The Light and the Dark

The Light and the Dark is the fourth novel in C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series. 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.[2] Their relationship is developed further in The Masters.

The Light and the Dark: a novel
First edition cover
AuthorCharles Percy Snow
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SeriesStrangers and Brothers
PublisherLondon : Faber[1]
Publication date
1947[1]
Media typePrint
Pages392[1]
Preceded byThe Conscience of the Rich 
Followed byThe 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."[3] 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 a 1947 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."[4]

gollark: I feel like this would be much easier if they used actual standard logic gate symbols.
gollark: I *think* this is 2 AND gates and an OR gate?
gollark: The... sentence of BOOL? I have no idea what that is, sorry.
gollark: It's kind of hard to see, I'd recommend you take screenshots.
gollark: Oh, never mind, read the text.

References
  1. http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/solo "Search result from Oxford University libraries"
  2. Snow, P (2006). "C. P. Snow". Christ's College Magazine. 231: 67–9.
  3. Snow, C.P. The Light and the Dark. pp. 37–8.
  4. "The Light and the Dark". Kirkus Reviews. 17 February 1947.


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