in the Promised Land autobiography
Older review: Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
Previous library review: Good Morning Midnight Rhys
Next library review: The Hobbit Tolkien
June 2, 2018
The second volume of the Strangers and Brothers series wasn’t quite as engaging as the first one for me. That’s probably because I decided to read the books in narrative chronological order, not in publication order, and George Passant was published way before Time of Hope. The result: I already knew some of the major plot points in this book. Nevertheless it was quite interesting to see what Lewis Eliot is up to, when not struggling with his wife (who is only mentioned in passing here).
The trial against George Passant and two of his acquaintances, which didn’t play a huge rule in the previous book, is illustrated in great detail here; and that ultimatley gave the book its fourth star (I’m a sucker for these things). Apart from the exciting scenes in the courtroom the tone was moderate with the typical English understatement. I expected nothing less. You could call it a literary soap opera. A soap opera with some pretty deep characters I have to say, who in this case have quite a few surprises in the end. Looking forward to part 3.
Like in the previous volume words appeared here that this ESL has never seen before: avuncular; irenicon
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The trial against George Passant and two of his acquaintances, which didn’t play a huge rule in the previous book, is illustrated in great detail here; and that ultimatley gave the book its fourth star (I’m a sucker for these things). Apart from the exciting scenes in the courtroom the tone was moderate with the typical English understatement. I expected nothing less. You could call it a literary soap opera. A soap opera with some pretty deep characters I have to say, who in this case have quite a few surprises in the end. Looking forward to part 3.
Like in the previous volume words appeared here that this ESL has never seen before: avuncular; irenicon
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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March 7, 2020I found the trial scenes interesting as I usually do fictional representations of legal procedure. But I find I cannot really sympathize with many of the characters. George Passant, the title character, always strikes me as being pompous, naïve, vain over-optimistic, somewhat self-centred, idealistic and, in many ways, rather pathetic. Reading excerpts from his diary is exquisitely awful! Lewis Eliot, our narrator, is not much more immediately attractive. The other figures on trial with George—Jack Cotery and Olive Calvert—are a little easier to like, but one sees, uncompromisingly, that they are all friends because they all share that tendency to self-aggrandizement and self-dramatization that typifies George. The other Eliot, Tom, has his speaker J. Alfred Prufrock overtly (and honestly) acknowledge that he is “not Prince Hamlet” but more like a minor attendant court figure, one who is more than occasionally a fool. Snow’s Eliot, on the other hand, seems to present himself, and most of the others upon whom his narrative attention rests, as a bunch of Osrics, Poloniuses, Rosencrantzes, Guildensterns—even Fortinbras (how does one make a correct plural out of that name?) all of whom seem to think themselves slightly more important, dramatic, tortured, stressed, strained, slinged and arrowed than Hamlet is himself. I seem to recall reading a critical evaluation made somewhere in the late 1950s or early 1960s to the effect that Snow’s Strangers & Brothers was, in general, more satisfying and likely to do better than Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. I will admit and accept that mine is an individual and personalized judgment, but from my perspective I can’t begin to accept that there is any logic in such an evaluation.
April 19, 2025
At-length portrait of George Passant: brilliant, generous, tawdry, self-deluding, Snow's eye for character - strength, weakness, motive and complexity - is extraordinary and, re-reading this with many more years experience than I had when I first read it, I'm struck by his ability to understand all and keep everything in balance. No facile judgements, no excuses. Unforgettable.
Snow has his weaknesses, though: there are no jokes, nor can a reader imagine any of Snow's characters making one (which doesn't mean that the books are entirely without humour); and the characters discuss and dissect endlessly. Still, it's done in a way I find enthralling.
Some of the books in this series, as I recall, have aged well: Corridors of Power, about behind-the-scenes manoeuvring over Government policy, feels fairly timeless. Others - this being one, and Conscience of the Rich, the next one in line, another - have dated. One part of Passant's eventual downfall is the immorality of his circle, where (GASP!) a group of young and unmarried people spent weekends at a farm. True-to-life in a provincial town in the 1920s, but distant to a contemporary reader.
Snow has his weaknesses, though: there are no jokes, nor can a reader imagine any of Snow's characters making one (which doesn't mean that the books are entirely without humour); and the characters discuss and dissect endlessly. Still, it's done in a way I find enthralling.
