The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter Issue 62, Spring 2016, ISSN 1743-0976, £3 York Conference, 8-10 April – there’s still time to book Conference venue: King’s Manor, York Contents Editorials ..................................................... 2 Brideshead & Castle Howard ..................... 3-5 Conference Update ........................................ 6 Marxists: Erridge ........................................ 7-9 Stringham & Robert Byron .................... 10-13 Literature & Life, a Riposte ................... 14-15 Polly Duport Diary Award ..................... 16-17 My First Time ........................................ 18-19 Dates for Your Diary ............................ 20-21 Society News & Notices ...................... 22-23 Local Group News ................................. 24-27 Reviews: The Prose Factory ................... 28-31 Uncle Giles’ Corner .................................... 32 Letters to the Editor ................................ 33-34 Cuttings etc............................................ 35-37 Christmas Quiz Answers ............................. 38 Merchandise & Membership ................ 39-40 Pay your subscription annually? Now’s the time! Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #62 A Letter from the Editor From the Secretary’s Desk The first Big News is the This is a year of York Conference in April celebrations. It has crept 2016. John Roe who is up on us and caught us masterminding it unawares. The provides an up-do-date conference, of course, summary. Part of the pays homage not just to programme is a visit to AP and also William Castle Howard. Jeff Shakespeare who died Manley provides a 400 years ago on 23 fascinating consideration April. There are other of the use that Waugh and AP anniversaries too: at AP made of stately homes and other the New Year Brunch we buildings in their novels. celebrated the 65th anniversary of A The second Big News is that your Secretary Question of Upbringing, and thus the start of can now add an O to his AP designation. Dance, with glasses of champagne thanks to See the write up of the New Year Brunch. an anonymous sponsor. We should also note that The Soldier’s Art is 50 in September – Amidst the champagne and laughter a new which coincides nicely with our planned day member made a valuable point. He out in Oxford – and AP’s first novel, submitted that abbreviations for the titles of Afternoon Men, is 85 in June ... and more. AP’s works such as VB or HSH are Casting the literary net wider, it is 50 years confusing. From now, in all pieces, the full since the death of Powell’s friend Evelyn title will be set out the first time that a Waugh in April 1966 – making the volume is mentioned. After that the conference visit to Castle Howard all the customary abbreviations will be used. more appropriate. As for the Society, our th New members continue to join and Patron, John Powell, celebrated his 70 gratifyingly also contribute to this birthday, coincidentally on the same day (as Newsletter. We have contributions from Stephen alludes) I became a state-registered Steve Hoare and Geoff Eagland. Thanks! geriatric. I feel a certain privilege to be in such august company. We are experimenting by providing two reviews, from different contributors, of the Talking of the conference, there has been same book. This is DJ Taylor’s The Prose some discussion recently about whether we Factory about the literary life. He refers to should continue to vary the conference AP and his writings. Jeff Manley provides a venue, or whether a permanent, static home useful commentary on Taylor’s use of AP’s should be sought. Although a static venue works. Michael Barber, AP’s biographer, would likely be in/near London, it is unlikely draws attention to Taylor’s omission of Ian to be either Eton or the Wallace Collection. Fleming. Of course, there are pros and cons on both sides. But what do you think? Should we This raises the fascinating “spectre” of what try to take the conference to different places a James Bond book by AP would have been or should we look for a settled home? like. After all several well-regarded English Please let me know what you would prefer. novelists such as William Boyd, Sebastian Faulks and Kingsley Amis have all written a Meanwhile I look forward to seeing many of Bond book. Suggestions for titles and you in York. characters please. Keith Marshall Stephen Walker, [email protected] [email protected] 2 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #62 Brideshead and Castle Howard Revisited By Jeffrey Manley In the public mind Castle Howard is Waugh builds up a picture of Brideshead. Brideshead Castle. This is due more to its The house is described as “baroque” by choice as a setting in two popular film Charles Ryder who later seems to assume adaptations [Granada TV, 1981; Miramax, Inigo Jones designed it. Sebastian says it 2008] than to what Waugh