In the Lodge of a Cambridge college the old Master is dying. He knows , and his thirteen colleagues know, that shortly they will elect his successor. It will be one of their own number, and the rival candidates are Paul Jago, warm and sympathetic, but given to extravagant moods, and handicapped by a wife, who, his opponents say, would be disastrous in the Lodge, and Crawford, a solid man with half Jago's human gifts but shrewd, cautious , and reliable.
This is politics in a very small insular world, in fact there is no real mention of any life away from the college. The author lived in this world and I imagine this is very close to being a memoir. The machinations of those involved in the election are fascinating and very interesting.
The only fault with this is its very very slow, 300 pages over this one election, very interesting but it did get hard as what was going to happen became obvious.
This is part of Snow's series , Strangers and Brothers, which runs to eleven novel and the second one I've read. This is evidently the best but it became a slog for me due to the small world it inhabits.
Politics really is loathsome.
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