I recently finished C.P. Snow's The Light and the Dark (1947, 344 pp), which is the story of Roy Calvert, one of the fellows in The Masters. It was perhaps worth reading-- but just barely. Calvert's problem is a sort of melancholy or depression, and Snow just can't get the reader to appreciate it. It does not have the ring of truth. In fact, Snow has written only one first-rate book, as far as I can tell: The Masters, which is about the election for the master of a college. Corridors of Power, about a rising young government minister, is pretty good too, but not in the same class as The Masters. In this respect, Snow is like Evelyn Waugh, who has also apparently written one first-rate book (Brideshead Revisited) and one second-rate one (Decline and Fall) , but no others that are clearly worth reading. I was disappointed to find this out. After reading each author's good book, I dipped into a number of his other books, only to be disappointed.

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