10 SEPTEMBER 1983, Page 24

Snow on Snow

Anthony Storr

C. P. Snow: An Oral Biography John Halperin

(Harvester Press £18.95)

John Halperin, a Professor of English in California, and author of books on Gissing, Trollope and other literary sub- jects, became friendly with C. P. Snow three years before his death. Halperin is an enthusiast for Snow's work which he says 'represents one of the twentieth century's most impressive achievements in fiction.' This book is a transcript of a series of tape- recorded interviews which took place bet- ween March 1978 and June 1980. Although some material which might have proved defamatory has been omitted, Halperin tells us that he has made few other changes, and one believes this for two reasons. First, there is some repetition, as is almost in- evitable in an enterprise of this kind. Second, those of us who knew C. P. Snow will recognise his way of expressing himself as characteristically authentic.

Halperin calls his book 'An Oral Biography;' but what particularly interests him is not Snow's life as such, but the rela- tion of his life with his fiction. The five sec- tions into which the book is divided are each headed by the title of one of the novels from the 'Strangers and Brothers' series. Halperin is particularly interested in the 'roman a clef 'aspect of Snow's books, and gets him to identify even more of the originals on which his fictional characters are based than does Snow's brother, Philip, in his recent memoir Stranger and Brother.

The consequence of this approach is that only those who know the novels extremely well will appreciate a good deal of what Halperin has disinterred. 1 read each novel as it was published, and knew many of the people depicted; indeed, I myself make a brief appearance in one of the novels. But Halperin knows and recalls many of the minor characters far better than I do, and I hope he will write a critical study of the novels, which, at present, are somewhat underestimated.

C. P. Snow prided himself on the extent and accuracy of his memory, which also im- pressed his friends. But this book reveals that his memory for dates is often at fault, and Halperin's remark 'You have both a photographic memory and total recall' is

repeatedly refuted. Snow says: 'I left Cam- bridge effectively early in 1940'; but, although he certainly spent some days in London each week, he spent enough time in Cambridge to carry out his duties as a tutor, and to befriend and give a good deal of time to me, amongst many others. He continued to do this through 1941; but one would not have supposed so from the recollections recorded here. Although Halperin claims that Snow 'was forthcoming and candid about his life, his ideas, his books and his acquaintances,' he was not nearly as forth- coming as he was in his letters to his brother. More particularly, in these transcripts, Snow glosses over the intense pain which one love affair caused him which is vividly described in the novels. Halperin, in the single recorded interview which he had with Pamela Hansford Johnson (Lady Snow), comments upon the amount of drink consumed in the novels and asks about Snow's .habits in this respect. As arloyal wife, Pamela denies ex- cessive drinking; but the fact of the matter was that they were both heavy whisky drinkers and could easily dispose of a bottle between them after dinner, as those who entertained them will recall. Once, when Charles had made rather an ass of himself by drinking too much before making an after-dinner or after-lunch speech, I took my courage in both hands, wrote to him about it, and said that, even if I lost his friendship, I must point out that he was get- ting a reputation for drinking too much. Characteristically, he wrote back that nothing on earth would destroy our friend- ship, that he would watch it in future, but that he actually enjoyed the physical sensa- tion of getting drunk. He went on drinking heavily, ,until forbidden to by his doctors, but I never heard of his getting publicly confused again.

It is surprising that an interviewer so well acquainted with the novels as Halperin makes no reference to New Lives for Old, the novel which Gollancz published anonymously in 1933. It was Snow's only excursion into anything resembling science fiction. Snow was after some job at the time, and felt that being identified as the author might diminish his chances of get- ting it. Although he later repudiated the book, and would not allow it to be reprinted, it is an interesting harbinger of things to come which deserves notice. It is also a pity, as Halperin himself acknow- ledges, that lack of time prevented him from interviewing Snovc,at greater length about his non-fiction; his book on Trollope; The Realists, about his favourite novelists; and his essays on people he had known, Variety of Men. Whatever time's judgment will finally be upon Strangers and Brothers and the other novels, I am sure that Snow's portraits of actual people will survive. In particular, his essay on his friend, the mathematician G. H. Hardy is a masterpiece of penetration. How Hardy discovered, and collaborated with, the genius Ramanujan, an almost illiterate clerk with an astonishing mathematical gift, is an unforgettable story, wonderfully told; and Hardy's tragic attempt at suicide is handled with compassionate understand' ing. Of all the people I have known intimately, Snow was the most tolerant, the most magnanimous, and one of the most perceP' tive. His personal warmth and gift for friendship does not really emerge frota these interviews, nor would one really ex'' pect that it could. What Halperin has pr0. duced is a useful source book for others rather than a definitive biography, as he himself hints. If it is reprinted, I hoPe someone will read the proofs properlY. 'Petty Curry' for 'Petty Cury' and 'Cho' Walk' for `Cheyne Walk' will not do' There are many other equally obvious errors.