Powell Dancing….

Really, you shouldn’t be reading this if you haven’t read the books in question: for one thing, you won’t get the jokes; and for another, here there be spoilers….neither should you read on expecting erudite analysis or a straight review: I haven’t read all those tedious canonical novels which are no doubt subtly referenced in “Dance”; and twelve densely packed books on frankly I can’t remember most of the details from the earlier ones….although I have seen the eponymous Poussin painting: a visit to the Wallace Collection is a must if you live in London: it’s off the tourist track but not difficult to find….if you know where it is….

I’ve just finished Anthony Powell’s majestic sequence of novels, “A Dance to the Music of Time” (aka “300 Characters in Awe of an Author”) and what fun it’s been. After laying down the final book I feel, as anticipated, bereft. Others have been here before. Part of me feels, as Ed Lake has exhorted, that I should start all over again, in order to appreciate Powell’s painstaking early set-ups whilst the pay-offs are still fresh….

Except that there aren’t really any pay-offs. Cunning as it was of Powell to subcontract the writing of the final volume “Hearing Secret Harmonies”, to Iris Murdoch (the hazily defined cult, mysterious standing stones, and the unidirectional daisy-chain of unrequited love between unusual people with unlikely names constitute unarguable proof), neither of these wonderful authors is at their best tying up loose ends or putting stories out of their misery. In particular, Widmerpool’s death, after a lifetime of behaving like an elephant in an origami showroom, is profoundly unsatisfying. Granted he’s been humiliated in the previous book and a half; but this reader wanted to see him suffer a bit more….

Likewise with Pamela: self-immolation to gratify the proclivities of Gwinnett seems an oddly selfless end for such a supremely selfish woman; totally out of character. I feel cheated by Powell’s casual shooting of both our fox and our vixen; we loyal readers deserve (and have earned) a longer and bloodier hunt. Trapnel would have turned in his gutter had he known….

At least Powell admits the existence of sex come the later volumes. That Nick slips it to Gypsy early on is casually slipped in by Powell: blink and you’ll miss it (Gypsy may well have concurred); whereas in the last couple of books, there is hardly an uncarnal sentence: liaisons homo- and hetero- are to the fore. Jolly good too. In between these extremes various pashes are outlined; I expect the dramatised TV series did all three variants proud (I haven’t seen it: I’m waiting for the promised Quentin Tarantino film adaptation: “Kill Ken Vols 1&2.” (The musical version will no doubt be called “A Dance to the Music of Tim”: notwithstanding that Mr Rice is primarily a lyricist….))

The sequence as a whole “is about” lots of things*: I’ll say here that “it’s about” the way some people seem to come and go in one’s life while others are mysteriously re-encountered on a regular basis. Had the books been written from Widmerpool’s point of view, we might have been treated to the hitherto unread scene where Ken takes out a restraining order to prevent Nick from stalking him. Indeed, some other characters might with justification greet Nick with “You looking at me, pal?” The role of coincidence is not understated. The preternaturally self-possessed Nick’s Big Secret is, I suggest, that he regularly mainlines shredded copies of an early version of “The Little Book of Calm”: how else to explain that he never once, despite witnessing some extraordinary events, lets loose a “Strewth!”, let alone the “Bugger me!” with which most of us would have been tempted….?

There is, to be fair, some justification for Nick’s placid demeanour: unlike the vast bulk of humanity who, after marrying and procreating, must pay a modicum of attention to their partners and loin-fruits, he, pace Lynne Truss, eats, shoots and leaves. He marries – if not at haste, then at least in lust – and then subsequently barely mentions his cypher – I mean his wife, Isobel – for the remainder of the series. When asked about her (by a former lover) in the final book, he changes the subject. His kid(s) (one, certainly; maybe more: who knows? Certainly not us readers) are even better behaved; only appearing post-partum as a transparent plot device to justify his visit to his old school, there to bump into – but no! Enough spoilers for now: in any case, you’ll never guess….

And that reminds me: “the” school is mentioned, as is “the” university and “a” non-specified but undemocratic and dictatored (dictated?) South American Country – rack my brains as I have, Powell has me foxed here (although I’ve narrowed down the South American Country….) Lots of undefined locations throughout actually; which is how I’d write a novel, truth be told….

There are so many beautiful details though: the titles of imaginary novels are my abiding memory – so silly and yet too plausible to list. And don’t you think if X Trapnel were alive today he’d be blogging his fiction whilst simultaneously taking the piss out of established writers? A name floats into view as a contemporary parallel – but alas! It’s slipped away….

The twelve books are wonderful: read ‘em and….? Meanwhile, I’m still left with the problem of what to read next: deduct ten points if you were about to suggest “The Alexandria Quartet” – I’ve tried and tried and, although I have read it before, can’t get into it now….I thought maybe some Coetzee; or possibly that early Booker winner by Newby (if I can find it); “Midnight’s Children” ? (yes; I know….); or should I try to plug some of the gaps and read something worthy and canonical….? Or perhaps something completely different: tell me, and I’ll review it here….if I get past the first half-dozen pages….

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My Ten Dance Heroes (in no particular order)

Stringham
General Conyers
Mrs Erdleigh
Bithel
Ada Leintwardine
X Trapnel
Jeavons
General Liddament
McClintick
Gwinnett

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My Ten Dance Villains

Sillery
Scorpio Murtlock
Jean Templer
StJohn Clarke
Kenneth Widmerpool
Pamela Widmerpool
Barnabas Henderson
Mrs Erdleigh
Isobel Jenkins
Nick Jenkins

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*Should you want to read better analyses of “A Dance to the Music of Time”, I suggest this site, where some Andover College students’ essays are published: a few, I think, find connections unintended even by AP; others are spot on; all are thought-inducing. Good stuff.