George Passant

by C.P. Snow

Paperback, 1973

Status

Available

Call number

813

Series

Strangers and Brothers (2)

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Penguin Books Ltd (1973), Paperback

Description

In the first of the Strangers and Brothersseries Lewis Eliot tells the story of George Passant, a Midland solicitor's managing clerk and idealist who tries to bring freedom to a group of people in the years 1925 to 1933.

User reviews

LibraryThing member otterley

CP Snow kicks off the Strangers and Brothers sequence with a book that sees his self effacing lead character, Lewis Eliot, take very much a back seat. Through George Passant and his circle of aspiring and restless young people in a provincial English town between the wars, Snow constructs a story

about the conflict between high aspirations and low compromises; sensuality and religious morality; the grubby compromises that life, love and the need for money inflict on many of the most idealistic and charismatic of individuals. Snow's writing is, as ever, low key, but he writes about politics and people negotiating their way through complex social and family lives in a uniquely subtle, compromised and real way.

Show Less

1 more

LibraryThing member drsabs

This is the first book in the series of novels that made CP Snow’s reputation as a novelist. It provides an interesting look into life in a provincial city in 1930s Britain. I recommend this book to anyone interested in 20th century English literature.

The main character is a lawyer, George

Passant, who aspires to high moral standards but his involvement in life undercuts his ability to achieve them. The book begins with his righteous efforts to prevent one of his students, Jack Coley, from being terminated unjustly from his clerical position. This effort fails and it becomes clear later in the book that Jack is in fact one of those who contribute to the moral downfall of his mentor. Passant mentors a group of students and in the process becomes sexually involved with one of them. He goes into business with Jack, whose questionable activity drags George into a lawsuit alleging fraud. The narrator, Lewis Eliot, is himself an attorney who started out in the group under George’s influence but then left for London to build his practice as a barrister. He helps defend George and his friends in the lawsuit. It is somewhat surprising to see Eliot, portrayed in an upstanding way, advising his clients to consider leaving the UK to escape justice. Refusing to surrender to corruption, George Passant refuses to take this advice.

Show Less

Fewer