Thank you Alex for your thoughtful analysis. I am tolerably interested in Art but, I must admit, never heard of Llote or Glaizes. On what you showed I don’t think that I would want a portrait painted by either of them. I must look them up.
There is definitely a gathering gloom running through the book and we, of course, know what’s coming. McClintick’s suicide at the end of the book contributes to the atmosphere.
I do agree that more about Nick’s wedding would have been interesting but I suppose he is simply keeping himself in the background as narrator. He doles out snippets about his private life from time to time, like the arrival of the baby, but doesn’t elaborate.
In preparation for The Kindly Ones I listened to Peter Dawson singing the Kashmiri song - I expected it to sound familiar but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.
I’m glad you like The Card - very different from most of Arnold Bennett but such a good read. I have recommended it to many over the years and sometimes sent people a copy when they said they hadn’t read it.
Very insightful and informative, as always. As you know, the visual arts are really not my chosen specialist subject, so to have this imagery pointed out to me is to cast a light on the book which would otherwise pass me by - thank you.
I was, though, profoundly drawn in by the other arts at the heart of this volume - music and literature. The introduction Moreland and McClintick into the Dance (the latter tragically and movingly briefly), for me, give the narrative a whole new dimension - I find them both completely absorbing. The success-not-success of Moreland’s symphony is really well described and strikes me as very realistic.
I was hoping you would say more about St John Clarke. I mean, what on earth is going on there? Jenkins only meets him once, and yet he gives him a lot of “airtime” in books 2-5, mostly to be consistently, and almost unbelievably cuttingly, rude about him - notwithstanding that (or perhaps because) Clarke is the elder, more experienced and successful writer of the two. Is this Jenkins at his most snobbish, or is something else going on?
And marriage is a key theme, as you say. The falling apart of the McClinticks’ relationship plays out painfully in front of our eyes (in a series of books where so much of the drama actually happens “off stage”) - the scene at Mrs Foxe’s party is quite brutal.
I’m ploughing straight on with book six, and then maybe I’ll take a short breather.
St John Clarke is John Galsworthy (indeed he used 'John Sinjon' as an alias when he was a young writer) and Powell knew him when he was working at Duckworths who published Galsworthy. He thought Galsworthy was a bit up himself so there's a purely personal element, but he also regarded him as a standard bearer of the old-fashioned novel and vey middlebrow taste. On top of which, Powell was not, as you may imagine, a fan of Marxists of any hue. Perhaps too there's an element of rivalry since The Forsyte Saga is not a million miles away from Dance.
I suppose it’s just another thread running through the Dance. I’ve just read the bit in The Kindly Ones where Jenkins says there were only four books in the bookcase in his childhood home, one of which was a St John Clarke. Perhaps I should re-read th Forsyte Saga, too - although my recollection is that it somewhat drifts after the first three books.
Indeed. It’s nearly 30 years since I read these and, as you say, it’s just as shocking. BTW I agree strongly with what you say about Matilda. I would very much like to have known more of her story than Powell is interested in telling us.
As always your commentary illuminates aspects of the book I hadn’t focused on. Watteau’s The Love Lesson made me think immediately of the old Sagne cafe on Marylebone High Street, which had dreamy trompe d’oeil interiors -now all swept away. I found a picture of Lucien Freud supping there with his mother in the 80s. In those days it was beloved of Harley St doctors, RAM musicians and genteel ladies such as myself with a penchant for afternoon tea. Perhaps it was Powell’s inspiration. And I couldn’t help imagining The Mortimer pub as The Wheatsheaf in Rathbone Place - never bombed as far as I know, but a well known haunt of Dylan Thomas and Augustus John.
I’d love to see the paintings that were exhibited in the show of the London Group!
I hope you don’t mind me adding my own thoughts (in a bit of length here).
I like the way Casanova’s starts at the end and, just like the fate of some of Nick’s friends (which we don’t learn about till later) it has been obliterated by a wartime bomb. We are invited to think that that world and that part of Nicks life is now over. But I don’t think it was!
I can’t help finding shared imagery with Waugh’s books (think of the trompe d’oiel room in Brideshead (1945)) or Decline and fall (1928), which I gather was influenced by Gibbon.