wrote. This was built in the time of Inigo Jones. article compares Waugh’s descriptions of Several features of the house are repeated: Brideshead Castle to Castle Howard, the dome, the columns and colonnades, the reviews the filmmakers’ process in prominent fountain and the terraced lakes. selecting it as the setting for the story, and Beyond the fountain and lakes, there is a examines how they influenced each other. temple and an obelisk. It is called a AP expressed his opinion in his Journals “castle” because the original house on the on Brideshead Revisited and its 1981 TV estate was a castle that was torn down and adaptation but he did not consider how far the materials used to construct the newer Waugh intended Castle Howard to be the house. Finally it has a chapel built as a model for Brideshead Castle. AP also wedding present from Lord Marchmain to engaged in similar fictional country house his wife. Sebastian describes it as in the “constructions” in Dance. For example, in style of “art nouveau” and rather dated. It the cases of Castlemallock, Dogdene, is set in a valley and approached by a long Thrubworth Park and Stourhead Castle, AP road, appearing in the distance at a turning. gives details of the houses similar to those Many of these features can be attributed to offered by Waugh for Brideshead Castle Castle Howard, but they are not unique to that offer hints as to their sources or it. So how strong is the case for Castle inspirations. Howard being the model for Brideshead? Critics have noted the similarities between 1. Castle Howard was built in 1699, after Castle Howard and Brideshead Castle. the time of Inigo Jones (1572-1653), This goes back before the Granada and designed by Vanbrugh and broadcast to Christopher Sykes’ 1975 Hawksmoor. biography of Waugh: 2. The most obvious and noticeable The original of Brideshead can exterior features of Castle Howard are doubtfully be traced to many great its baroque style and dome. houses which Evelyn knew, but I Waugh dwells on the dome, situating fancy that a strong contribution was Nanny Hawkins’ room within it. In made by Castle Howard. later editions he described the dome as Harold Acton wrote in 1982, without false, designed to be seen from giving any source, below like the cupolas of Chambord. It was a pleasure to learn that Castle Its drum was merely an additional Howard, in Yorkshire, has been story full of segmental rooms. chosen to be Brideshead on This additional information seems television. It was the author’s inapplicable to the drum, or lantern as it prototype. is called at Castle Howard, which is 3 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #62 below the cupola and empty except for The Madresfield chapel was an Arts and windows to light the space below. Crafts design but less Victorian and more 3. There are no prominent colonnades and Renaissance revival. This is especially flanking pavilions. The only exterior true of the frescoes that brighten and colonnade at Castle Howard is in one colour the walls. They may not qualify as corner of the central courtyard in the “art nouveau” but are closer to that style north facade. It is not one of the first than the darkly Victorian Castle Howard things that you notice. chapel. The chapel at Madresfield was also constructed as a wedding present (but 4. Castle Howard’s fountain is large and from wife to husband). prominently situated opposite the south façade above the lakes, as in the book, Brideshead Castle’s location is another but is not the sort Waugh had imagined. problem. In the novel, it is a few hours In the novel, it was brought over from west of Oxford, in Wiltshire. Charles and Italy piece-by-piece and reassembled at Sebastian could drive there and back from Brideshead. It is therefore Italian, rather Oxford in one day with ample time for a than Italianate or Victorian. The Atlas visit. Castle Howard is in the North Fountain at Castle Howard was Riding of Yorkshire, probably a similar constructed in the 19th century and first distance from York as Brideshead was assembled in London for the 1851 Great from Oxford. Again, Brideshead seems Exhibition. Afterwards it was moved, more Madresfield than Castle Howard. piece-by-piece, to Castle Howard where Waugh took care in the novel not to create it was reassembled. It is large and too many allusions to Madresfield as he prominent but lacks the charm of the wished to preserve deniability about the novel’s Italian baroque reconstruction. identification of the Flytes and the Lygons, As with the chapel, it is more Victorian who lived at Madresfield and with whom than baroque. There is also a temple he was still on friendly terms – at least and an obelisk at Castle Howard. with Mary and Dorothy. So, Castle Howard’s outward appearance He succeeded, as Dorothy Lygon having is similar to Waugh’s description of considered the physical description of Brideshead Castle, but not a dead ringer.