Some of the books in this series, as I recall, have aged well: Corridors of Power, about behind-the-scenes manoeuvring over Government policy, feels fairly timeless. Others - this being one, and Conscience of the Rich, the next one in line, another - have dated. One part of Passant's eventual downfall is the immorality of his circle, where (GASP!) a group of young and unmarried people spent weekends at a farm. True-to-life in a provincial town in the 1920s, but distant to a contemporary reader.
May 4, 2018
I wanted to love this first book in the Strangers and Brothers series, because so many people that I admire return again and again to these nine books. I wanted to love it, but I didn't. The writing is fairly graceless and the characters felt to me like adolescents pretending to be adults. They take themselves SO seriously. I will keep on with at least some of the later books in the series, but now I'm a bit gun-shy. There is a certain snobbery to liking C.P. Snow; I have yet to persuade myself that there is anything more than that.
March 17, 2021
To give a sense of how exciting this is, chapter four is called: "A Cup of Coffee Spilt in a Drawing-Room." The rest of the book is like that: quaint, quiet and, unfortunately, nondescript. A chapter with the promisingly impressionistic title, "Roofs Seen from an Office Window" contains just one brief sentence of description but it's vague boilerplate stuff. What's left is dialogue and that's (as usual) only small talk.
March 12, 2021
This is all confusing. I bought the eleven books in the Strangers and Brothers series in a charity shop as Penguin paperbacks many years ago with the intention of reading them and it has belatedly occurred to me that taking on the challenge of reading them in order would make an excellent lockdown project. Better late than never.
Accordingly, I started with the first in the series, Penguin 1765 Strangers and Brothers available then (1962) in all good bookshops for four shillings (20p). It was only now that I discover that this book has undergone a name change to George Passant and is now regarded as the second in the series. How times change.
How times change indeed. This book was published in 1940 only ten years before I was born, describing events in the early 1930s, yet its style and language sound as foreign to my ear as the syntax in anything by Jane Austen.
The story concerns a 'group' of young people who are at the end of their teenage years and who come under the influence of the George Passant of the new title. They are from a social strata, what we would now call lower middle class, that feels stifled by the weight of those above and George makes it his mission to free them from the shackles of their limited expectations. When this leads to freedom in sensual matters (as it is coyly described in the book) George runs into the danger of being crushed by the local establishment. This is made possible when he is drawn into some dubious business deals.
The plot, if it can be called that, hardly seems substantial enough to sustain a novel that was regarded as one of the best of its day but perhaps this reflects the time. The drawing room meetings of the young people starting to make their way in the world and the people who care about them make up much of the first two-thirds of the book. This makes for heavy going especially as the language they use in chatting to each other is so formal and chillingly non-PC compared to how we express ourselves today: "Everyone knows what I think of your capabilities, but the fact is, girls of your class aren't trained to be much use in the world." and "I don't think it would happen if women weren't in the main destined for their biological purpose."
Casual conversation is littered with double negatives: "It's inconceivable that he shouldn't send it before Easter." and "I know it, you can't think I don't know it."
Of course it's wrong to judge a book by the lights of our days and there are many occasions where the insights, if not the words used to express them, are timeless: I was seized by the loneliness, the enormous feeling of calamity, which seems always lurking for us when we arrive home at the end of a journey. and Our range of expression is small, so that a smile in genuine pleasure photographs indistinguishably from a grimace of pain; they are the same unless we know their history and their future.
I learned two new words: culch a person or thing not highly regarded; and irenicon a proposal made as a means of achieving peace. Not that I can imagine using them.
I have realised, because of the time and care I've taken in writing this, that the book must have given me more pleasure than I wish to admit to (the language is catching!) so perhaps 3.5 stars would be more appropriate. Certainly I am buoyed enough to go onto Strangers and Brothers #2 which according to my Penguin listing is The Light and the Dark.
See you again the other side of that one.
Accordingly, I started with the first in the series, Penguin 1765 Strangers and Brothers available then (1962) in all good bookshops for four shillings (20p). It was only now that I discover that this book has undergone a name change to George Passant and is now regarded as the second in the series. How times change.
How times change indeed. This book was published in 1940 only ten years before I was born, describing events in the early 1930s, yet its style and language sound as foreign to my ear as the syntax in anything by Jane Austen.
