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

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

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

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.

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

(1933). While the…

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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 27 November 2024.]