A Dance to the Music of Time (10 of 12) - Book review

 

Books Do Furnish a Room, Anthony Powell’s tenth book in his series A Dance to the Music of Time was published in 1971; my copy attests to it being reprinted eight times (in 1981) and the book is still in print. (I read the previous book The Military Philosophers in May 2019).

Like all its predecessors, it’s narrated in the first person by Nick Jenkins; this time he covers the post-Second World War period of austerity. I certainly liked the title – having over thirty shelves crammed with books!

The book title derives from the cognomen Books-do-furnish-a-room Bagshaw given to a journalist of that surname: ‘Bagshaw’s employment at the BBC lasted only a few years. There were plenty of other professional rebels there, not to mention [Communist] Party Members’ (p37). There were two variants on his acquiring the sobriquet: one, while in his cups, he overturned a full bookcase of books on himself and made the observation, ‘Books do furnish a room’; two, he made the observation at the moment of consummating a sexual encounter in the lady’s husband’s book-lined study; she later told someone that she considered the remark lacking in sensibility.

Bagshaw becomes the general editor of the left-leaning magazine Fission; Nick acts as reviews editor and Kenneth Widmerpool, now a Labour MP, joins the team to write about politics and economics. The owner of the magazine is left-wing publisher Quiggin who ‘had lost interest writing. Instead, he now identified himself, body and soul, with his own firm’s publications, increasingly convinced – like not a few publishers – that he had written them all himself’ (p125). Quiggin even considered he had a right to alter the prose of ‘his’ authors without consultation. One author, as well as others, objected – X Trapnel. ‘These differences of opinion might have played a part in causing Quiggin – again like many publishers – to develop a detestation of authors as a tribe’ (p126).

Jenkins observes how the aftermath of the war affected individuals: ‘The war had washed ashore all sorts of wrack of sea, on all sorts of coasts. In due course, as the waves receded, much of this flotsam was to be refloated, a process to continue for several years, while the winds abated. Among the many individual bodies sprawled at intervals on the shingle, quite a lot resisted the receding tide. Some just carried on life where they were on the shore; others – the more determined – crawled inland’ (p140).

Trapnel was self-obsessed, and always seemed to act a part, the roles varying depending on whoever he was dealing with; whether that was Widmerpool or his butterfly wife, Pamela. He was a bit of a fantasist as well. And attractive to women…

Yet again Powell rarely lingers on Nick’s own marriage: ‘Not so very long after that evening, Isobel gave birth to a son’ (p104). He doesn’t even name the boy!

Hitting hard times, Trapnel ends up in a run-down part of the city, living in squalor: ‘… but buildings already tumbledown had now been further reduced by bombing. The neighbourhood looked anything but flourishing’ (p203).

Post-war paper shortages, artistic temperament disagreements, the squalid affair of Trapnel combined to ensure the demise of Fission.

As ever, the characters keep the pages turning. Two more books left to read in the sequence.

A Dance to the Music of Time (7 of 12)

Seventh in the sequence of twelve books that comprise A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell is titled The Valley of Bones (1964).

Narrated by Nick Jenkins, we find him in the army now. It’s 1940 and he’s a second lieutenant stationed in a Welsh regiment officered in the main by bank employees and manned by miners.

The title of the book comes from Ezekiel, the passage being quoted at a religious service held in one of the parish churches of the town near the army base: ‘The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley: and, lo, they were very dry…’ (p42) As is the narration here…

The battalion under the command of Captain Gwatkin is moved to Northern Ireland. Gwatkin is a sympathetic but muddled character who strives to endear himself to the men, striving to get the best out of them, even the most recalcitrant: ‘The NCOs and privates do their best. Are you going to be the only one, Sayce, who is not doing his best?’ Farce rears its head when Gwatkin muddles instructions during an exercise. As a result, there’s a snap inspection, an unexpected visit to the Battalion by General Liddament, who voices concern when he learns the men haven’t had porridge. He cannot believe that anyone can dislike porridge; they must be foolish fellows. (p102)

There are an amusing couple of pages poking fun at Lord Haw-Haw’s propaganda and his ridiculous pronunciation. (pp58/59)

As in earlier volumes, Powell can visualise a scene well: ‘Within the (train) carriage cold fug stiflingly prevailed, dimmed bulbs, just luminous, like phosphorescent molluscs in the eddying backwaters of an aquarium, hovering above photographic views of Blackpool and Morecambe Bay: one of those interiors endemic to wartime.’ (p110)

Nick reflects on his past, evoked for example by meeting Brent, a paramour of Jean, an earlier love. ‘… even when you have ceased to love someone, that does not necessarily bring an indifference to a past shared together. Besides, though love may die, vanity lives on timelessly.’ (p135)

Though written in the 1960s, the story is in the 1940s, and we’re reminded how the cost of living has altered: ‘I’ve got a broken-down old car I bought with the proceeds of my writing activities. It cost a tenner…’ (p142) Oh, to afford a car on one’s writing proceeds these days!

