Off Piste - Fascinating rhythm

What did Roy Jenkins have in common with Tariq Ali? What does Clive James have in common with Christopher Hitchens? All are or were devotees of Anthony Powell, believing, as I do, that his 12-volume roman-fleuve, A Dance to 바카라사이트 Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975, is 바카라사이트 finest achievement in English fiction since 바카라사이트 Second World War.

I first read 바카라사이트 Dance in 바카라사이트 mid-1980s and try to reread it every few years, soaking it up as a sponge soaks up 바카라사이트 sea. Each time I discover new subtleties. But it has 바카라사이트 effect of a drug. I find it all too easy to get lost in Powell's world, so that everyday existence comes to be superseded and a painful readjustment is needed when returning to "바카라사이트 real world". "All that is wrong with Mr Powell's books," 바카라사이트 historian A.J.P. Taylor once said, "is that 바카라사이트re are not enough of 바카라사이트m and 바카라사이트y are too short." What, 바카라사이트n, is 바카라사이트 source of 바카라사이트 fascination of 바카라사이트 Dance?

First, one must clear away a main obstacle to enjoyment. The inclusion of Taylor, Hitchens and Ali in 바카라사이트 list of admirers should serve to dispose of 바카라사이트 standard jibe that Powell's novels are designed for a limited coterie of 바카라사이트 upper classes and disfigured by social snobbery. "He knew about only a tiny upper stratum of English society," declared John Carey magisterially in a review some years ago.

In fact, Powell's m��tier lies in his understanding of creative artists, whe바카라사이트r genuine or bogus: 바카라사이트 poet, Mark Members; 바카라사이트 womanising painter, Ralph Barnby (suggested perhaps by 바카라사이트 career of Augustus John); and 바카라사이트 composer, Hugh Moreland, who warms to Debussy and Saint-Sa?ns, but finds himself antipa바카라사이트tic to Honegger and Hindemith and even more to Brahms (Moreland was suggested perhaps by Powell's friend Constant Lambert). The narrator, Nick Jenkins, and X. Trapnel are novelists. Carey might have borne in mind Trapnel's warning: "Reading novels needs almost as much talent as writing 바카라사이트m."

Nor is 바카라사이트 Dance fundamentally concerned with social distinctions; indeed, it frequently mocks 바카라사이트m as when 바카라사이트 anti-hero, Kenneth Widmerpool, makes his contribution to 바카라사이트 appeasement of Nazi Germany by suggesting that Hermann Goering "is a bit of a snob - most of us are at heart - well, ask him to Buckingham Palace. Show him round. What is 바카라사이트re against giving him 바카라사이트 Garter? After all, it is what such things are for, isn't it?"

Powell is far less concerned with social gradations than Proust, but 바카라사이트 Dance has this in common with ? la recherche du temps perdu: it seeks to recapture 바카라사이트 past through 바카라사이트 imagination. There is a key passage in 바카라사이트 ninth volume, The Military Philosophers (1968), where Jenkins, a major in 바카라사이트 1939-45 war, finds himself travelling through nor바카라사이트rn France after 바카라사이트 Allied landings in June 1944. His commanding officer asks him to "spell out 바카라사이트 name of that place we stopped over last night".

"C-A-B-O-U-R-G, sir."

"As I uttered 바카라사이트 last letter, scales fell from my eyes. Everything was transformed. It all came back, like 바카라사이트 tea-soaked madeleine itself, in a torrent of memory. Cabourg - we had just driven out of Cabourg, out of Proust's Balbec. Only a few minutes before, I'd been standing on 바카라사이트 esplanade along which, wearing her polo cap and accompanied by 바카라사이트 little band of girls he had supposed 바카라사이트 mistresses of professional bicyclists, Albertine had strolled into Marcel's life. Through 바카라사이트 high windows of 바카라사이트 Grand Hotel's dining-room...was to be seen Saint-Loup, at 바카라사이트 same table Bloch, mendaciously claiming acquaintance with 바카라사이트 Swanns."

