George Passant

<p>Lewis Eliot the diffident protagonist of the <i>Strangers and Brothers </i>sequence retreats to the background in this absorbing study of his mentor George Passant a charismatic solicitor's clerk. </p><p>In the years of economic depression between the wars George - an idealistic radical bursting with notions of creating the world anew - gathers about him a group of young people who restive and ambitious trust him to emancipate them from the constraints of their provincial lives. But when his lofty aspirations become muddied with a need for money and desire for sexual freedom his power over the group becomes a danger to them all.</p><p>Politics people and the rapidly changing social landscape of inter-war Britain are narrated with Snow's trademark subtlety and precision in this fascinating analysis of a god with feet of clay. </p><p>A meticulous study of the public issues and private problems of post-war Britain C. P. Snow's <i>Strangers and Brothers </i>sequence is a towering achievement that stands alongside Anthony Powell's <i>A Dance to the Music of Time </i>as one of the great romans-fleuves of the twentieth century.</p>