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Secret Harmonies The Anthony Powell Society Registered Charity No. 1096873 Secret Harmonies Journal of the Anthony Powell Society Number 3 Autumn 2009 ISSN 1752-5675 Price £10 The Anthony Powell Society Registered Charity No. 1096873 The Anthony Powell Society is a charitable literary society devoted to the life and works of the English author Anthony Dymoke Powell, 1905-2000. Officers & Executive Committee Patron: John MA Powell President: Simon Russell Beale Hon. Vice-Presidents: Julian Allason Patric Dickinson, LVO *Chairman: Dr Christine Berberich *Hon. Secretary: Dr Keith C Marshall *Hon. Treasurer: Dr Derek Miles *Committee Members: Dr Nicholas Birns (USA), Stephen Holden, Jeffrey Manley (USA), Paul Nutley, Tony Robinson, Elwin Taylor Newsletter Editor: Stephen Holden Hon. Archivist: Noreen Marshall PR/Media Adviser: Julian Allason Secret Harmonies Editor: Stephen Holden Editorial Board: Dr Christine Berberich, Dr Nicholas Birns, Stephen Holden All correspondence should be sent to: Hon. Secretary, Anthony Powell Society 76 Ennismore Avenue, Greenford Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK Phone: +44 (0)20 8864 4095 Fax: +44 (0)20 8020 1483 Email: [email protected] Web: www.anthonypowell.org * Members of the Executive Committee who are the Society’s trustees. Secret Harmonies Journal of the Anthony Powell Society Number 3 Autumn 2009 Edited by Stephen Holden Editorial Board: Dr Christine Berberich, Dr Nicholas Birns, Stephen Holden Managing Editor & Publisher for the Anthony Powell Society Dr Keith C Marshall The Anthony Powell Society, Greenford, UK 2009 Published in 2009 by The Anthony Powell Society, 76 Ennismore Avenue, Greenford, Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK © Copyright The Anthony Powell Society, 2009. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. ISSN 1752-5675 Cover photograph © John S Monagan, 1984. Reproduced with permission. Printed by Express Printing, Wellingborough, UK The Anthony Powell Society is registered charity number 1096873. Secret Harmonies #3 Contents Contents ............................................................................................................. 5 Abbreviations of Anthony Powell Works ........................................................... 6 Editorial ............................................................................................................. 9 Widmerpool: Fair Do’s for the Scapegoat, Terry Empson ............................... 11 Edward Burra, Laura Miller ............................................................................ 20 Come Dancing, Tariq Ali ................................................................................... 27 Julia and Flavia, Nicholas Birns ....................................................................... 32 His Shadow Behind Me: Influence of Anthony Powell on the “Gus Cotton” Novels of Ferdinand Mount, Jeffrey A Manley ................................................. 38 Powell on Nicolas Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time, DN DeLuna ........ 68 Kenneth Widmerpool: A Jaundiced View, Bernard Stacey ............................. 82 BOOK REVIEW: DJ Taylor, Bright Young People: the Rise and Fall of a Generation, 1918-1940 ...................................................................................... 87 BOOK REVIEW: Christopher Harvie, A Floating Commonwealth: Politics, Culture and Technology on Britain’s Atlantic Coast, 1860-1930 ..................... 89 BOOK REVIEW: Jane Stevenson, Edward Burra: Twentieth-Century Eye . 93 BOOK REVIEW: Terence Blacker, You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life and Times of Willie Donaldson ......................................................................................................... 95 BOOK REVIEW: James Allason, Ringside Seat: the Political and Wartime Memoirs of James Allason ................................................................................ 97 Notes on Contributors .................................................................................... 102 Anthony Powell Society Merchandise ............................................................ 104 Anthony Powell Society Membership Form ..................................................... 