I have added to this here

Whitaker put up the challenge here recently (comment 7):

Hands up those of you that have allowed a deeply held and cherished viewpoint to be changed by someone whose views are opposed to your own. Hands up those of you who have publicly contradicted someone whose political views closely align to your own on most occasions and did not end up paying a price for that. Ultimately, the majority of us are tribal.

It could scarcely have been more apposite to find myself at the time reading my first CP Snow The Affair which deals in a small closed world with just this situation. A scientist disliked by all in his Cambridge college is accused of and found guilty of fraud by the internal mechanisms of the college. Next, one of the very people who had first investigated the claims comes upon a piece of evidence that indicates there must be serious doubts as to the guilty verdict. To make it worse, not only would the College Seniors have to accept that they had been wrong, but overturning the verdict would by implication incriminate a now deceased scientist of impeccable credentials.

The book describes in minute detail the machinations that ensured, the motivations of the various players, the belief structures, both religious and political that inevitably have some sway, not to mention the notion of tradition and even what one thinks of so and so’s wife.

It is sort of like Twelve Angry Men but whereas that was a jury, and a diverse collection of individuals all strangers to one another, The Affair is a situation where everybody goes way back and the differences between people are much smaller, though they loom large in the story.


rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/the-affair-by-cp-snow/ ( )

I have added to this here

Whitaker put up the challenge here recently (comment 7):

Hands up those of you that have allowed a deeply held and cherished viewpoint to be changed by someone whose views are opposed to your own. Hands up those of you who have publicly contradicted someone whose political views closely align to your own on most occasions and did not end up paying a price for that. Ultimately, the majority of us are tribal.

It could scarcely have been more apposite to find myself at the time reading my first CP Snow The Affair which deals in a small closed world with just this situation. A scientist disliked by all in his Cambridge college is accused of and found guilty of fraud by the internal mechanisms of the college. Next, one of the very people who had first investigated the claims comes upon a piece of evidence that indicates there must be serious doubts as to the guilty verdict. To make it worse, not only would the College Seniors have to accept that they had been wrong, but overturning the verdict would by implication incriminate a now deceased scientist of impeccable credentials.

The book describes in minute detail the machinations that ensured, the motivations of the various players, the belief structures, both religious and political that inevitably have some sway, not to mention the notion of tradition and even what one thinks of so and so’s wife.

It is sort of like Twelve Angry Men but whereas that was a jury, and a diverse collection of individuals all strangers to one another, The Affair is a situation where everybody goes way back and the differences between people are much smaller, though they loom large in the story.


rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/the-affair-by-cp-snow/ ( )

Verhaal over plagiaat aan de universiteit. Vlot en door en door Engels. Spannende en mooie roman. ( )

1895 The Affair, by C. P. Snow (read 24 Dec 1984) This is the eighth in the 11-volume series and is the best yet therein. It tells of scientific fraud as a result of which a Fellow has been deprived of his Fellowship. The victim is Howard: as obnoxious a person as one could want to know. Lewis Eliot--no longer a Fellow (this novel covers 1953 and 1954)--undertakes the seeking-out of justice for him. The story is really masterfully crafted, with an excellent outcome after appropriate suspense. It is easily the best of the series so far. There are neat examples of humor, and instances of deft phrasing galore, e.g.: "Winslow inclined his head. Crawford then asked Brown if he agreed, as though Brown's vote had had so more effect on his, Crawford's, action, than if it had been a love poem in Portuguese." Snow uses words I don't know, and they are not found in the dictionary I have here at home: sadic, surgent. ( )