Thanks for these thoughts, very interesting. I finished it last night. There is so much I had forgotten from my previous reading 20 years ago. One thing I do remember, and which struck me again this time around, is how little Jenkins tells us about himself. By the end of the first couple of pages of David Copperfield (another semi-autobiographical, first-person, connection-filled waltz through life), we know when, where and how he was born, his family circumstances, some sketches of his parents, who his relatives are etc.. We don’t know any of that with Jenkins, even after a whole book. So unlike Dickens, Powell’s protagonist essentially remains a blank canvass (to continue the art analogy) on which he gradually paints his river of connections. Very clever - like watching a Tony Hart artwork gradually emerge. I’m going straight on to book two, before I forget who’s who.
Yes, I love the narrator taking a step backwards rather than a step forwards at the start (I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we do find out a bit more about Nick's back story in future books). I also like the general vagueness of life portrayed, the almost complete lack of anything to do with studying at Oxford, the broadest of broad brushstrokes of what life was like at school. There's a great moment in A Buyer's Market when somebody turns up and Nick wonders why their name is familiar and it's *exactly* how I felt because I couldn't put my finger on why either until the reveal when it obviously flooded back. Very clever writing.
Thanks for that lovely intro and commentary, Alex. I really enjoyed AQOU on this second (possibly third) read. I'd noted, as you, the supreme confidence of the line “He piled his luggage, bit by bit, on to a taxi; and passed out of my life for some 20 years". And likewise, Stringham is one of my favourite characters, though I'd forgotten about his depression. There's so much to enjoy in the prose, and the seamless flow of the narrative. The French interlude is wonderful (for some reason I'm reminded of a similar section in A.S. Byatt's Still Life, part two of her Frederica quartet, which has a similar scope to Powell in terms of time, society and character lists, relatively speaking). And the second section, with visits chez Stringham and Templer, reminded me of some of Elizabeth Bowen's novels. One of my main questions, however, is about class - how much of the satire and emotional resonance of the novels relies on a more or less sympathetic understanding of the English class system. I'm very much middle class, but parts of my wider family were close to parts of society that Powell would have recognised (Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service) and, as with Molesworth, my grammar school education gives me, I feel, a partial understanding of the school sections. Does of all that mean I'm partial? Would my appreciation of it be different without it?
Yes, I'm also Team Stringham (and strongly tempted to make a comment about what happens to him but it's such a spoiler that I shall bide my time). I take the point about the class element, but I think that the characters are - as Chris suggests below - in the archetypes zone. I'm a big fan of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories and would suggest that's one of the things that links the two works together is this universality, even though they are about quite different classes (and times and places of course). I went to public school (a rather hippy dippy Quaker one in Yorkshire, about as far from the Eton experience as is possible) and Oxford so perhaps there's something that resonates as a result, but I'd hope it doesn't put people off, in the same way that I loved Jeff Torrington's Swing Hammer Swing ages ago even though my knowledge of the Gorbals is less than substantial.
Having read Upbringing years ago and gone no further (I think it fared badly next to F. Scott Fitzgerald at the time), I am now devouring these novels and am about half way through the fourth. Without spoiling anything I am impressed by the knitting together of all these lives and wonder just how much Powell already had planned for future novels while writing Upbringing. I imagine not so much, and probably less and less as the series went on, but it's a wonderful trick to pull off the same illusion that life itself often gives you of being a kind of narrative while being mostly serendipitous. Despite these characters being separated from us by a century, and by their privileged social position, they are still recognisable, perhaps even archetypes to some extent. At a funeral recently I met my own Uncle Giles (not really an uncle, and not called Giles) whose mildly disreputable but also quite endearing personality made him a family legend, one of whose defining exploits involved driving around the country selling oil-powered candles to priests, only to find that once the market was saturated with the candles, they could buy the oil more cheaply from local hardware stores. He even persuaded my puritanical mother to keep a bottle of vodka in the cupboard for when he arrived out of the blue looking for a place to stay.
He had only six in mind originally, but he's obviously playing the long game already. I absolutely agree about the knitting together - it feels both remarkably coincidental and yet similarly totally believable. I have several Sunny Farebrothers running through my life and a couple of Quiggins. I don't think I have any Widmerpools but perhaps if you look around and can't see any Widmerpools in your circle then...
….(so as to recollect) what one has previously been told about them when they reappear. I remembered much of book from before but with various omissions- I had quite forgotten about the French interlude.
Yes, I'd forgotten how long the French section was too. Also, how many indicators there are as to Widmerpool's character and life choices. One of my favourite bits is where Sillery mischievously tells Quiggin and Members that they are almost neighbours. Fully cringey stuff.
