Voyeurism and Reading: Narrative Strategy in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time submitted by Alexis Thomson English Department McGill University Montreal July 1991 A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. @)Alexis Thomson i ASSTRACT This thesis will argrue that Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of rime is a work that can tell us much about our reading process. Powell uses a homodiegetic narrator to tell the stories of a vast array of characters over a large span of time. This narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, is, in the non­ sexual sense of the word, voyeuristic. He watches and remembers the actions of others while only participating minimally. Widmerpool, the oIlly other character to appear in aIl twelve volumes, is a voyeur in the sexual sense of the word. The defining faat~re of voyeurism is its fundamental asymmetry: the voyeur watches whilst remaining hidden and unseen. It will be argued that the reader is also involved in acts of voyeurism due to his/her asymmetrical relationship w th the text. Although this equation of voyeurism and reading may seem to contradict recenl reader-response critics, it will be argued that voyeurism is an apt description for the primary stage of reading. ( ü RESUME La présente thèse soutient que A Dance to the Music of Time d'Anthony Powell est une oeuvre qui nous aide à comprendre le processus de lecture. Powell se sert d'un narrateur hcmodipgetique qui raconte les vies d'une multitude de personnages pendant une periode de plusiers années. Ce narrateur est un voyeur dans le sens non-sexuel du terme. Il observe et il se renlémore les actions des autres personnages en ne prennant pas que très peu à l'action. Widmerpool, le seul autre personnage à apparaître dans les douze volumes est un voyeur dans le sens sexuel du mot. Il est proposé que le lecteur est aussi un voyeur à son tour due à sa relation inévitable avec le texte. Même si la relation ~ntre le voyeurisme et la lecture semble contredire les récents critiques litteraires "reader-response", cette thèse soutient toute fois que le voyeurisme illuste correctement le processus du lecture. üi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ...................... " ... ii Resume ......................... , .. iii Table of Contents ................. i v Acknowledgement ................... v List of Abbreviations ............ " iv Introduction ...... .. • .. ,,1 Chapter 1 ......................... G Chapter 2 ......................... 2:\ Chapter 3 ......................... 49 Chapter 4 ......................... 78 Bibliography ...................... 109 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Before l can proceed further it is necessary to thank those who helped me in this endeavour. First and foremost l must thank my advisor Professor Ron Reichertz for his help, patience, wit, and enthusiasm. l would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Paisley Livingston, who helped for­ mulate my ideas or narratology and reading; my father who introduced me to the wonderful Music of Time ; and to friends Chris Forbes and Patrick Ashmore for their thoughts on Powell. Finally l want to thank Neal Herbert for teaching me how to use a computer, and to Becky Sandler for translating my abstracto v LIST OF ABBREVIATIQNS USED IN THESIS QU . •••.•.....•.............•... ... A Question of Upbringing BM .......•........................ A Buyer's Market AW . ............................... The Acceptance World LM ...•............................ At Lady Molly's CCR . ...........................•. Casanova' s Chinese Restaurant KO . ..••.•...•...••....•........•• The Ki ndly Ones VB • .•••••..•.•••..••.....•••..... The Valley of Eones SA . •••...•.••....••.•...•••.••... The Soldier's Art MP ••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••• The Military Philosophers BFR ....••••.....•.........•...... Books Do Furnish a Roo!!'! TK . ............................• Temporary Ki ngs HSH ....•....... .......•..... .... Hearing Secret Harmonies KBR • .....•..•..•.•••.•..••.••..• To Keep the BalI Rolling l' VI • 1 INTRODUCTION 2 In this thesis l will focus on the uses and incidents of voyeurisnl in Anthony powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. Before any real work can be done, then, it is first necessary to define voy~urism as it is to be used throughout this paper. Chambers English Dictionary defines a voyeur as: one who desires gratification from surreptitiously watching sexual acts as objects: a Peeping Tom: one who takes a morbid interest in sordid sights. (1656) As one would expect, the psycho-sexual definition again hinges or the sexual side of voyeurism. In "Voyeurism: A ~eview of Literature" the definition given to begin the article is "d ( pathological indulgence looking at sorne form of nudity as a source of gratification in place of the normal sex act" (Smith, 586). Powell, however, in his memoirs, definitely defines voy- eurism as a manner of being, regardless of the pathology or sexuality of the