#widmerpool

[letsay0]

I went down the steps feeling strangely dejected. I tried to persuade myself that the gloom that had descended upon me was induced by Widmerpoool's prolonged political dissertations, but in my heart I knew that its true cause was all this talk of marriage.

With the age of thirty in sight a sense of guilt in relation to that subject makes itself increasingly felt. It was all very well mentally to prepare ribald jokes about Widmerpool’s honeymoon for such friends who knew him, and certainly nothing could be more grotesque than his approach to the matter in hand. That was undeniable. Yet one day, I knew, life would catch up with me too; like Widmerpool, I should be making uneasy preparations to ‘settle down’. Should I, when the time came to ‘take the plunge’, as he had called it, feel inwardly less nervous about the future than he? Should I cut a better figure? This oppression of the heart was intensified by a peculiar awareness that the time was not far distant; even though I could think of no one whose shadow fell across such a speculation.

[scriniumplenum]

Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell

The last in this wonderful series of novels. The characters are getting into late middle age, dealing with death, madness and social change. But through it all, artistic sensibilities give shape and comfort.

Widmerpool, perhaps the central character of the novel, meets a bizarre end, his conventionality and unconventionality finally becoming unwound from each other. And Nick, the narrator, appropriately for the reflective nature of the whole cycle of novels, collectively known as A Dance to the Music of Time, begins to assert his own views a little more, as he comes to terms with all that he has seen and experienced.

I will miss these novels - a great literary achievement.

[zmkccommonplace]

Widmerpool leaned forward for a few seconds in a non-committally devotional attitude that did not entirely abandon a sitting posture and might have been attributable merely to some interior discomfort

Widmerpool not quite kneeling, at a funeral in Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

[scriniumplenum]

Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell

The ninth in this spellbinding sequence of novels. The effaced narrator, Nick Jenkins, is working as a writer and editor in postwar London. The slightly seedy, weary atmosphere is beautifully rendered.

There are some great scenes -a funeral, with hilariously sardonic descriptions of the resentments that run beneath the surface of the ‘grieving’ family and its hangers on; the desperate flailing around of the talented but mercurial writer, X Trapnel, as he tries to reconcile his romanticism with reality; and the collapse in slow motion of Widmerpool’s marriage to the baleful and menacing Pamela Flitton.

The title is actually the nickname of one of the characters but I won’t spoil things by explaining it. A very, very enjoyable read.

[scriniumplenum]

The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell

The ninth in the series and a very entertaining one, too. Ted Jeavons makes a welcome reappearance and Widmerpool becomes increasingly sinister as he ascends the greasy pole. Pamela Flitton comes into focus as a genuinely unsettling femme fatale.

It is set in the closing months of the war, when the bureaucracies are entrenched and all sorts of clerical and political absurdities unfold.

I laughed out lout at the scene involving the Indian officer and the bathroom.

Stylistically so good, it is a pleasure just to savour the act of reading.

[scriniumplenum]

The Soldier’s Art by Anthony Powell

The eighth in this wonderful cycle of novels, collectively known as ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’

The war continues and the narrator, Nick, endures the pointlessness and dislocation of army life with equanimity, or at least the dispassion appropriate to his role in the novels as the reader’s eyes and ears.

The shadow of war hangs heavy and several characters die, either fighting or in air raids. Characters recur, as they do in the course of any life, among them the recurrent characters’ recurrent character, Widmerpool.

Alcohol figures largely in this novel, more so than in the others I have so far read. Peter Stringham, who has been part of the narrator’s life since schooldays, reappears as a recovered alcoholic but one damaged by the experience of being one. And Bithel, an engaging character unfitted to life as an army officer, gets so drunk that he is dismissed. Ted Jeavons, an enigmatic figure who fought in the First World War but actually sounds very like the sort of older man one can bump into in London pubs and clubs, also reappears at second hand, and we are reminded of his fondness for extended drinking bouts in that great city.

One of the best so far. Can’t wait for the next one.

[scriniumplenum]

The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell

Probably the least enjoyable so far of this brilliant cycle of novels. Perhaps, to be more specific, it is the least funny. There are funny moments but it doesn’t aspire quite to the same social comedy of the others.

The narrator, Nick, is a slightly too-old officer in the British Army in 1939-1940, and novel concerns his mobilisation and training. As ever, his feelings and opinions are entirely subjugated to those of the characters he meets and thinks about. He is a cypher.

The nature of military life is well-described - dull, in many ways, but suffused with a sense of purpose maintained by discipline and ritual. Connections to the established characters of the cycle, like the Tollands and Barmby, are maintained chiefly by reminiscences and conversations, which reflects the real-life situation of people suddenly removed from one life and placed in another, for reasons beyond their control.

The language is always a pleasure and there is much to enjoy in this book. The account of Gwatkin’s infatuation with a barmaid is very nicely drawn and, indeed, Gwatkin’s whole, contradictory personality is like a metaphor for the times. Widmerpool makes an expected and significant appearance towards the conclusion of the novel.

I am looking forward to the next.

[scriniumplenum]

Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell

I am becoming addicted to these novels. The recurring characters - Widmerpool, Sir Magnus Donners, the Jeavonses (especially Ted), Dicky Umfraville, St John Clarke, Peter Stringham, even Nick the narrator - are memorable and funny.

I laughed out load at the description of the terrible Mrs McLintick and how she turned up at a party giving the impression she had arrived in fancy dress. 

Droll, very droll, but with an underlying sadness and piquancy.