The story concerns a 'group' of young people who are at the end of their teenage years and who come under the influence of the George Passant of the new title. They are from a social strata, what we would now call lower middle class, that feels stifled by the weight of those above and George makes it his mission to free them from the shackles of their limited expectations. When this leads to freedom in sensual matters (as it is coyly described in the book) George runs into the danger of being crushed by the local establishment. This is made possible when he is drawn into some dubious business deals.
The plot, if it can be called that, hardly seems substantial enough to sustain a novel that was regarded as one of the best of its day but perhaps this reflects the time. The drawing room meetings of the young people starting to make their way in the world and the people who care about them make up much of the first two-thirds of the book. This makes for heavy going especially as the language they use in chatting to each other is so formal and chillingly non-PC compared to how we express ourselves today: "Everyone knows what I think of your capabilities, but the fact is, girls of your class aren't trained to be much use in the world." and "I don't think it would happen if women weren't in the main destined for their biological purpose."
Casual conversation is littered with double negatives: "It's inconceivable that he shouldn't send it before Easter." and "I know it, you can't think I don't know it."
Of course it's wrong to judge a book by the lights of our days and there are many occasions where the insights, if not the words used to express them, are timeless: I was seized by the loneliness, the enormous feeling of calamity, which seems always lurking for us when we arrive home at the end of a journey. and Our range of expression is small, so that a smile in genuine pleasure photographs indistinguishably from a grimace of pain; they are the same unless we know their history and their future.
I learned two new words: culch a person or thing not highly regarded; and irenicon a proposal made as a means of achieving peace. Not that I can imagine using them.
I have realised, because of the time and care I've taken in writing this, that the book must have given me more pleasure than I wish to admit to (the language is catching!) so perhaps 3.5 stars would be more appropriate. Certainly I am buoyed enough to go onto Strangers and Brothers #2 which according to my Penguin listing is The Light and the Dark.
See you again the other side of that one.
August 24, 2015
George Passant is one of those fictional characters with whom I have a lot of sympathy. To start with, he was born in Suffolk! There can't be that many characters in fiction who were born in Wickham Market. And yet there are deeper aspects of his character that I find appealing. He is quite loyal to his friends, much as I see myself as being. He has accepted a quiet life in provincial town in England to anything more exotic or urbane. However, the aspect of his character that I find the most appealing is the way in which he encourages the young people in his town.
This is something that has appealed to me for the past decade or so. There is much self-approval of how young people are encouraged within my professional community. I find this mainly cant. When we examine what is actually being done to help young people find their way, usually I find that the correct answer is precious little. We find that there is very little sacrifice to provide encouragement and material assistance to the young people who need help. That is what I find heroic about George Passant. He was prepared to make sacrifices, real sacrifices such as possible incarceration, to serve his young charges. That, to me, is wholly admirable. To me, that is an example worth following.
It is also important to give some though as to why this was necessary. The provincial town described in the book was very much a closed shop. The professions, a key vehicle of social advancement, were closed to the 'wrong sort' of people. The town was run by a small clique drawn from the ranks of the professions, who were arranged by a reasonably strict hierarchy. There wasn't a great deal of social mobility. It was this closed shop that George Passant acted against. He put himself out, through his teaching at the local technical college, to create a greater degree of social mobility within the town.
It is uncanny that such a description still applies to provincial life in England today. Life is still dominated by the small minded narrowness of the middle class. There is a bit of social mobility, but access is becoming more and more closed to those who did not attend one of the private schools. The public institutions have been captured by the local vested interests, whose primary purpose is to maintain the status quo and to block as much change as possible. The right connections are needed to get things done rather than good ideas. This is a society that lacks vitality.
Reading the book managed to touch a number of nerves for me. It is closely observed and well written. These make it a joy to read. The ending is not as triumphant as I would have liked it to be, but at least it's not an unhappy ending. I guess that sums up provincial life in England.
This is something that has appealed to me for the past decade or so. There is much self-approval of how young people are encouraged within my professional community. I find this mainly cant. When we examine what is actually being done to help young people find their way, usually I find that the correct answer is precious little. We find that there is very little sacrifice to provide encouragement and material assistance to the young people who need help. That is what I find heroic about George Passant. He was prepared to make sacrifices, real sacrifices such as possible incarceration, to serve his young charges. That, to me, is wholly admirable. To me, that is an example worth following.