Thank you for reintroducing me to these books. I managed to catch up and finished volume one this afternoon. I remembered from previous readings, and you have underlined this, that one has to take notice of all the characters mentioned so as to recollect
Thanks for these thoughts, very interesting. I finished it last night. There is so much I had forgotten from my previous reading 20 years ago. One thing I do remember, and which struck me again this time around, is how little Jenkins tells us about himself. By the end of the first couple of pages of David Copperfield (another semi-autobiographical, first-person, connection-filled waltz through life), we know when, where and how he was born, his family circumstances, some sketches of his parents, who his relatives are etc.. We don’t know any of that with Jenkins, even after a whole book. So unlike Dickens, Powell’s protagonist essentially remains a blank canvass (to continue the art analogy) on which he gradually paints his river of connections. Very clever - like watching a Tony Hart artwork gradually emerge. I’m going straight on to book two, before I forget who’s who.
Yes, I love the narrator taking a step backwards rather than a step forwards at the start (I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we do find out a bit more about Nick's back story in future books). I also like the general vagueness of life portrayed, the almost complete lack of anything to do with studying at Oxford, the broadest of broad brushstrokes of what life was like at school. There's a great moment in A Buyer's Market when somebody turns up and Nick wonders why their name is familiar and it's *exactly* how I felt because I couldn't put my finger on why either until the reveal when it obviously flooded back. Very clever writing.
Thanks for that lovely intro and commentary, Alex. I really enjoyed AQOU on this second (possibly third) read. I'd noted, as you, the supreme confidence of the line “He piled his luggage, bit by bit, on to a taxi; and passed out of my life for some 20 years". And likewise, Stringham is one of my favourite characters, though I'd forgotten about his depression. There's so much to enjoy in the prose, and the seamless flow of the narrative. The French interlude is wonderful (for some reason I'm reminded of a similar section in A.S. Byatt's Still Life, part two of her Frederica quartet, which has a similar scope to Powell in terms of time, society and character lists, relatively speaking). And the second section, with visits chez Stringham and Templer, reminded me of some of Elizabeth Bowen's novels. One of my main questions, however, is about class - how much of the satire and emotional resonance of the novels relies on a more or less sympathetic understanding of the English class system. I'm very much middle class, but parts of my wider family were close to parts of society that Powell would have recognised (Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service) and, as with Molesworth, my grammar school education gives me, I feel, a partial understanding of the school sections. Does of all that mean I'm partial? Would my appreciation of it be different without it?
Yes, I'm also Team Stringham (and strongly tempted to make a comment about what happens to him but it's such a spoiler that I shall bide my time). I take the point about the class element, but I think that the characters are - as Chris suggests below - in the archetypes zone. I'm a big fan of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories and would suggest that's one of the things that links the two works together is this universality, even though they are about quite different classes (and times and places of course). I went to public school (a rather hippy dippy Quaker one in Yorkshire, about as far from the Eton experience as is possible) and Oxford so perhaps there's something that resonates as a result, but I'd hope it doesn't put people off, in the same way that I loved Jeff Torrington's Swing Hammer Swing ages ago even though my knowledge of the Gorbals is less than substantial.
Having read Upbringing years ago and gone no further (I think it fared badly next to F. Scott Fitzgerald at the time), I am now devouring these novels and am about half way through the fourth. Without spoiling anything I am impressed by the knitting together of all these lives and wonder just how much Powell already had planned for future novels while writing Upbringing. I imagine not so much, and probably less and less as the series went on, but it's a wonderful trick to pull off the same illusion that life itself often gives you of being a kind of narrative while being mostly serendipitous. Despite these characters being separated from us by a century, and by their privileged social position, they are still recognisable, perhaps even archetypes to some extent. At a funeral recently I met my own Uncle Giles (not really an uncle, and not called Giles) whose mildly disreputable but also quite endearing personality made him a family legend, one of whose defining exploits involved driving around the country selling oil-powered candles to priests, only to find that once the market was saturated with the candles, they could buy the oil more cheaply from local hardware stores. He even persuaded my puritanical mother to keep a bottle of vodka in the cupboard for when he arrived out of the blue looking for a place to stay.
He had only six in mind originally, but he's obviously playing the long game already. I absolutely agree about the knitting together - it feels both remarkably coincidental and yet similarly totally believable. I have several Sunny Farebrothers running through my life and a couple of Quiggins. I don't think I have any Widmerpools but perhaps if you look around and can't see any Widmerpools in your circle then...
Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that.
Are you on BlueSky?
I am. https://bsky.app/profile/shedworking.bsky.social
(Sorry. Sent the comment above by accident. )
….(so as to recollect) what one has previously been told about them when they reappear. I remembered much of book from before but with various omissions- I had quite forgotten about the French interlude.
Yes, I'd forgotten how long the French section was too. Also, how many indicators there are as to Widmerpool's character and life choices. One of my favourite bits is where Sillery mischievously tells Quiggin and Members that they are almost neighbours. Fully cringey stuff.
Thank you for reintroducing me to these books. I managed to catch up and finished volume one this afternoon. I remembered from previous readings, and you have underlined this, that one has to take notice of all the characters mentioned so as to recollect