The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 25 September 2015
by Anthony Powell
It is a couple years after the end of World War 1, and people have vivid memories of the brutality of the battlefield and the camaraderie of soldiers. For a young man in a British boarding school, the world is only just unfolding. Nick Jenkins sees the world through the characters who surround him, beginning with his two classmates, Stringham and Templer, but spreading out to the adults he knows; a somewhat annoying uncle, a pestering schoolmaster, the families of his friends. Jenkins is very much an observer, describing what turns out to be just a handful of events key to the period of his life spanning the last year or two of boarding school, and the first year or two of university (presumably at Oxford). There is a nostalgic feeling to his reflections upon his discoveries of life's little mysteries, from the way families steer each other toward carreers, to the stirrings of interest in attractive young women (though women play quite a small role in this novel). It doesn't sound like a whole lot to hang a book upon, especially as Jenkins is so much an observer rather than actor. But Anthony Powell's writing is beautifully constructed and highly evocative. It becomes easy for the reader to feel present in this episodic coming of age. Jenkins's upbringing may be distant in time and place, but there is a universality of mood and discovery that Powell captures, almost by sneaking up on it.
The book begins, grandly enough, with a description of workmen standing around a small fire over which they've toasted their lunch, which leads to classical imagery of Roman soldiers, and then to a painting, A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin. This is the author's "madeleine moment", by which -- like Marcel Proust overwhelmed by memories triggered by a morsel of madeline soaked in tea -- Powell then is drawn back, into his youth, beginning a wave of memories that leads to a twelve-volume cycle of novels. Unlike Proust, to whom he is often favorably compared, Powell's purpose seems less to eulogize an entire era of social history and more to reflect back on events that punctuate his own growing understanding of life.
So, this is the beginning of a twelve-volume saga (or a four-volume one, if you seek out the compiled version), a nostalgic note on one man's youth that will, presumably, grow into the understanding of a man of the world. It is a short and dense novel, linguistically intricate, and subtle in its suggestions of growing understanding. Recommended.
Also by Anthony Powell: [A Buyer's Market] [The Acceptance World] [At Lady Molly's] [Casanova's Chinese Restaurant] [The Kindly Ones] [The Valley of Bones] [The Soldier's Art] [The Military Philosophers]