It is also important to give some though as to why this was necessary. The provincial town described in the book was very much a closed shop. The professions, a key vehicle of social advancement, were closed to the 'wrong sort' of people. The town was run by a small clique drawn from the ranks of the professions, who were arranged by a reasonably strict hierarchy. There wasn't a great deal of social mobility. It was this closed shop that George Passant acted against. He put himself out, through his teaching at the local technical college, to create a greater degree of social mobility within the town.
It is uncanny that such a description still applies to provincial life in England today. Life is still dominated by the small minded narrowness of the middle class. There is a bit of social mobility, but access is becoming more and more closed to those who did not attend one of the private schools. The public institutions have been captured by the local vested interests, whose primary purpose is to maintain the status quo and to block as much change as possible. The right connections are needed to get things done rather than good ideas. This is a society that lacks vitality.
Reading the book managed to touch a number of nerves for me. It is closely observed and well written. These make it a joy to read. The ending is not as triumphant as I would have liked it to be, but at least it's not an unhappy ending. I guess that sums up provincial life in England.
July 19, 2017
The 2nd book in the series and my interest is flagging. This one explores the life of the friend of Lewis, George Passant, and much of the time is spent on a financial scandal involving George and his friends. Not holding my interest...
September 24, 2025
The second book in CP Snow’s roman fleuve, ‘Strangers and Brothers,’ ‘George Passant’ was published in 1940, actually during World War II, although it represents a time between 1920 and 1940. Although the second book in chronological order, it is the first by publication date.
At the start of the story, George Passant is a young, brilliant (and very able) clerk in a provincial solicitor’s office in a midland town that is never named. At this point in his life, George is an idealistic and charismatic young man. His radical views raise eyebrows at the office, but draws young people to him, (including the narrator of the series, Lewis Eliot), and to whom he acts as a kind of philosophical leader. The Group gather at a farm rented by George, where they meet regularly to discuss life and everything people do talk about at their age.
In the first couple of chapters, George fights injustice towards one of his Group with a passion that affords some relief to the accused, a student at the school where George gives lessons twice a week. Jack Cotery, the young man he defended, is shrewd and ambitious, and borrows money from George to invest in a business venture that fails.
Over time, a change comes over George himself, as he is torn between his idealism and scruples and the grim realities of life, including the financial responsibility of supporting his parents, and Jack Cotery’s business dealings, in some of which he has entangled himself. His group also is infused with the excitement of the times of sexual liberation and from philosophical ideas, he enters into a physical affair with a girl from the Group as well as local prostitutes.
Finally, charges are levelled against George and Jack Cotery for financial embezzlement. Things look particularly black for George, as he worked as a legal officer, and had a clear idea of financial transactions. In the trial, however, George's sexual behaviour is brought out in open court. The judge has to intervene, and point out that George's sexual life was not charged against him in the present case. Even so, and although George is eventually found not guilty, his reputation as an upright, hardworking and moral man is forever shattered. The school where he used to give twice-a-week lessons fires him, and the solicitor's office where he works keeps him only out of regard for his hard work earlier.
‘George Passant’ is an intense, brilliant and understated study of character, of the moral bankruptcy that hardens the most idealistic soul, and the development of a public persona and private rot of a good man. In this respect, I found certain parallels to a much later book, John Steinbeck’s ‘The Winter of Our Discontent,’ which carries a similar theme.
One other charm of this almost forgotten writer is the way he reflects the tremendous social changes that were taking place in the thirties. Thanks to the war, the world was going through an economic depression, but it was worse for Britain and her Colonies. There was a corresponding disrespect or at least a disregard towards the aspirations and manners of the previous generation. Although the concept of abuse of authority had not yet been defined, Snow seems to understand instinctively what it was: and how George’s own character flaws were seriously undermining the idealism and innocence of the Group.
CP Snow’s quiet, even unobtrusive, style is largely responsible for his largely being disregarded today, although he is is, together with Anthony Powell, considered one of the greatest observers of twentieth century society and its concomitant post war changes in politics, sciences, academics and law.
June 22, 2022
Greatly over-rated, dull 1940 debut novel in Snow’s eleven-volume series
Published in 1940 as Strangers and Brothers, this novel was originally the first in the eponymous series. It became the second in the series and was retitled George Passant when a precursor novel was published in 1949.
I was prompted to try C.P. Snow's work after Anthony Burgess lauded his writing in a short collection of reviews, Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939. Of the authors listed by Burgess, C.P. Snow is among those who are no longer widely read, albeit getting fairly decent ratings from Goodreads reviewers. After spending a few hours with Strangers and Brothers, I can see why his star has waned.