The characters are interesting, whether it’s Gwatkin, the unrequited lover, the alcoholic Lieutenant Bithel, CSM Cadwallader, Odo Stevens or Priscilla. Indeed, the least interesting is the narrator himself, Nick.

Yet again, Powell – in the guise of Nick – cannot deal with emotion. ‘It is hard to describe your wife.’ (p143) And ‘… when I had been able to see Isobel and the child. She and the baby, a boy, were “doing well”, but there had been difficulty in visiting them…’ (p178) He’s talking about his own boy who remains nameless! No affection whatever… And it is not mitigated by the words ‘Like a million others, I missed my wife…’ (p180)

Reality impinges but briefly: The summer was very hot. ‘The Germans had invaded the Netherlands, Churchill become Prime Minister…’ (p188) And by the book’s close: the ‘German army were reported as occupying the outskirts of Paris.’

Towards the end of the book, Nick is transferred to be the assistant of the HQ Division’s DAAG (Deputy Assistant Adjutant General) and is surprised by the incumbent’s identity…

Next: #7 – The Soldier’s Art

Editorial comment

Editors can miss things, I know from experience. Here’s one case in point. ‘Rowlands thinks it will be Egypt or India. Rowland always has these big ideas.’ (p19) Somehow, Rowland has gained an ‘s’…!

‘Dooley patricularly entering into the idea of a rag.’ (p29) A typo that slipped through; this shouldn’t happen nowadays with spell-checker.

‘… and the bones cames together, bone to bone.’ (p42)

‘Rain had begun to fall again.’ (p86) Rain always falls. Maybe, ‘It began to rain again’ would have worked?

A Dance to the Music of Time (6 of 12)

Anthony Powell’s sixth volume in his Dance to the Music of Time sequence, The Kindly Ones, was published in 1962 and is the best so far, covering the periods 1914, the late 1920s and the late 1930s.

Possibly it grabs interest because Powell begins by relating Nick Jenkins’s childhood in Stonehurst; this goes some way to personalise the first-person narrative, which hitherto seems to have been lacking in the earlier volumes.

We’re first introduced to Albert, the Jenkins’s manservant/butler, a fascinating creation, ‘an oddity, an exceptional member of the household’…’Albert shook off one of his ancient bedroom slippers, adjusting the thick black woollen sock at the apex of the foot, where, not over clean, the nail of a big toe protruded from a hole at the end. (p10)

Albert was not enamoured of the suffragettes, referring to them as ‘Virgin Marys’. Nick recalled his house tutor Miss Orchard telling him about the Greeks who feared the Furies, which they named the Eumenides – the Kindly Ones – using such ‘flattery to appease their terrible wrath’ (p6) and supposed Albert employed similar flattery, since he feared these emboldened women.

Other servants in the household include Billson, fostering unrequited love for Albert and young Bracey, subject to ‘funny turns’. Billson claimed she’d seen a ghost more than once, and Nick’s mother commented, ‘It really is not fair on servants to expect them to sleep in a haunted room, although I have to myself.’ (pp60/61) Later, Billson suffers a mental breakdown, partly due to the persistence of the ghosts and also due to the fact that Albert had declared his love elsewhere, to a woman in Bristol: she appeared nude in the dining room in front of Mr and Mrs Jenkins and their guests, General Conyers and his wife. This is a poignant scene, where Conyers acted swiftly and snagged a shawl and ‘wrapped the shawl protectively round her.’ (p64)

The interaction between the members of the household proves amusing and intriguing. ‘As a child you are in some ways more acutely aware of what people feel about one another than you are when childhood has come to an end.’ (p22) This is shrewd observation, and is emphasised by ‘I was aware that I had witnessed a painful scene, although, as so often happens in childhood, I could not analyse the circumstances.’ (p47)

We also get to know Nick’s father, at least a little. ‘For my father all tragedies were major tragedies, this being especially his conviction if he were himself in any way concerned. (p30)

Mr Jenkins made the observation, ‘I like to rest my mind after work. I don’t like books that make me think.’ (p40) He ‘really hated clarity.’ (p48)

