C. P. Snow, The Malcontents

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1972

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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The Malcontents

(1972) was C. P. Snow’s first published novel after he completed his eleven-book

Strangers and Brothers

series (1940-70). It takes as its central theme one of the key strands of the final work in that sequence,

Last Things

: the involvement of young radical students in a conspiracy which infringes the law and attracts the attention of the security services. But

Last Things

explored this theme from the viewpoint of a man in his early sixties, Sir Lewis Eliot, the first-person narrator of the whole “Strangers and Brothers” series, whose son was one of the conspirators.

The Malcontents

abandons the first-person storyteller and employs an omniscient narrator, a technique which Snow had only used once before, in his anonymously-published

New Lives for Old

(1933). While the…

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1714 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The Malcontents". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 June 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19412, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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