Perhaps reflecting the era of its writing, this is a very male-centric novel. It concerns a group of young men seeking to make a start in one career or another. There is an alpha-male young lawyer, George Passant, who has a group of acolytes whose position he is trying to improve. The story reveals jockeying for influence within the group as well as with outsiders. In particular, the young men have generational conflicts with those in power, including Passant's seniors in the law firm and a body of school supervisors. There is much brooding about these challenges and when victories are won by the younger set, there is much celebration. Women have small bit parts, often making statements that serve to motivate the plot regarding the men.
If this anachronistic tone was not enough, this is really dull reading. The writing has a juvenile feel, with a great deal of emotional energy afforded to life’s routine events and characters trying to sound “mature” and “in charge of their lives” at the same time. I made it through the first third of the book, having nothing else to read at the time, and it didn't improve as I got further in.
Possibly later books within the series merit reading on a stand-alone basis, but I could not recommend this novel to anyone. Sorry, Baron Snow!
Published in 1940 as Strangers and Brothers, this novel was originally the first in the eponymous series. It became the second in the series and was retitled George Passant when a precursor novel was published in 1949.
I was prompted to try C.P. Snow's work after Anthony Burgess lauded his writing in a short collection of reviews, Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939. Of the authors listed by Burgess, C.P. Snow is among those who are no longer widely read, albeit getting fairly decent ratings from Goodreads reviewers. After spending a few hours with Strangers and Brothers, I can see why his star has waned.
Perhaps reflecting the era of its writing, this is a very male-centric novel. It concerns a group of young men seeking to make a start in one career or another. There is an alpha-male young lawyer, George Passant, who has a group of acolytes whose position he is trying to improve. The story reveals jockeying for influence within the group as well as with outsiders. In particular, the young men have generational conflicts with those in power, including Passant's seniors in the law firm and a body of school supervisors. There is much brooding about these challenges and when victories are won by the younger set, there is much celebration. Women have small bit parts, often making statements that serve to motivate the plot regarding the men.
If this anachronistic tone was not enough, this is really dull reading. The writing has a juvenile feel, with a great deal of emotional energy afforded to life’s routine events and characters trying to sound “mature” and “in charge of their lives” at the same time. I made it through the first third of the book, having nothing else to read at the time, and it didn't improve as I got further in.
Possibly later books within the series merit reading on a stand-alone basis, but I could not recommend this novel to anyone. Sorry, Baron Snow!
June 21, 2023
On a damp day in Northumberland I found myself in the old station (bookshop) in Alnwick. What an amazing place.
But that aside, it's just crammed , literally to the rafters, with books of every genre, shape and size. I hadn't set out to buy books, I had already overspent on books in another local bookshop, but how can you resist.
My hand fell upon this rather discoloured copy of George Passant by
C P Snow.
C P Snow was an author I much recall from my schooldays. I remember reading at least two of his novels (The Affair, and The Masters), and they might well have been set texts at 'O' or 'A'level. Certainly one of them would have been.
I couldn't resist trying it, and I'm pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed. I would have read the original books circa 1960, when Snow was probably at his peak. Of course now his style and the very content of his writing is very dated. The language and the attitudes are clearly of their time, and that adds a certain charm. reading Snow is a bit of social history.
I love his efficient use of language. Descriptive, especially of people, and not a word or syllable wasted. Today not everybody's cup of tea, for sure, but even if only based on nostalgia, I loved it.
I don't suppose much C P Snow is sold these days, but I'm pleased that I stumbled upon this one.
Try it
But that aside, it's just crammed , literally to the rafters, with books of every genre, shape and size. I hadn't set out to buy books, I had already overspent on books in another local bookshop, but how can you resist.
My hand fell upon this rather discoloured copy of George Passant by
C P Snow.
C P Snow was an author I much recall from my schooldays. I remember reading at least two of his novels (The Affair, and The Masters), and they might well have been set texts at 'O' or 'A'level. Certainly one of them would have been.
I couldn't resist trying it, and I'm pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed. I would have read the original books circa 1960, when Snow was probably at his peak. Of course now his style and the very content of his writing is very dated. The language and the attitudes are clearly of their time, and that adds a certain charm. reading Snow is a bit of social history.
I love his efficient use of language. Descriptive, especially of people, and not a word or syllable wasted. Today not everybody's cup of tea, for sure, but even if only based on nostalgia, I loved it.