But while Gibbon describes the decline and eventual obliteration of Roman civilisation - serious stuff and Waugh treated the whole 30s decline as a bit of a joke, Powell’s characters are more nuanced and suffer a variety of fates. One commits suicide, triggering another to leave his mistress to go back to his wife. Erridge is left money - enabling him to do the right thing by his family and Nick stands always at the centre of the maelstrom, observant, uncritical and unscathed.
Casanovas is described as East meets West, present and past, incongruous - an amalgam of cultures, just as Nick’s circle encompass business and the arts, straight and gay, rich and poor. I like the way old friends like Deacon, St John Clarke and Mackintosh represent the ‘old school’ the past while Moreland, Erridge and women like the Tolland sisters represent a future, albeit one that is about to be sorely tested.
I noticed the deliberate ambivalence that Powell shows to his characters who are often contradictory. This is personified in Matilda, who turns out to be complex in character and looks. She is described as unconventionally beautiful, a ‘jolie laide’. I had to look it up, roughly translated it means ‘pretty ugly’ - striking or unconventional - I imagine a twiggy or a Grace Jones, not a Mia Farrow.
Nobody is sainted or condemned in the book. Even the most feckless of characters are treated even handedly. is there a tinge of guilt here One wonders whether Powell himself, who married Lady Violet Pakenham in 1934 left a few skeletons in his own cupboards at that time? Though I’m not aware of any.
The balance of humour and drama is skilful. The one heightens the other. As the book progresses and the prospect of war looms the mood certainly darkens. Nick’s rather hapless bohemian friends are treated with humour, but the suicide of a fellow music critic brings Nick and Moreland to their senses.
I found the decline and fall of Maclintick to be unexpectedly sombre and sad. He becomes a metaphore for the pre-war ‘carefree’ bohemians who we will not see again until the 60s.
There is probably recognition that the old world is probably best left behind.
The book ends with the metaphor of the ghost train, which pitched and turned its passengers this way and that, both fast and slow towards ‘a shape that lay across the line’. That spectre is certainly the Second World War.
Thank you Alex for your thoughtful analysis. I am tolerably interested in Art but, I must admit, never heard of Llote or Glaizes. On what you showed I don’t think that I would want a portrait painted by either of them. I must look them up.
There is definitely a gathering gloom running through the book and we, of course, know what’s coming. McClintick’s suicide at the end of the book contributes to the atmosphere.
I do agree that more about Nick’s wedding would have been interesting but I suppose he is simply keeping himself in the background as narrator. He doles out snippets about his private life from time to time, like the arrival of the baby, but doesn’t elaborate.
In preparation for The Kindly Ones I listened to Peter Dawson singing the Kashmiri song - I expected it to sound familiar but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.
I’m glad you like The Card - very different from most of Arnold Bennett but such a good read. I have recommended it to many over the years and sometimes sent people a copy when they said they hadn’t read it.
Peter Dawson is permanently associated in my mind with Tom Good in The Good Life singing The Bandolero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Mg2gkV48Y
Very insightful and informative, as always. As you know, the visual arts are really not my chosen specialist subject, so to have this imagery pointed out to me is to cast a light on the book which would otherwise pass me by - thank you.
I was, though, profoundly drawn in by the other arts at the heart of this volume - music and literature. The introduction Moreland and McClintick into the Dance (the latter tragically and movingly briefly), for me, give the narrative a whole new dimension - I find them both completely absorbing. The success-not-success of Moreland’s symphony is really well described and strikes me as very realistic.
I was hoping you would say more about St John Clarke. I mean, what on earth is going on there? Jenkins only meets him once, and yet he gives him a lot of “airtime” in books 2-5, mostly to be consistently, and almost unbelievably cuttingly, rude about him - notwithstanding that (or perhaps because) Clarke is the elder, more experienced and successful writer of the two. Is this Jenkins at his most snobbish, or is something else going on?
And marriage is a key theme, as you say. The falling apart of the McClinticks’ relationship plays out painfully in front of our eyes (in a series of books where so much of the drama actually happens “off stage”) - the scene at Mrs Foxe’s party is quite brutal.
I’m ploughing straight on with book six, and then maybe I’ll take a short breather.
St John Clarke is John Galsworthy (indeed he used 'John Sinjon' as an alias when he was a young writer) and Powell knew him when he was working at Duckworths who published Galsworthy. He thought Galsworthy was a bit up himself so there's a purely personal element, but he also regarded him as a standard bearer of the old-fashioned novel and vey middlebrow taste. On top of which, Powell was not, as you may imagine, a fan of Marxists of any hue. Perhaps too there's an element of rivalry since The Forsyte Saga is not a million miles away from Dance.
