The Kindly Ones

Cecil Beaton, Chateau Cande, France, 1936

By Anthony Powell, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995

This novel marks the half-way point through APs cycle A Dance to the Music of Time.  The Kindly Ones is a title that has several meanings.  WWII is just about to be declared, and the title symbolizes the gathering winds of war.  Ancient Greeks called to the Furies "the kindly ones" in an attempt to placate them.  We finally learn some interesting personal information about Jenkins.  AP takes us to his childhood home and introduces us, surprisingly, to the charming servants who worked for his parents.  Albert, a pessimistic artist-cook, refers to suffragists as "Furies," and Billson, a housemaid, sees ghosts.  Jenkins's world is haunted.

Jenkins visits the Morelands at their home near Sir Magnus Donners castle Stourwater (which can be read as "sour water" to a "t"), and everyone gathers chez Donners for a party. Peter Templer, now a coarse stock broker with a rich man's swagger, is present with his fragile blond second wife, Betty.  Playing dress up, they act out The Seven Deadly Sins as tableaux while Sir Donners takes their photographs.  This is vividly drawn.  Kenneth Widmerpool makes a surprise appearance at the end of the night purportedly to discuss business!

Uncle Giles dies in a provincial hotel, the Bellevue run by Jenkin's childhood servant Albert, and Jenkins travels there to see to the body.  While at the Bellevue, he meets Bob Duport, Jean's ex-husband.  Jenkins tries to get into the military, and while at Lady Molly's runs into Hugh Moreland.  He is homeless and lost.  Mathilda threw him over for Sir Donners.

Okidoki, the next three novels are AP's most acclaimed in the opus--they constitute a trilogy about WWII.  I'm rushing through the cycle.  Unlike most readers, I am not in love with AP's prose.  His vocabulary is arcane and arch, but I love the way he structures the plots.  The characters weave in and out of the story so effortlessly, and I've often pulled in my breath with the unexpected sightings of Widmerpool.  AP's sensibility and cultural references, as discussed in the last review, are too alien for me to feel much love.