I don't suppose much C P Snow is sold these days, but I'm pleased that I stumbled upon this one.
Try it
March 26, 2021
This 1940 novel was the firsr published in the eleven volume "Strangers and Brothers" series, chronicling the life of Lewis Eliot.It's set in a small provincial English town, near Nottingham between 1925 and 1933. The protagonist, George Passant, is a young solicitor and law instructor. Passant is the center and mentor of a group of young people. Eliot belongs to the group. While Eliot is a law student, Passant defends another student who might lose his scholarship. The novel details Passant's struggles at his law firm. After Eliot becomes a solicitor and moves to London, he is warned that Passant and two other friends may be charged with fraud. The last part of the book describes their trial. Eliot is one of the defense attorneys. This is a good, old-fashioned novel- interesting characters, and solid plotting. This series provides a great deal of enlightenment on English society between the Great War and 1970.
December 30, 2018
A very different perspective to Time of Hope, where the protagonist is very involved with his decisions and life, in George Passant LE is a passive observer considering the psychology of those around him and the effects of circumstances on their development. This narrative has little introspection because the view for the reader is a series of events leading to trial and boiling to a head with the jury's verdict.
It does not matter which is read first. Snow has written two largely independent narratives about the same characters and events, the reader has a very different perspective and experience despite the vantage point being from the same protagonist. I am very glad there are more LE books to read.
It does not matter which is read first. Snow has written two largely independent narratives about the same characters and events, the reader has a very different perspective and experience despite the vantage point being from the same protagonist. I am very glad there are more LE books to read.
November 17, 2021
So this one didn't work as well as Time of Hope.
One problem is that George Passant's kindness and leadership qualities are greatly discussed, but not clearly shown. He does come across as a big fish in a small pool of his own making. And his character flaws are more on show than the better attributes.
Since I'm rereading the series in chronological order, I have just finished Time of Hope which does clearly show the positive changes George has had on Lewis and other's of his circle which gives this book more impact than it does as a freestanding novel.
One problem is that George Passant's kindness and leadership qualities are greatly discussed, but not clearly shown. He does come across as a big fish in a small pool of his own making. And his character flaws are more on show than the better attributes.
Since I'm rereading the series in chronological order, I have just finished Time of Hope which does clearly show the positive changes George has had on Lewis and other's of his circle which gives this book more impact than it does as a freestanding novel.
November 20, 2024
Very well-written tale of a group of friends, some of whom may/may not have obtained money under false pretences and fall foul of legal/societal censure. Not really sure why CPS bothered though, other than to insert his own views into the lawyer's speech near the end. Very odd; 2.5 Stars rounding down. [mind boggles as to what goes on in other 10 books in the series! suffice to say I won't be finding out]
April 19, 2025
My first CP Snow. I enjoyed this more and more as I read on. I think the last 5-6 chapters are real quite powerful and interesting. There are some excellent thoughts in this book. ‘A helpless unit in a contemporary stream’ for ‘a child of my time’. Good character development. Timeless on the thoughts of men.
January 22, 2023
Beautifully Descriptive Snapshot of Early to Mid-20th Century Values
C P Snow at his best. His dedicated description of the character of George Passant leaves one feeling as though they know him.
C P Snow at his best. His dedicated description of the character of George Passant leaves one feeling as though they know him.
Want to read
January 6, 2024Dec 30, 2023:
I found this on my old bookshelf at the parents' house - still haven't found book 1 but this seems to be the first published book in the series. So I will give this a shot soon - I guess.
I found this on my old bookshelf at the parents' house - still haven't found book 1 but this seems to be the first published book in the series. So I will give this a shot soon - I guess.
April 8, 2020
Not as engaging as the first. Bogged down towards the end to the point I didn’t care for the characters or what might become of them. Plan on reading the next, however.
June 6, 2022
Boring I'm afraid. Poor choice for book club I'm in.
June 5, 2023
The edition I read is just called "Strangers and Brothers".
October 25, 2025
I love the characters and how they are built out, the world of middle class England, with class being at the very forefront as well as the psychological toil that plays on humans as they grow up and enter adulthood.