I suppose it’s just another thread running through the Dance. I’ve just read the bit in The Kindly Ones where Jenkins says there were only four books in the bookcase in his childhood home, one of which was a St John Clarke. Perhaps I should re-read th Forsyte Saga, too - although my recollection is that it somewhat drifts after the first three books.
I agree the McClintick story is very sad and very absorbing. Even though I’ve read all these books before the suicide shocked me anew.
Indeed. It’s nearly 30 years since I read these and, as you say, it’s just as shocking. BTW I agree strongly with what you say about Matilda. I would very much like to have known more of her story than Powell is interested in telling us.
Is she based on Lady Violet Aitken, the real life wife of Lord Beaverbrook who the AP society say is one of the models for Sir Magnus Donners?
Casanovas Chinese Restaurant
As always your commentary illuminates aspects of the book I hadn’t focused on. Watteau’s The Love Lesson made me think immediately of the old Sagne cafe on Marylebone High Street, which had dreamy trompe d’oeil interiors -now all swept away. I found a picture of Lucien Freud supping there with his mother in the 80s. In those days it was beloved of Harley St doctors, RAM musicians and genteel ladies such as myself with a penchant for afternoon tea. Perhaps it was Powell’s inspiration. And I couldn’t help imagining The Mortimer pub as The Wheatsheaf in Rathbone Place - never bombed as far as I know, but a well known haunt of Dylan Thomas and Augustus John.
I’d love to see the paintings that were exhibited in the show of the London Group!
I hope you don’t mind me adding my own thoughts (in a bit of length here).
I like the way Casanova’s starts at the end and, just like the fate of some of Nick’s friends (which we don’t learn about till later) it has been obliterated by a wartime bomb. We are invited to think that that world and that part of Nicks life is now over. But I don’t think it was!
I can’t help finding shared imagery with Waugh’s books (think of the trompe d’oiel room in Brideshead (1945)) or Decline and fall (1928), which I gather was influenced by Gibbon.
But while Gibbon describes the decline and eventual obliteration of Roman civilisation - serious stuff and Waugh treated the whole 30s decline as a bit of a joke, Powell’s characters are more nuanced and suffer a variety of fates. One commits suicide, triggering another to leave his mistress to go back to his wife. Erridge is left money - enabling him to do the right thing by his family and Nick stands always at the centre of the maelstrom, observant, uncritical and unscathed.
Casanovas is described as East meets West, present and past, incongruous - an amalgam of cultures, just as Nick’s circle encompass business and the arts, straight and gay, rich and poor. I like the way old friends like Deacon, St John Clarke and Mackintosh represent the ‘old school’ the past while Moreland, Erridge and women like the Tolland sisters represent a future, albeit one that is about to be sorely tested.
I noticed the deliberate ambivalence that Powell shows to his characters who are often contradictory. This is personified in Matilda, who turns out to be complex in character and looks. She is described as unconventionally beautiful, a ‘jolie laide’. I had to look it up, roughly translated it means ‘pretty ugly’ - striking or unconventional - I imagine a twiggy or a Grace Jones, not a Mia Farrow.
Nobody is sainted or condemned in the book. Even the most feckless of characters are treated even handedly. is there a tinge of guilt here One wonders whether Powell himself, who married Lady Violet Pakenham in 1934 left a few skeletons in his own cupboards at that time? Though I’m not aware of any.
The balance of humour and drama is skilful. The one heightens the other. As the book progresses and the prospect of war looms the mood certainly darkens. Nick’s rather hapless bohemian friends are treated with humour, but the suicide of a fellow music critic brings Nick and Moreland to their senses.
I found the decline and fall of Maclintick to be unexpectedly sombre and sad. He becomes a metaphore for the pre-war ‘carefree’ bohemians who we will not see again until the 60s.
There is probably recognition that the old world is probably best left behind.
The book ends with the metaphor of the ghost train, which pitched and turned its passengers this way and that, both fast and slow towards ‘a shape that lay across the line’. That spectre is certainly the Second World War.
Thank you and looking forward to next month
Always welcome your comments Wendy, long or short.