Reviewed by: Eduardo Reyes
Author: CP Snow
Publisher: Penguin

Published in 1951, The Masters may not seem the obvious novel to review on these pages - though the narrator, Lewis Eliot is a lawyer who divides his professional life between a practice in London and a fellowship of a Cambridge college. This is, though, a worthwhile or enjoyable read for any lawyer whose firm is going through a difficult or contested managing partner election.

The story opens as the incumbent college master, Vernon Royce, lies dying of cancer. Even as he lives opening up a contest between two rival fellows - one, Dr Jago, lacks academic distinction but has empathy and charisma on his side, the other, Dr Crawford, has more academic achievement to his name, and is a duller, yet more reliable, character.

The prospect of a significant benefaction whose conditions could change the character of the college complicates matters.

Neither of the rival factions that forms around each candidate has a clear majority, and each organises to sway the few fellow who are floating voters, or vulnerable to change. Over-zealous supporters go much further in terms of tactics than either candidate would wish. Time passes, the old master dies, and fellows change sides.

Although attached to Jago’s faction, Eliot the lawyer is a trusted figure who has a good ringside seat on the doings of both factions. More than one fellow chooses the candidate they think will be better for their own future influence and status.

A drawn vote is a real likelihood, bringing with it the prospect of an outside candidate - this neither side wants.

The lessons, and the relevance, of this tightly told, claustrophobic story for a contested election in a law firm are these.

First, the fellows form a partner-like electoral group who know each other extremely well, with supporters willing to risk much more than the candidates themselves, though they also theoretically know that all rifts must be healed afterwards.

Then, some of the disagreements are not about the candidates themselves, but about a failure among the fellows to agree the future direction of the college.

The candidates themselves are cruelly exposed to the process, in a way that most supporters are not (supporters pay, for the most part, insufficient attention to this result). Technical distinction is set against leadership skills.

History and the traditions of the institution play their role. And, set at the end of the 1930s, though written in 1951, it is clear that the world in which the college operates is about to change and change dramatically.

With the University of Cambridge facing a contested election for the office of chancellor, as Prince Phillip retires from the post, I have cast around among contacts for any echo of the election issues and tactics CP Snow depicts so well here. To be honest, there is little sense of the tension, or the stakes, in this current election.

A much closer parallel is in the elections that partnerships face when selecting a managing partner. Do the electors, who may have been friends for decades, look for individual preferment, or seek the collective good? What will candidates sacrifice to get a majority? And if you believe in a outcome, how far is it right to go in pursuit of it?

Professional communities of any size face these issues with every succession. They also do so currently against a deeply uncertain economic and political backdrop.

One further observation - the narrator, partial yet trusted, and willing to set boundaries for either side when he feels conduct may be going too far, would have made a very good general counsel.

The Masters is out of print, but if you can find a copy, I would recommend you buy it.

Eduardo Reyes is Gazette features editor

Topics