[Future] social historians may find a lot to interest them in Snow's novels. But no literary work can be justified by its subject matter alone, though Snow's admirers sometimes seem to imply that he is such a good novelist simply because he writes about so many different aspects of our society…. Inevitably an author must be judged not merely on the variety of his materials, but on what he makes of it. (p. 215)

One of my initial difficulties in reading Snow at all is in coming to terms with his prose, which is at worst so arid as to be almost unreadable—Strangers and Brothers is particularly bad in this respect—and at best efficacious but banal…. I must emphasize that my objection to Snow's style is not primarily aesthetic; it is, rather, that I find it functionally disabling. Eliot's account of significant events is frequently so inexpressive...