The sleep of reason here is embodied in the ghastly murders of children that involve torture and sadism. Book 10 of 11 in the Strangers and Brothers Series .
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The three are linked together in an interesting and novel way. Eliot takes the job at the university because he was asked by the student body, but also in order to maintain contact with his father.
The Sleep of Reason
A lot here resonates with me. However, part of the consequences of this are that he has to become embroiled into the politics of the governing body. This comes to a head over the question of student discipline. That question highlights the fissures amongst the teaching staff between the traditionally minded and the modernists. This fissure is brought to a climax in the book. One of the students involved in the question of student discipline introduces us to his sister, who also happens to be closely tied to another young woman who happens to be the niece of George Passant.
These two young women, having abducted, tortured, and murdered a small boy, are tried during the novel. George Passant asks Eliot to keep an eye on his niece during the trial, which allows Eliot to visit the town more frequently than his university job would allow. During these visits to the town, Eliot is able to visit his father more frequently. I had the impression that Eliot was reconnecting with his father, or, possibly, connecting for the first time.
In any event, the father is a more central character in this novel. At the end, the young women are convicted of the abduction and murder, George Passant goes into a self-imposed exile, and old Mr Eliot dies. With this neat device, Snow severs all links between Eliot and his home town. I think that one of the underlying themes of the book was how we draw boundaries for acceptable behaviour in an age that aims to be permissive.
It is never a case that any behaviour can be acceptable. The question of student discipline revolves around a couple of young men staying over in a women's hostel. Today, there would be nothing seen as unusual in this. It represents the shift of morality. And yet, the pair of young women abduct and murder a small boy, which would never be seen as acceptable behaviour. The boundary has moved, but there still remains a boundary. I find it hard to get into this line of thinking, which is why I found this to be the most difficult book of the series.
It is written well, the story flows, and it has the elements of a well constructed whodunnit. On this level, it is well recommended. At a different level, I am still trying to see how that fits into the pattern of Lewis Eliot's life. Perhaps I never will? Jun 12, Ali Miremadi rated it liked it. Always disturbing to read a story with such a serious crime at its heart.
Lewis Eliot is a terrific character to follow through his life. Hard going, but having got through the others you know the characters. Preferred others such as the Masters, but with a long series there are always some which you prefer to others. Jane E rated it really liked it Oct 04, Siobhan rated it liked it Mar 23, Paul Smyth rated it liked it Aug 24, Robertson rated it it was amazing Nov 26, Ron Kastner rated it really liked it Jul 01, Ric rated it really liked it Jun 03, Claire rated it really liked it May 26, Andy Phillips rated it it was amazing Dec 26, Simon Ruddell rated it liked it Nov 27, Frank Peters rated it it was amazing Apr 15, Kat Warren rated it really liked it Jan 13, Sheila Lee rated it really liked it Jul 26, Xan Nyfors rated it really liked it Aug 09, Marina rated it liked it Jul 09, Jan Bilski rated it liked it Nov 01, Ray rated it really liked it Dec 02, Stuart rated it really liked it Mar 04, Louise rated it really liked it Jul 09, Tonytheprof rated it liked it Dec 10, Peter Johns rated it really liked it May 15, Cyber rated it it was amazing Jul 31, Marijke Drost rated it it was amazing Dec 22, Benjamin Kahn rated it liked it Mar 25, Pam rated it really liked it Jan 26, There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
One person found this helpful. The best is The Masters. The worst is the first written George Passant. As excellent as the other 9 in the series. In a real conflict, technique doesn't count. Lewis Eliot takes his son Charles to the provincial town of his birth, Sawbridge, a place he left nearly forty years earlier.
Strangers and Brothers - Wikipedia
They visit Lewis's father. Francis Getliffe's talented son Leonard is a professor at the new university in Sawbridge. Lewis seeks an interview with the Vice-Chancellor, Arnold Shaw, concerning his position in a case against four students he has dismissed for misconduct. The matter is being appealed to the board of trustees and Lewis thinks that in order to safe-guard his own position in the institution Arnold Shaw should lighten up on the penalty. Although Shaw refuses to yield, the trustees postpone their decision in order for the professors to work to find other universities for the students to attend.
In Sawbridge Lewis encounters the mentor of his youth, George Passant, who is now a sick old man. Thematic concerns of this work center on the relationships of parents and their grown children. The notion is teased out that any realistic grown-up person comes inevitably to believe in luck as careers advance on positive paths. Variations of the theme are presented in the story of Lewis's father-in-law, dying, who, in fact, has little paternal feeling, and refers to Lewis's son Charles, as Carlo. The dying man recalls his own university years.
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Lewis attends another meeting on Arnold Shaw's behalf, really an academic convocation, he had promised Shaw's daughter he would attend , with a detached retina. Francis Getliffe is shocked he is jeopardizing his health. Lewis's wife Margaret is loyal to a fault, her filial feelings toward her father are portrayed , and in this respect her character has come to dominate his own. In this novel the author seems to be drawing upon the circumstances of William Empson in the 's who was struck from the university rolls for his alleged misconduct and the Moor Murders, so-called, an entirely different matter.
All of the characters are linked loosely through the university and the town of Sawbridge. The second-named situation concerns a niece of George Passant and the sister of one of the suspended students. The title is taken from the Spanish painter, Goya - "The sleep of reason brings forth monsters". In this 10th novel in Snow's 11 novel series "Strangers and Brothers", the time is now , and the story takes place chiefly in Eliot's home town, and in London, where he now lives. The novel is bookended with Eliot's father, who lives alone in the provencial town, and is now in his late 80s.
Eliot also relates his relationship with his now year-old son, Charles, his involvement with a local university, its chancellor and his daughter, Vickie, who is in love with Eliot's nephew, something of a scoundrel. But at the heart of this novel is a trial that involves George Passant's niece and her lover, Kitty Pateman.
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They have tortured and killed an 8-year-old boy. Eliot gets somewhat involved because of his sympathy for and old friendship with George.
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- Tout est bien qui finit bien (French Edition).
- See a Problem?.
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- Marisa.
- Objects in Mirror Are Closer than They Appear: A Memoir.
- The Sleep of Reason (Strangers and Brothers, #10) by C.P. Snow.
The trial account is very riveting even though there is never any doubt that the two parties are guilty. Great questions are tackled in this book - responsibility - freedom - free choice. Exactly how free are we for our actions? Just how responsiblile are we for our decisions? This was one of the better books in the series.
My mother used to read C. Snow novels, and I knew that he was quite respected in his heyday, say about This is the second of his novels I have read, and they sometimes remind me of Marcel Proust, because they move so deliberately, and of James Gould Cozzens, because the sensibility isn't that of artists, but of the high bourgeoisie. Neither of these comments is a criticism. There is much to be appreciated and gained from both of these approaches. The narrator of the novel, a semi-retired statesman, confronts the death of his father, the passing of time, the passage to adulthood of his son -- all in the context of a rapidly changing England, soon to be the England of the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Twiggy, etc.
He reflects often on the squalor and disorder that accompanies the striving for freedom by the underclasses. While he is correct that life will soon become chaotic, and while he and many of us will regret it, there's very little he -- or any of us -- can do about it.
The centerpiece of the plot is the trial of a lesbian couple who murder a little boy. Snow, sadly, is especially dated by the attitudes he betrays in this episode.
He doesn't "disapprove" explicitly, but does so with his assumptions, with his gloomy plotting. It's a shame really, that his work will be read less and less, because he has much to offer -- in the relationships and observations he creates. But he consigns himself to the backwaters of history and culture.