Last Things (novel)

Last Things is the eleventh and final installment of C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers.

Last Things
AuthorCharles Percy Snow
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SeriesStrangers and Brothers
GenrePolitical fiction
PublisherMacmillan Publishers
Publication date
1970
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Preceded byThe Sleep of Reason 

Plot synopsis

Lewis Eliot, now sixty, experiences a medical condition that requires surgery. After a near fatal cardiac arrest, Eliot confronts his past life as well as reconciliation with his son Charles.

Reception

In a 1970 book review in Kirkus Reviews, it was said that "Mr. Snow is so eminently sane and reasonable that he cannot but persuade the reader even where he fails to engage him on more personal terms..."[1] Critic Stanley Weintraub of the New York Times called the novel's publication "a genuine literary event". After summarizing the previous novels in the cycle, Weintraub writes; "The long and memorable cycle has ended, and through it as in no other work in our time we have explored the inner life of the new classless class that is the 20th century Establishment."[2] In a review in The New York Review of Books, Michael Wood wrote "It is characteristic of Snow’s lack of moral or literary tact that he can suggest an eschatological climax when he is merely finishing off a thick slice of middle-class English life."[3]

gollark: Intel isn't the only company making microprocessors ever, the trend apparently still holds.
gollark: Since most people handwave that kind of issue anyway, I assume the main practical issues are just ickiness-related.
gollark: There are some reasonable arguments regarding animal welfare. While IIRC the insect meat is more energy-dense, insects are small so you need lots more insects to get some amount of energy than you would for, say, sheep. Most people would rank each insect as less important/worthy-of-moral-consideration than the sheep, but potentially not *enough* lower that it's equal/better given the large number.
gollark: It's not like they have spikes/thorns and poisons just for decoration.
gollark: I suppose there are a lot of policies which could be cool™ with good governance but are bad in any practical setting.

References
  1. "Last Things". Kirkus Reviews. 17 August 1970.
  2. Weintraub, Stanley (23 August 1970). "An elegiac ending to C. P. Snow's 11‐novel cycle". New York Times.
  3. Wood, Michael (11 March 1971). "End of the Line". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.