The Light and the Dark

1947 novel by C.P. Snow

The Light and the Dark: a novel
First edition cover
AuthorCharles Percy Snow
LanguageEnglish
SeriesStrangers and Brothers
PublisherLondon : Faber[1]
Publication date
1947[1]
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint
Pages392[1]
Preceded byThe Conscience of the Rich 
Followed byThe Masters 

The Light and the Dark is the fourth novel in C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series.[2] The book portrays narrator Lewis Eliot's friendship with Roy Calvert, and Calvert's inner turmoil and quest for meaning in life. Calvert was based on Snow's friend, Coptic scholar, Charles Allberry.[3] Their relationship is developed further in The Masters.

Plot synopsis

Set in England in the lead-up to and during World War II, it portrays Lewis Eliot's friendship with the gifted scholar and remarkable individual Roy Calvert, and Calvert's inner turmoil and quest for meaning in life.

Title

The title—The Light and the Dark—refers to the beliefs of Manichaeism, which the book refers to as "Christian heresy" but is now often referred to as religion in its own right. "In its cosmology, the whole of cosmology is a battle of the light against the dark. Man's spirit is part of the light, and his flesh of the dark."[4] The title also has resonance to the buildup to war, the sense of catastrophe so widespread in the 1930s, and Calvert's mental health problems.

Reception

In 1947, a book review in Kirkus Reviews called the book "A rather long drawn out search of a brilliant scholar to escape his doom of despair and find a meaning in his life." and summarized; "Good writing and interesting characterizations fail to keep the book from tedious periods."[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/solo "Search result from Oxford University libraries"
  2. ^ Snow, C. P (1947). The Light and the Dark. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ Snow, P (2006). "C. P. Snow". Christ's College Magazine. 231: 67–9.
  4. ^ Snow, C.P. The Light and the Dark. pp. 37–8.
  5. ^ "The Light and the Dark". Kirkus Reviews. 17 February 1947.
  • v
  • t
  • e
C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers
  • Time of Hope
  • George Passant
  • The Conscience of the Rich
  • The Light and the Dark
  • The Masters
  • The New Men
  • Homecomings
  • The Affair
  • Corridors of Power
  • The Sleep of Reason
  • Last Things


Stub icon

This article about a political novel of the 1940s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

  • v
  • t
  • e