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The Corridors of Power (Strangers and Brothers) (Paperback)

by C.P. Snow (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 364 pages
  • Publisher: House of Stratus; New edition edition (2 Oct 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1842324195
  • ISBN-13: 978-1842324196
  • Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.6 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 53,268 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #21 in  Books > Fiction > Genre > Political

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Product Description

Book Description

The corridors and committee rooms of Whitehall are the setting for the ninth in the Strangers and Brothers series.They are also home to the manipulation of political power.Roger Quaife wages his ban-the-bomb campaign from his seat in the Cabinet and his office at the Ministry.The stakes are high as he employs his persuasiveness.


About the Author

Charles Percy Snow (Baron Snow of Leicester) was educated as a chemist and physicist at the universities of Leicester and Cambridge. After scientific research he turned to administration and later held many important public posts. His novel sequence Strangers and Brothers spans the life of its narrator, Lewis Eliot, barrister - and took over 30 years to write.Snow describes the rarefied worlds of academia, Cambridge, the Jewish community and Westminster. He also wrote several critical works including a biography of Trollope.
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Customer Reviews

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3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best novels written about British politics, 29 Jul 2001
By A Customer
Roger Quaife, not long Parliament, becomes one of the first of the last intake of Tory MPs to make the cabinet, in his case as Secretary of State for Defence. He seems perfect for the job, being knowledgable, capable, well-liked and well connected.

Roger's political life is made difficult by two factors: a long-running affair which and his conversion to the belief that Britain's nuclear deterrent is useless. As the story evolves both his private and political lives become more complicated, with Roger playing for the highest stakes.

This is an absorbing novel written by someone who knows government from the inside (Snow was himself a minister in Harold Wilson's government). It's a world away from the high dramas of Jeffrey Archer or Michael Dobbs. Manoevering is subtle, often unintelligible to those outside Whitehall. MPs and civil servants are depicted as real people, with consciences as wel as ambition, personal lives as well as political identities. Even if the scenario of a Tory minister turning against having a nuclear deterrent now seems abusurd (although this may not have been the case when the book was written), this novel remains one of the few convincing portayals of the nitty-gritty of British politics.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Superb account of post war politics, less compelling as fiction, 31 Mar 2009
By Martin Turner "Martin Turner" (Marlcliff, Warwickshire, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)      
"The Corridors of Power" is such as well-worn cliché that it seems surprising that someone once made it up. But it was, and the person who did was CP Snow - as he explains in the introduction - and this book quite exactly lays down the meaning of the concept, with those who are 'in' exerting enormous influence, whether they have been elected to anything or not.

As a picture of how pre-Thatcher government worked, this book is hard to beat. CP Snow knew it from the inside, both as a civil servant and a minister. It rings with the same authenticity as a John LeCarré.

Snow is great at creating engaging characters that we want to care about. But he is not so good at sustaining them. Half way through, I lose my admiration for Roger Quaife: a man who deceives his wife and yet simultaneously wants to lead the nation through high moral principles lacks the inner consistency to be a hero. Of course, many real life politicians have walked down this path, but most of them have also lost our admiration sooner or later.

To me, The Corridors of Power works as a fictionalised manual of politics. Outdated it may be, but plenty of the lessons still apply. Yet, even in that, the book begins to grate. Up to half way, Snow's distribution of the world into men of action and men of reflection, and his sharp observations on love, conscience, and how deals are done, are new and refreshing - at least to me. But after a while, these observations, which repeat, are simply more of the same.

Beginning novelists are often advised to write about what they know. Snow, with eight previous Strangers and Brothers novels under his belt, was no new novelist. But perhaps he would have been better to have written more about what he imagined than about what he knew. As it is, he tries to describe the entire world of Westminster in a single book. This is more entertaining than Politico's Guide to Parliament, and, in its own way, more authoritative. Nonetheless, the book does not sustain as fiction, thereby failing in the most basic attribute of the novel: once we lose admiration for Quaife, knowing what _did_ happen in real life, we lose interest in his story.

Somehow, I feel forced to compare this to CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength and John LeCarré's The Honourable Schoolboy. Both books are closely concerned with detailed political manoeuvrings, but each - at the point that Snow loses my interest - take off into something other: Lewis into high fantasy, and LeCarré into world-trotting espionage.

Three stars, I feel. Snow's writing is beautiful and engaging, but even that, coupled with his masterful use of the political landscape, in insufficient to make this a book you will want to re-read, or possibly even finish.
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