Take your partners

     "Reading novels needs almost as much talent as writing them". That line appears in a later volume of Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time", but I came across it this morning as I finished Volume III of the series, The Acceptance World. Append the word "Discuss" and you have an interesting exam question; as it is, and in terms of this sequential work, it is well said.

     I've already mentioned my reactions to Books I & II here: briefly, I couldn't 'get' the first but found the second much more free, more engaging, and altogether brighter and more brilliant, and my keenness to proceed hasn't diminished with the latest one. In fact, from unpromising foundations, and dull but necessary scaffolding work, I now see that Powell is building an edifice remarkable in scope and span. It's becoming much more recognisable for what it actually is, or will be, and whether, in terms of the above quotation, my talent as I reader is growing, or whether I'm just getting the gist now, I am quite the convert!

    Powell is clearly expressing his own thoughts through his main character, Nicholas Jenkins, when he says "I began to brood on the complexity of writing a novel about English life, a subject difficult enough to handle with authenticity even of a crudely naturalistic sort, even more to convey the inner truth of the things observed ......Intricacies of social life make Engish habits unyielding to simplification, while understatement and irony - in which all classes of this island converse - upset the normal emphasis of reported speech." Despite these constraints, and perhaps because we are shown the world of the book through Jenkins's eyes, patterns, devices, diagrams are showing up and the sense of the beautifully constructed whole is coming through, so that complexity notwithstanding, it's very fine.

 

  A word on Hilary Spurling's handbook to the series, Invitation to the Dance. Although I'm only a quarter of the way through the whole oeuvre, I'm finding it a very useful reminder of various details, and I'm sure it will prove invaluable as I go on.

Comments

[Margaret Powling]

As I think I've said before on the Comments, I read the first, A Question of Upbringing many years go. I didn't like it but perhaps this is something I might appreciate better now (i.e. with age?!) But I will now put the others on the 'possible' List of things to read when I've the time ...

[Tui M.]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments about the Powell books, Karen. I'm going to add these to the already groaning TBR pile(s).