THE MASTERS

by C. P. Snow ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The second book in the cycle Strangers and Brothers was the first book to be published here- by Macmillan in 1951. Its republication now will make it available to the far more considerable market C. P. Snow has gained in the years between, and it is very closely associated with the title book in the series which has just appeared. Here again within the walls of a Cambridge college, power and prestige and personal ambition are motivating forces as strong as any in the world of high politics. The Master is dying, and now there is the question of his successor. Many conspiratorial discussions, negotiations and guarded moves precede the election itself; coalitions are formed, friendships cool, enmities flare, and while a choice is made for ""coherent practical reasons"", there are many unreasoning, often unknown impulses determining it. Lewis Eliot is one of the group who sponsor Jago and believe he has an assured majority- Jago whose need for esteem is equalled by his enthusiasm- as against the imperturbable arrogance of his opponent. Defections follow, so do rancorous incidents, the electors view the gain or dimunition of their own interests, and at the end Jago is defeated..... It is expectedly a dispassionate and deliberate quod erat demonstrandum of individual and in-group action and conduct, examined, exposed and illumined with precise insight. Less calculable may be the response to a third C. P. Snow novel within the year.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION