Anthony Powell

I picked up A Dance to the Music of Time again. This has long been a favourite. It's twelve volumes long though so I don't think I'll blog my way through it (not this year anyway). But there were a couple of things in the opening that I think fascinating.

The first of these is the quality of the opening. This book is often compared to Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu and Waugh Brideshead Revisited. The comparison to Waugh irked Powell a bit because, while the content and style of his book is very similar to what Waugh wrote, his aim was very different. Waugh wrote in classic English novel style—a book with a beginning, middle and end leading up to a happy ending  (of a sort)—while Powell is a pagan through and through; his philosophy is what I call "Nietzschean Naturalism". It's plot runs in cycles with the same sorts of things happening over and over again.

Anyway, the thing that hits me every time I pick it up is this, Powell's opening is perfect. Really, if you are a writer or a fan of writing, you should do yourself a favour and read the first ten pages of volume one (it's called A Question of Upbringing). I think that Proust and Waugh outstrip Powell over the long haul but neither of them wrote an opening anywhere near this good.

One of the brilliant things Powell does is the way he introduces the character named "Widmerpool". Kenneth Widmerpool is Powell's greatest creation but it's rarely noted that Powell meant him to be. When Verdi needed a popular song for the Duke to sing in Rigoletto he sat down and wrote one. Some people can do that. Mozart could also say, "I'm going to write a popular song," and then just do it. Beethoven couldn't. Anyway, that is what Powell does he. He decided to create an unforgettable character and then he just did it. Amazing.

The third thing that hits me about the opening is something that will be familiar to anyone who followed the Brideshead Revisited thread here. The following is an extended bit of dialogue from the opening, see if you can figure out what is going on. The first speaker is a guy named Charles Stringham. He is telling Nicholas Jenkins something another boy named Peter Templer told him about Widmerpool:

'As we walked past the fives courts, Templer remarked: "I'm glad that ass Widmerpool fielded a banana with his face." I asked why he did not like him—for after all there is little harm in the poor old boy—and it turned out that it was Widmerpool who got Akworth sacked.'

Stringham paused to allow this statement to sink in, while he arranged the sausages in a new pattern. I could not recall clearly what Akworth's story had been: though I remembered that he had left the school under a cloud soon after my arrival there, and that various rumours regarding his misdoings had been current at the time.

'Akworth tried to set his room on fire, didn't he? Or did he steal everything that not nailed down?'

'He may well have done both,' said Stringham; 'but he was principally shot out for sending a note to Peter Templer. Widmerpool intercepted the note and showed it to Le Bas. I must admit that it was news to me when Peter told me.

'And that was why Peter had taken against Widmerpool?'

'Not only that but Widmerpool got hold of Peter and gave him a tremendous jaw on morals.'

I'll stop there but it goes on a while and every bit of it is magnificent.

It's very inside writing. "The school" for example: Powell tells us the style of architecture and describes the nearby town and the gasworks but never gives it a name. We're just to know that it's Eton.

And the note. That's a fascinating detail don't you think? No one gets thrown out of school for sending notes. It's what's in the note that does it. But what's in it? Something immoral. I know, I know, not with the boys with boys sex again and, well, sorry, but that is what it is but it's played so subtly you could easily miss it.

Great stuff and I recommend it highly.

Extra Brideshead bonus
Do you  remember Olive Banks whom Cordelia was devoting a decade of her daily rosary too? Charles asked about her and Cordelia explained:

'She [Olive] was bunked from the convent last term. I don't quite know what for. Reverend Mother found something she'd been writing.

We might also remember that Anthony brings the very same charge against Sebastian as Templer does against Widmerpool above:

'I left under what is called  cloud, you know—I can't think why it is called that; it seemed to me a glare of unwelcome light; the process involved a series of harrowing interviews with m' tutor. It was disconcerting to find out how observant that mild old man proved to be. The things he knew about me, which I though no one—except possibly Sebastian—knew. It was a lesson never to trust mild old men—or charming school boys; which?

The school in question is also Eton. It's amazing what comes along with a first class education. In any case, it doesn't reflect very well on Sebastian does it?