What is surprising is how echoes from this period (in the novel) or from the time of its creation, there resonates observations that still hold true in the twenty-first century: ‘… the light of reason or patriotism could penetrate, in however humble a degree, into the treasonable madhouse of the Treasury, did not answer.’ (p58)

As the Conyers are about to leave Stonehurst, two individuals make their appearance, both unexpected: Uncle Giles who observes about the General’s automobile, ‘Not too keen on ’em. Always in accidents. Some royalty in a motor-car have been involved in a nasty affair today…’ (p72) The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and his wife, no less... The other person arrived while running with his pupils, Dr Trelawney, who espoused that ‘The Essence of the All is the Godhead of the True.’ (p66)

We leap ahead in time, when Nick admits his ‘more modest ambition… is to become a soldier.’ This is quite a revelation, I don’t recall any indications of this before. He befriends Mortimer (who we have met in an earlier volume) and they have shared likes and dislikes: ‘There were also aesthetic prejudices in common: animosity towards R.M. Ballantynes The Coral Island…’ (P85) [Well, sorry, Nick or Mr Powell, I read this as a youngster and thought it was a gripping and exciting adventure story and hold no animosity towards it at all! It’s a book of its time.]

Later, when Trelawney is discussed, there’s an amusing aside: ‘… he must have moved further to the Left – or would it be to the Right? Extremes of policy have such a tendency to merge.’ Another shrewd observation! Lock up or eliminate the opposition… That’s why they’re extreme? At one point, he pontificates: ‘There is no death in Nature, only transition, blending, synthesis, mutation.’ (p197)

We’re in the time of ‘Munich’, the appeasement. And Nick’s wife Isobel ‘was starting a baby. Circumstances were not ideal for a pregnancy. Apart from unsettled international conditions, the weather was too hot…’ (p150) Strange, to take into consideration the international state of affairs when deciding on having a family; he’s being humorous, of course.

Fellow writers might be amused at Nick relating details about his career to Duport, a man he cuckolded: ‘writing; editing, reviewing… never, for some reason, very easy to define to persons not themselves in the world.’ (p169)  Nick learns that Duport’s wife Jean had not only cheated on her husband but also betrayed Nick as well… Certainly, one of the underlying themes in the books is the duplicitous nature of women and wives. ‘The remembered moaning in pleasure of someone once loved always haunts the memory, even when love itself is over.’ (p183)

As we approach the end of the book, we’re in the company of Kenneth Widmerpool and his mother again. Nick refers to Widmerpool as a Happy Warrior (p243), alluding to a Wordsworth poem; among other things, it’s also the title of an excellent graphic biography of Churchill drawn by Frank Bellamy.

Powell injects a number of enlightening truisms, usually through other characters’ speech, some highlighted already. Here’s another: ‘One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.’ (p247)

There were more humorous and poignant moments than hitherto in the series. And the neat ending, where it’s contrived that Nick will, against the odds, be signed up in the Infantry, works very well; so well, in fact, that the reader wants to move on to the next book (which must have been frustrating, since that – The Valley of Bones – didn’t appear for two years). I’m glad I’ve persevered with the series.

Editorial comment:

Sometimes, because the narrative is actually reflective, talking about the past, Powell slips into silliness. For example, ‘ “How much dos Mesopotamia matter?” enquired my father, unaware that he would soon be wounded there.’ (p56) Well, obviously he would be unaware, unless he was clairvoyant! Far better if this had been re-worded along the lines such as: ironically, he was wounded there…

‘Outside, the weather was sunny…’ (p202) Surely the word ‘outside’ is superfluous?

‘He grinned back happily at her through his spectacles…’ (p238) He must be wearing his spectacles over his mouth, then. We know what he meant, but he didn’t write what he meant. Visually, it’s absurd.

A Dance to the Music of Time (5 of 12)

The first four volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time are reviewed in earlier blogs.

***

Anthony Powell’s 1960 novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant begins in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, and reveals in flashback his first meetings with Mr Deacon (deceased in the previous book), Maclintick, Gossage, Carolo and Moreland. As before, there is little emotion in the narrative: ‘I listened to what was being said without feeling…’ (p29) – which could apply to the story so far, really. 

