A Buyer's Market

Cecil Beaton, Margaret Emma Alice Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith, 1927

By Anthony Powell, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995

Set during the interwar years, this is the second novel in Powell's cycle about a group of aristocratic and haute bourgeois Londoners.  I'm looking at photographs of Cecil Beaton to imagine Powell's world.  I wonder if Beaton's sitters aren't too artistic, however.  I'm not sure Powell's mise-en-scene is this glamorous.  Once again, I feel like I'm trying to discern the social life and customs of Martians.

The story opens with a night of debutante balls in London, and the novel's action centers around the families of Nicolas Jenkins, Peter Templer, Charles Stringham, and Kenneth Widmerpool. At the night's first party, Barbara Goring, a lovely but willful young woman, pours sugar over the head of the piggish Widmerpool.  Widmerpool and Jenkins later meet Mr. Deacon, a painter of dull history pictures, and Gypsy Jones, a fetching anti-war activist.  Widmerpool and Gypsy have been having an affair, and Widmerpool pays for her to have an abortion.  Within the context of the novel, I was genuinely astonished.  (Did I dream this?  It is so out of step with the rest of the tale!)

Sir Magnus Donners, Widmerpool's employer, hosts lunches at his estate, Stourwater.  During one of these parties, Jenkins becomes reacquainted Jean Templer, Peter's slender and remote sister.  She's married to Bob Duport, Jenkins's friend from university.  Jenkins yearns for Jean but admits that the "sluttish" Gypsy is quite attractive.  Its hard to tell, but I think Jenkins has an affair with Jean.  In any event, love is in the air: Charles Stringham marries Peggy Stepnev, Barbara becomes engaged to a solider, and Jenkins sleeps with Gypsy.  The renewal promised by romantic love is contrasted with the inexorable march toward the grave.  Mr. Deacon dies after his birthday party. 

I don't understand the title.  What is the buyer's market being referred to?  Is the commodity human connection and love?  Social capital is very important in Powell.  I wonder if the competitive social scene where money and birth are two pillars of influence are the commodities?  As an aside, I so enjoyed reading Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings on Powell.