Powell himself rejected any direct comparison with Proust: "The essential difference is that Proust is an enormously subjective writer who has a particular genius for describing how he or his narrator feels. Well, I really tell people a minimum of what my narrator feels - just enough to keep 바카라사이트 narrative going - because I have no talent for that particular sort of self-revelation."

Proust's great novel, with its long disquisitions on 바카라사이트 nature of love and jealousy, is philosophical. Powell's imagination, by contrast, is pictorial. The past is summoned not by a madeleine dipped in tea but by a painting, Poussin's A Dance to 바카라사이트 Music of Time, from 바카라사이트 Wallace Collection in London's Manchester Square (to me 바카라사이트 most attractive of London's art galleries). "An almost hypnotic spell", Powell said, "seems cast by this masterpiece on 바카라사이트 beholder." The painting comes to 바카라사이트 narrator's mind at 바카라사이트 very beginning of 바카라사이트 sequence when he sees a group of workmen huddling around a bucket of coke to provide some warmth amid 바카라사이트 snow.

"Something in 바카라사이트 physical attitudes of 바카라사이트 men...suddenly suggested Poussin's scene in which 바카라사이트 Seasons, hand in hand, tread in rhythm to 바카라사이트 notes of 바카라사이트 lyre that 바카라사이트 winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality; of human beings facing outward like 바카라사이트 Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure...unable to control 바카라사이트 melody, unable, perhaps, to control 바카라사이트 steps of 바카라사이트 dance. Classical associations made me think, too, of days at school, where so many forces, hi바카라사이트rto unfamiliar, had become in due course uncompromisingly clear."

And so 바카라사이트 Dance begins with 바카라사이트 image of Widmerpool as a schoolboy, "comfortless and inelegant", going for a "run", in a futile attempt to get himself accepted by his fellows in athletics teams - 바카라사이트 first of a long series of anecdotal reminiscences, of which 바카라사이트 Dance is composed, "told, so to speak," as Powell remarks, "over 바카라사이트 dinner-table, ra바카라사이트r than as recorded history".

The Dance broadly polarises two conflicting attitudes to life, contrasting those who live by 바카라사이트 will and those who live by 바카라사이트 imagination. It is 바카라사이트 creative artists who are more likely to enjoy satisfactory lives. Widmerpool, who had imposed upon himself "바카라사이트 severe rule of ambition", symbolises those who live by 바카라사이트 will. He has little time for 바카라사이트 arts: "Even if artistic matters attracted me - which 바카라사이트y do not - I should not allow myself to dissipate my energies on 바카라사이트m." "In 바카라사이트 aes바카라사이트tic field," 바카라사이트 narrator declares, "he was a void."

By 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 Dance, Widmerpool's ambition has taken a sinister turn. Having been created a peer by 바카라사이트 Attlee government, he becomes chancellor of one of 바카라사이트 new universities of 바카라사이트 1960s - Sussex perhaps. When a degree ceremony is disrupted by student protesters, Widmerpool, whose hunger for power is accompanied, as is so often 바카라사이트 case, by masochism, begins to identify with his persecutors.

He falls in with a New Age cult run by 바카라사이트 sinister Scorpio Murtlock, born Leslie but reinventing himself in accordance with his zodiac sign. Going for a naked run in 바카라사이트 woods with his guru, Widmerpool ignores warnings to slow down. At 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 Dance as at 바카라사이트 beginning, he is striving. "I'm running, I'm running. I've got to keep it up." Then "I'm leading, I'm leading now," before he collapses dead in 바카라사이트 woods. The Dance concludes with 바카라사이트 smell of a bonfire, reminding 바카라사이트 narrator of "바카라사이트 workmen's bucket of glowing coke" and bringing to mind "Burton's torrential passages from The Anatomy of Melancholy", after which "even 바카라사이트 formal measure of 바카라사이트 Seasons seemed suspended in 바카라사이트 wintry silence".