His friends Maclintick, Moreland and Barnby are intent on going to Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant. Apparently, ‘there used to the New Casanova, where the cooking was Italian and the decoration French eighteenth century. Further up the street was the Amoy, called by some Sam’s Chinese Restaurant. The New Casanova went into liquidation. Sam’s bought it up and moved over their pots and pans and chopsticks, so now you can eat treasure rice, or bamboo shoots fried with pork ribbons, under panels depicting scenes from the career of the Great Lover.’ (p32)

Powell’s narrator doesn’t involve the reader greatly in the scenes: ‘Maclintick and Barnby ordered something unadventurous from the dishes available; under Moreland’s guidance, I embarked upon one of the specialities of the house.’ (p34) You have to wonder if Powell could actually name any Chinese dishes; and the phrase ‘from the dishes available’ seems superfluous, as would ‘from the menu’.

Following from these reminiscences, we move to the 1930s and Nick reveals he has been married to Isobel, ‘perhaps a year’. (p58) The scandal about Mrs Simpson and, ultimately, The Abdication, is the talk of the town.

Lady Warminster is quite a character. She was ‘prone to fortune-tellers and those connected with divination. She was fond of retailing their startling predictions.’ (p74) Echoes of Nick’s Uncle Giles’s friend Mrs Erdleigh! One of her statements about the novelist St John Clarke: 'I always think one ought to be grateful to an author if one has liked even a small bit of a book’ (p75) is damning with faint praise indeed! By now, Clarke was ‘forgotten by the critics but remembered fairly faithfully by the circulating libraries…’ (p80)

Nick had lost touch with Widmerpool, primarily because his wife Isobel didn’t care for the man. ‘In any case I should never have gone out of my way to seek him, knowing, as one does with certain people, that the rhythm of life would sooner or later be bound to bring us together again.’ (p101)

When we do meet Widmerpool, he is more pompous than ever: ‘I regret to say that few, if any, of my school contemporaries struck me sufficiently favourably for me to go out of my way to employ their services… It is one of my principles in life to surround myself with persons whose conduct has satisfied me.’ (p122) And clearly he is not prescient: ‘Setting aside a European war, which I do not consider a strong probability in spite of certain disturbing features, I favour a reasoned optimism.’ (p123)

Maclintick is a sad figure, with a marriage that doesn’t work, he and his wife constantly arguing: ‘… for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house…’ (p148)

There is a rare stab of emotion, however: ‘I suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, as if ice-cold waer were dripping very gently, very slowly down my spine…’ (p151) when reminded of his old love Priscilla.

The narrator excuses his lack of emotional commitment in part: ‘... it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality… if one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate… I thought of some of these things on the way to the nursing home.’ (p96)

At the nursing home he meets Moreland and, of all people, Widmerpool. Here, Nick reveals to Moreland, an expectant father, that Isobel has just had a miscarriage. Moreland is not particularly sympathetic, bemoaning the fact that his wife Matilda’s constant false alarms were likely to make him bankrupt. (p98) These were the days before the National Health Service.

There’s a preponderance of names beginning with the letter ‘M’ – Moreland, Maclintick, Mona, Members, Milly, Magnus, Mildred (dumped girlfriend of Widmerpool), Mortimer, Matilda ( wife of Moreland)… Reminds me of the story ‘The Empty House’ in The Return of Sherlock Holmes: ‘My collection of M’s is a fine one…’ (p20) Though perhaps in this book’s case there’s an overabundance of names beginning with that letter.

Next: 6 – The Kindly Ones.

A Dance to the Music of Time (4 of 12)

Anthony Powell’s fourth book in his series, At Lady Molly’s (1957) is set in the early 1930s. As before, the narrator, Nick Jenkins seems cold and detached. ‘I always enjoy hearing the details of other people’s lives, whether imaginary or not…’ (p211)

 

Nick has achieved some modest success with his writing: ‘Written a couple of novels, and moved from a firm that published art books to a company that produced second-feature films.’ (p16) Clearly heavily influenced by Powell’s own work at Duckworths, the publishers and his later stint as a scriptwriter for Warner Brothers in England. ‘I on what is called the “scenario side”. I help to write that part of the programme known as the “second feature”. For every foot of American film shown in this country, a proportionate length of British film must appear. The Quota, in fact.’ (p55)

When we last shared Nick’s life, he was romantically involved with Jean Duport. Now, that was over and he was ‘fancy-free’, aged twenty-eight or so, and open to his confederate Chips Lovell’s suggestion to visit his aunt –Molly Jeavons. Previously married to Lord John Sleaford, Molly lived in the mansion Dogdene; Sleaford died of Spanish Flu in 1919; she was now married to Captain Teddy Jeavons. ‘Molly remained a big, charming, noisy young woman, who had never entirely ceased to be a schoolgirl. When the Dogdene frame was removed, like the loosening of a corset of steel, the unconventional, the eccentric, even the sluttish side of her nature became suddenly revealed to the world.’ (p159)

