The 10th of 12 volumes in Powell’s roman-fleuve entitled A Dance to the Music of Time, this novel continues the story of Nicholas Jenkins, a writer, as he returns to a peace-time life at the end of World War II. The title refers to the nickname of a key character in the story, the journalist Lindsay “Books-do-furnish-a-room” Bagshaw. But the title also refers to the publishing world as a whole in which Nicholas is professionally situated, and to the comforting refuge he seeks in his writing after the violence of the war. Music and painting have served as key thematic devices in earlier volumes of the series; now the emphasis shifts to literature.

When Nicholas returns to civilian life, many old school acquaintances are dead; in the wake of the war he can think of no better book to study than Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. He plans a study of it entitled Borage and Hellebore, but it is not the kind of project that will sell a large number of volumes. To make some money and move himself back into the spirit of the publishing world, he reviews books for a new liberal (but not communist or even socialist) journal that Bagshaw manages, Fission. The publisher of this periodical is Nick’s old friend J. G. Quiggen, who has moderated his Marxist politics somewhat. The idea for the magazine had begun with Erridge, Lord Warminster, Nick’s eccentric brother-in-law, but he had died before getting it started.

Nick befriends X. Trapnel (modeled on Powell’s real-life acquaintance, Julian Maclaren-Ross), who has written a brilliant first novel, Camel Ride to the Tombs; he learns that this unfortunate man has fallen in love with Mrs. Pamela Widmerpool. Trapnel is trying to work on a new book, Profiles in String, but his personal eccentricities, his anxiety that he will not equal his first achievement, and his affair with Pamela are placing a strain on him. His brilliance is not in doubt, but his life is unstable and gets worse when Pamela deserts Widmerpool to live with Trapnel. She is a demanding woman, essentially unhappy in spite of her stunning beauty, but Trapnel is an equally demanding man needing someone to manage his life.

By chance, Nick witnesses a scene when Widmerpool confronts Pamela and Trapnel in the shabby apartment they share. He announces to the lovers that he is certain that she will return to him, and Trapnel chases Widmerpool out. Widmerpool’s prediction, however, comes true in a much worse way: Pamela not only leaves, she also flings the manuscript of Profiles in String—the only one in existence—into a filthy canal near their apartment. Bagshaw and Nick are walking Trapnel home when they discover the pages floating away. Like Widmerpool, Trapnel pretends to take this desertion well, but he fades away, his talent steadily eroding and his self-destructive habits gaining ascendancy until his genius is spent.

After a two-year run, Fission has also spent itself, and the publishing house closes. Nick manages to finish Borage and Hellebore and finds himself ready to turn to greater challenges.

Bibliography
Joyau, Isabelle. Understanding Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Selig, Robert L. Time and Anthony Powell. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1991.
Spurling, Hillary. Invitation to the Dance: A Guide to Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

Tags: 20th-century British novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell, Anthony Powell's Books Do Furnish a Room, Books Do Furnish a Room, Borage and Hellebore, British Literature, British novel series, Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, fiction about writers, fiction and melancholy, fictional journals in literature, Fission magazine, Invitation to the Dance, J.G. Quiggen, Julian Maclaren-Ross, Lindsay Bagshaw, literary fiction, literary themes in fiction, literature as refuge, Metafiction, Nicholas Jenkins, Pamela Widmerpool, post-World War II fiction, postwar England, Powell’s literary influences, Profiles in String, publishing industry in fiction, roman-fleuve, satire in literature, Time and Anthony Powell, understanding Anthony Powell, Widmerpool character arc, X. Trapnel