March 6, 2014
Adaptations of the author's epic tales of the English establishment. Keen Lewis Elliot starts his rise to power in 1920s Leicester. Stars Adam Godley.
blurb - Lewis Eliot's story is about power and the exercise of power. How men, whether at the highest pinacle of authority at Westminister or mearly in a clerk's office play the strings that give them power and influence over other people. It is also a story of how England changed over the period of his working life from the 1920's to the 1960's. It changed, and yet remained the same. Always people jockying for position, trying to outsmart each other whether in the affairs of the human heart or power over other people's lives. In a minor way, Lewis has helped shape governments; helped win wars, even; seen careers reach the stars and then explode in fragments. Curiously, for a tale of such moment, it begins in the Midland town where he was born. His family, the Eliot's, were lower-middle class and sinking; his schooling rudimentary, and his ambition... limitless.
In a world where truth and justice test the personal philosophies of even the strongest men, Eliot is the ambitious lawyer fighting the temptations that could ruin his personal life. Eliots decisions lead his career on a tempestuous journey of success, tragedy, and rekindled love. Throughout it all, Eliot realises his true "brothers" masquerade as "strangers."
A 10 x 1 hour part dramatisation by Jonathan Holloway. Produced and directed by Jeremy Howe and Sally Avens.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2014
Part of my occasional foray into reading novels that time has argely forgotte =n -- I don't think C. P. Snow is widely read anymore, at least not for his fiction. His essay on the two cultures -- science and the humanities - is still considered important enough to have made the Times Literary Supplement's 2008 list of the most influential books since WII. "George Passant" is readable and intellectually challenging, although it bogs down a bit in the middle. It ends with a courtroon drama -- spoiler here -- which is unsual in that it doesn't involve a murder, but only an accusation of a fairly tawdry fraud, and the courtroom stuff is first rate.
Let's call "George Passant" a cross between "The Sun Also Rises" and "Middlemarch," if you can imagine such a thing. "The Sun Also Rises" in that it portrays a lose circle of friends whose friendship ultimately becomes cancerous, and "Middlemarch" as a study of provincial life and how it affects those who live it.
I've actually read three studies of provincial life recently - or as we call it in America, small town life -- the third being Anthony Robinson's "The Floodplain." Each gives us a different and worthwhile perspective, and each is a novel of its time. "The Floodplain" is America of the 60s and 70s, with the counterculture and middle America sharing an uneasy coexistence. "George Passant" is the Lost Generation it they'd stayed home instead of going to Spain - actually, a generation even more lost, because they have the disintegration of values, while being just too young to have had the war.
I liked all three books.
Let's call "George Passant" a cross between "The Sun Also Rises" and "Middlemarch," if you can imagine such a thing. "The Sun Also Rises" in that it portrays a lose circle of friends whose friendship ultimately becomes cancerous, and "Middlemarch" as a study of provincial life and how it affects those who live it.
I've actually read three studies of provincial life recently - or as we call it in America, small town life -- the third being Anthony Robinson's "The Floodplain." Each gives us a different and worthwhile perspective, and each is a novel of its time. "The Floodplain" is America of the 60s and 70s, with the counterculture and middle America sharing an uneasy coexistence. "George Passant" is the Lost Generation it they'd stayed home instead of going to Spain - actually, a generation even more lost, because they have the disintegration of values, while being just too young to have had the war.
I liked all three books.
March 10, 2009
I read most of the "Strangers and Brothers" series, over the course of several months, I think around 2003 or 2004. The books have run together in my memory. I did enjoy them, even though I don't remember the details. It's like a memoir, a realistic, not to say mundane, account of a man's career and observations of society from the time he is in college in the 1920's or so, until the 1950's or 1960's. Of course, this particular guy moves in pretty influential circles, academically and politically, and he's very intelligent, so his mundane memoirs are above average.
March 26, 2014
Good book. One of a series of eleven ("Strangers and Brothers"). Great. Should I live long enough I'll read this series, and the Maigrets (75), Simenon's non-Maigrets (a zillion), Zola's Rougon series, etc. On its own, though, I like Snow's books. This is the second of the series that I've read and I find his style very British and timeless (in a way), with an enjoyable whiff of immorality.
June 28, 2016
Just embarked on this multi-novel sequence and wondering whether it was a good decision to start on. Slow starting, got quite interesting in the middle, but finished up (spoiler) with a trial about a purported fraud which it was very difficult to make any sense of. To me it just looked like bad - or even simply unlucky - business decisions. I will try one more and then decide whether to continue or call a halt...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 30, 2007
Fabulous series. Great "English" read.
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