watcher. He states that there is an important division of the human race between voyeurs and exhibitionists. In such a crude appointment of temperament (in life rather than sex) l should, for example, grade myself as a voyeur, though say, most of my Oxford contemporaries as exhibitionists. (KBR 4: 79) Powell's idea, that voyeurism can be either sexual or non-sexual, is the one used in this thesis. One reason for this is that literary criticism does seem to have accepted the non-sexual sense of the word "voyeurism" over the last fort y years. For example, Phyllis Greenacre's bvok, Swift and l 3 Carroll, uses the word "voyeurism" in an attempt to define Alice's general relationship with Wonderland. Furthermore, Joel Rudinow claims that in the "voyeuristic project" the "crux is neither the visual nor the sexual, but asymmét-ry:" The voyeur seeks a spectacle, the revelation of the object of his interest, that something or someone should be 0pt:n to his inspection and contemplation; but no reciprocal revelation or openness is con­ ceded, for the voyeur requires; at the same time to remain hidden. (176) "Voyeurism" is an accepted word in the literary community to describe the idea of excessive watching. Perhaps the real problem is that no other synonym can be found: "spying" has too many political connotations, and "watching" remains too nebulous and common an occurrence. At the same time, both "spying" and "watching" do have a fair amount of importance in The Music of Time. Widmerpool's intrigues and Trapnel's assertion that the novelist i~ like the spy (BFR 243) are ex- amples of political voyeurism. Sight and watching are also privileged in the work: one of Dr. Trelawney's famous axioms is "The Vision of Visions Heals the Blindness of Sight"(KO 67) . The Music of Time is a work which helps open this idea of voyeurism up, as it contrasts two thorough-going voyeurs, Nicholas Jenkins, and Kenneth Widmerpool. Of the two, Wid- merpool is far more obviously a sexual voyeur. In the eleventh volume, Temporary Kings, Pamela, his wife, openly accuses him of "watching through the curtain," while she is 4 "being screwed"(TK 266). However, Jenkins is also a voyeur, although, generally in the non-sexual sense of the word. His narrative stance emphasizes his interest in the lives of others, at the expense of self-revelation. As he controls the narrative voice, he is able to "remain hidden", as Rudi- now says, fram the reader, while observing the actions of others. Jenkins continually tells us about the lives of those around him, while often remaining silent about his own place in the action. His continual passivity, but acute observa- tions stress his asymmetrical relationship to those around him. Jenkins' narrative stance down plays his own desires, needs, and life, while focusing on his external reality. In fact, Jenkins, in many ways mirrors the actions of the ( reader: the reader also stands outside the action in reading the text. The reader, in being in an asymmetrical position, also is a voyeur. Theorists such as Roland Barthes have already noted the parallels between narrative structure and the sexual act. From this observation jt is just a small step to making the parallel between reading and voyeuris~. William Gass is one critic who has made this step and insists that what the reader wants is "the penetration of privacy" (84) . He also de- scribes words as "one-way mirrors"(84) which allow the reader to observe while remaining hidden. And Marriana Torgovnick specifically sees the reader of The Music of Time as being implicated in this process of voyeurism. Furthermore, Powell is not the only novelist to establish this analogue between s reading and voyeurism: Alain Robbe-Grillet, also, on numer­ ous occasions, accuses the reader of being a voyeur. So, by using the actions of Widmerpo0l and Jenkins, two very differ­ ent kinds of voyeurs, there will be a refining of the idea of how voyeurism relates to reading. It is possible to see Jenkins as R parallel reader: just as he observes those around him, the reader observes the text. And lastly, l will accept the challenge of the reader­ response critics, most notably Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser, who claim that the reader is inside textuality, and therefore cannot be a voyeur. These critic3 see reading as a process which brings about a subject/ object mergeri if this merger actually happens there can be no asymmetry and no voyeurism. Conversely, l will argue, that reading is not a single unified acti rather there are three stages of the reading process -- "reading", "interpretation", and "crit­ icism"(Scholes ,1985,20) -- and voyeurism is essential to the first stage. By seeing how Widmerpool and Jenkins reRd life differently, both beginning by ob5erving the world around them, or by being voyeurs, it i5 possible to understand more clearly how they function in The Music of Time, and how we function as readers. Essentially, what is to be studied is the space where The Music of Time intersects with the reader­ response critics' thoughts.