106 5 Secret Harmonies #3 Abbreviations of Anthony Powell Works References to the Anthony Powell works cited throughout this volume are, unless specified, to the first UK editions of the individual works using the abbreviations given below; in the interests of concision these works are omitted from bibliographies. Other works are cited in full. AP Anthony Powell Dance Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time (London: Heinemann, 1951-75) QU Anthony Powell, A Question of Upbringing (London: Heinemann, 1951) BM Anthony Powell, A Buyer’s Market (London: Heinemann, 1952) AW Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World (London: Heinemann, 1955) LM Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly’s (London: Heinemann, 1957) CCR Anthony Powell, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (London: Heinemann, 1960) KO Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones (London: Heinemann, 1962) VB Anthony Powell, The Valley of Bones (London: Heinemann, 1964) SA Anthony Powell, The Soldier’s Art (London: Heinemann, 1966) MP Anthony Powell, The Military Philosophers (London: Heinemann, 1968) BDFR Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish a Room (London: Heinemann, 1971) TK Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings (London: Heinemann, 1973) HSH Anthony Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies (London: Heinemann, 1975) AM Anthony Powell, Afternoon Men (London: Duckworth, 1931) A&P Anthony Powell, Agents and Patients (London: Duckworth, 1936) V Anthony Powell, Venusberg (London: Duckworth, 1932) FVD Anthony Powell, From a View to a Death (London: Duckworth, 1933) WBW Anthony Powell, What’s Become of Waring (London: Cassell, 1939) Plays Anthony Powell, Two Plays (London: Heinemann, 1971) Wheel Anthony Powell, O, How the Wheel Becomes It! (London, Heinemann, 1983) FK Anthony Powell, The Fisher King (London: Heinemann, 1986) UR Anthony Powell, Under Review (London: Heinemann, 1992) MV Anthony Powell, Miscellaneous Verdicts: Writings on Writers 1946- 1989 (London: Heinemann, 1990) TKBR Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983) Infants Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling: Infants of the Spring (London: Heinemann, 1976) 6 Secret Harmonies #3 Messengers Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling: Messengers of Day (London: Heinemann, 1978) Faces Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling: Faces in My Time (London: Heinemann, 1980) Strangers Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling: The Strangers All Are Gone (London: Heinemann, 1982) J82-86 Anthony Powell, Journals 1982-1986 (London: Heinemann, 1995) J87-89 Anthony Powell, Journals 1987-1989 (London: Heinemann, 1996) J90-92 Anthony Powell, Journals 1990-1992 (London: Heinemann, 1997) Album Violet Powell, The Album of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time (London: Thames & Hudson, 1987) Spurling Hilary Spurling, Handbook to Anthony Powell’s Music of Time (London: Heinemann, 1977). Republished as Invitation to the Dance: A Guide to Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time (Boston: Little Brown, 1978; London: Mandarin, 1992) 7 Secret Harmonies #3 Editorial In November 2007 the Society (in collaboration with the Wallace Collection) presented the inaugural Anthony Powell Memorial Lecture, reprinted in this journal. It was given by Tariq Ali, who said ofA Dance to the Music of Time, “There is nothing quite like it in English letters”. Powell’s uniqueness is perhaps indicated by the number of times his name crops up in the media. I have a “Google alert” set up on my computer for “Anthony Powell” and there is rarely a day goes by that Powell is not mentioned somewhere in the world’s press or in the blogosphere. That, I think, is one testament to his enduring popularity. As with the first and second editions of the Journal, this edition not only reflects the Society’s overall aim (“to advance for the public benefit, education and interest in the life and works of the English author Anthony Dymoke Powell”), but also reflects the wide range and depth of “Powelliana” in all its forms. Stephen Holden Hon. Editor 9 Secret Harmonies #3 Widmerpool: Fair Do’s for the Scapegoat By Terry Empson Kenneth Widmerpool, it may be conceded at once, was not an attractive character at any stage of his life. Hitchens distinguishes the schoolboy from the adult: insufferable from the start, but more as someone prematurely pompous and absurd than, as he later proves, someone decidedly sinister.1 Stringham, Templer and Jenkins find Widmerpool unsympathetic primarily because he lacks poise and style (to say nothing of the ancestry or wealth that would ensure his status in the school without them). He is an obvious striver in a culture where the pretence of effortless superiority is de rigueur. His attempts to make the most of his negligible athletic abilities attract unfavourable notice. His hearty singing in Chapel gets commented on. His quiescence when Budd hits him in the face with a banana makes an elaborate anecdote for Stringham. (How, incidentally, should Widmerpool have reacted? By beating up the Captain of the Eleven and his attendants?) But it is not essential
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