Molly is quite a character. ‘… exceptionally kind-hearted. The house is always full of people she is doing good turns to. Children stay here while their parents are fixing up a divorce.. Penniless young men get asked to meals. Former servants are always being given help of one sort or another…’ (p164)

While at Lady Molly’s, Nick comes across Widmerpool who is in the company of an older woman, Mildred. Powell’s strengths are his character descriptions, such as this sighting of Widmerpool: ‘He was wearing a new dark suit. Like a huge fish swimming into a hitherto unexplored and unexpectedly exciting aquarium, he sailed resolutely forward.’ (p46)

In this fourth outing it is obvious that certain characters will continue to surface in Nick’s life. ‘Widmerpool was a recurring milestone on the road; perhaps it would be more apt to say that his course, as one jogged round the track, was run from time to time, however different the pace, in common with my own.’ (p47)

Nick is surprised to learn he is getting married to Mildred, which is quite shocking news…

Other news concerns the rumbling in Europe caused by the ascension of Herr Hitler. Widmerpool has a leaning towards the ‘socialist’ political spectrum. ‘People talk of rearming. I am glad to say the Labour Party is against it to a man – and the more enlightened Tories, too.’ (p66) This is another one of those lengthy speeches Powell’s characters indulge in. ‘What is much more likely to be productive is to settle things round a table…’ (p67) So, while the bohemians and businessmen enjoy their chatter over cocktails, all of Europe sleepwalks towards a world war.

Later, mention is made of the embargo on arms to Bolivia and Paraguay, the ‘Smash Fascism’ group, the worries about Mosley, and the independence of Catalonia, and free meals for schoolchildren. (p120) And, briefly touched on, the conflict between Japan and China (p203).

Again, Nick meets Quiggin and the Tolland family, notably Erridge. The arrival one evening of Susan and Isobel Tolland is quite seismic for Nick: ‘The atmosphere changed suddenly, violently. One became all at once aware of the delicious, sparkling proximity of young feminine beings. The room was transformed.’ (p136) Powell doesn’t go in for emotion. The books are observational, dealing with manners, pomposity, venality, and the narrator is virtually invisible. ‘Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her?’ (p137) There’s much about marriage – and divorce, too. Nick’s friend Peter Templer said, ‘Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they’ll marry anybody.’ (p187) And Nick himself contemplated that blessed union, too: ‘I, too, should be married soon, a change that presented itself in terms of action rather than reflection, the mood in which even the most prudent often marry: a crisis of delight and anxiety, excitement and oppression.’ (p201)

While there are no great laughs, despite this being described as a humorous novel, there are moments that raise a smile. One of these is Erridge’s butler, Smith. An alcoholic who imbibed from the cellar, he was shaken when asked if there were any champagne in the cellar.

‘Champagne, m’lord?’

‘Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.’

Smith’s face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His hearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word “champagne” used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question – these ravings, almost – might mean… After a long pause, he at last shook his head.

‘I doubt if there is any champagne left, m’lord.’ (p143)

Nick’s friend Stringham seems dominated in some manner by Miss Weedon, Tuffy, who may have designs on curing Stringham of his affection for alcohol. Nick ‘found her a trifle alarming. She gave an impression of complete singleness of purpose: the impression of a person who could make herself very disagreeable if thwarted.’ (p163) We shall see more of her in volume 5.

Molly’s sister Lady Warminster is a widow and a hypochondriac, and ‘awe-inspiring. Something of the witch haunted her delicate, aquiline features and transparent ivory skin: a calm, autumnal beauty that did not at all mask the amused, malicious, almost insane light that glinted all the time in her infinitely pale eyes. When young, she must have been very good-looking indeed.’ (p205)

The book begins with recollections of Nick’s family’s distant relation, General Conyers and almost ends with him in the flesh, paraphrasing Foch: ‘War not an exact science, but a terrible and passionate drama? Something like that. Fact is, marriage is rather like that too.’

If I’d been reading these books when they were first published, I may well have lost the thread and interest, waiting a year or more between each ‘episode’. Being able to read them in close proximity (even if interspersed with other books), the characters do tend to live – even if essentially uneventful lives.

The cover depicts Kenneth Widmerpool by Mark Butcher; a fleeting resemblance to Reginald Maudling (1917-1979), British politician.

Next: 5 - Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant.

Editorial comment:

Still huge unbroken paragraphs, also in speech, which is totally unrealistic.

Again, there’s not a great deal of description of the scenes that contain the characters, the reader can’t actually ‘be there’.

As observed above, Powell’s character descriptions are a delight.