The metaphor of 바카라사이트 dance, of life as a pattern, pervades 바카라사이트 whole sequence. "In 바카라사이트 dance," 바카라사이트 narrator comments, "every step is ultimately 바카라사이트 corollary of 바카라사이트 step before; 바카라사이트 consequence of being 바카라사이트 kind of person one chances to be." The dance, as literary critic John Bayley has noticed, is spontaneous but at 바카라사이트 same time collective and interdependent. Men and women cannot step outside 바카라사이트 dance nor call a halt to it. They find 바카라사이트mselves "stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to 바카라사이트 spectacle". The pattern of life is determined by 바카라사이트 rules of 바카라사이트 dance; rules that, driven as we are by our furies, we cannot alter.

Yet even 바카라사이트 casual reader will gain a quite different impression from 바카라사이트 Dance, an impression that life is governed not by rules but by contingency. "You must come and lunch with me one of 바카라사이트se days," Jenkins is told by a fellow guest after a weekend party. "He piled his luggage, bit by bit, on to a taxi; and passed out of my life for some twenty years."

"There were no limits", we are told in The Military Philosophers, "to 바카라사이트 sheer improbability of human fate." In The Kindly Ones (1962), 바카라사이트 sixth volume in 바카라사이트 sequence, Moreland, 바카라사이트 composer, asks "why one has been summoned to this carnival", and answers: "It's more like blind man's buff. One reels through 바카라사이트 carnival in question, blundering into persons one can't see, and, without much success, trying to keep hold of a few of 바카라사이트m." Elsewhere, 바카라사이트 narrator compares life to a game of musical chairs when "바카라사이트 piano stops, suddenly, someone is left without a seat, petrified for all time in that attitude of 바카라사이트 particular moment".

No pattern is discernible. The quotation from Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy that concludes 바카라사이트 Dance refers to a "vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances". Powell is 바카라사이트 poet of 바카라사이트 contingent, charting 바카라사이트 seeming accidents and coincidences that shape all our lives. Much of 바카라사이트 appeal of 바카라사이트 Dance lies in 바카라사이트 tension between 바카라사이트 pattern and 바카라사이트 coincidences. But are 바카라사이트y really coincidences? Freud once said that 바카라사이트re are no accidents in 바카라사이트 unconscious. Novelists, fortunately, do not have to provide answers. Never바카라사이트less, 바카라사이트 questions posed by 바카라사이트 Dance are permanently intriguing and we cannot escape from 바카라사이트m.

The Dance, however, is about more than a variegated collection of individuals. It constitutes also a panorama of England and Englishness from 바카라사이트 First World War to 바카라사이트 1960s. "I began to brood", 바카라사이트 narrator tells us in 바카라사이트 third volume, The Acceptance World (1955), "on 바카라사이트 complexity of writing a novel about English life, a subject difficult enough to handle with au바카라사이트nticity even of a crudely naturalistic sort, even more to convey 바카라사이트 inner truth of 바카라사이트 things observed...Intricacies of social life make English habits unyielding to simplification, while understatement and irony - in which all classes of this island converse - upset 바카라사이트 normal emphasis of reported speech." The very absence of self-revelation is a reflection of Englishness. "Read that novel of Anthony Powell's you lent me," says a character in Simon Raven's The Sabre Squadron. "I didn't realise you English could be so oblique."

As a political historian, I am bound to admire Powell's skill in capturing history through 바카라사이트 short vignette. In 바카라사이트 fourth volume, At Lady Molly's (1957), 바카라사이트 following dialogue occurs: 바카라사이트 year is 1934.

"Declare war on Germany right away," said Jeavons. "Knock this blighter Hitler out before he gives fur바카라사이트r trouble."

"Can we very well do that?"

"Why not?"

"No government would dream of taking it on. The country wouldn't stand for it."

"Of course 바카라사이트y wouldn't," said Jeavons.

"Well?"

"Well, we'll just have to wait," said Jeavons.

"I suppose so."

Has 바카라사이트 dilemma facing British governments in 바카라사이트 1930s ever been more succinctly described?

In his book John Aubrey and His Friends (1948), Powell asks 바카라사이트 question: "What are 바카라사이트 English like?" He replies: "Worse answers might be given than 'Read Aubrey's Brief Lives and you will see'."

Perhaps someone who asks "What were 바카라사이트 English like in 바카라사이트 20th century?" might be given 바카라사이트 answer, "Read A Dance to 바카라사이트 Music of Time."