The Valley of Bones

Cecil Beaton, Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, 1944

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

Oh my gosh, the seventh book in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time is a snooze fest. Just when I felt like I was getting into the High Tory groove, The Valley of Bones comes along and bursts that little bubble.  This novel is awful.  My mind wandered to my new poodle (see the picture below), a weekend trip to Pittsburgh, and the politics of scheduling at the American Ballet Theatre.  In short, I would rather think about anything than the thoughts and feeling of banker-soldiers in the first days of the Second World War.

Snowball!  The perfect Poodle puppy and Anthony Powell antidote

Its late 1939 or early 1940 in England, and Nick Jenkins is in the army.  We're introduced to his commanding officer, Captain Gwatkin and the booze-soaked Lieutenant Bithel.  The battalion Jenkins is attached to moves around England.  Yawn.  Nick makes friends with David Pennistone ("Penis Stone"!!), Odo Stevens, and meets up again with Jimmy Brent.  Brent discusses his affair with Jean Duport, and, maybe its through osmosis of British reserve, a small part of me died at these revelations.  How could Jean be so foolish? I imagined Jean was in thrall to her own sexuality, and her relationship with Brent was about self-knowledge, but, really, eh, Brent is so small.  What was Jean thinking?  I am worried about her and wonder what she's doing in South America.

Meanwhile, Odo Stevens drives Nick to Frederica Budd's house when Nick is granted leave.  There, Nick meets his pregnant wife, Isobel, and his Tolland in-laws Robert and Priscilla. Odo and Priscilla, married to Chips Lovell, flirt.  The scenes at Frederica's house had the most power.  I was once again engaged with the characters I met in the first six novels.  Why should I care about Nick's life as a solider?  Will these characters endure throughout the other novels?  Unlike other commentators, I am unmoved by the "humor" that contrast the officers--inevitably former bankers--and working-class soldiers.  

AP shows us that this is a time of "massive upheaval" since great houses are repurposed as hospitals for the war effort, but men still brought servants to war.  A batman was assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant.  I am stunned that officers took their servants to war with them.  Indeed,  Bracey, who we met in The Kindly Ones as one of the servants Jenkins knew when a child, is revealed to be Jenkins's father's batman in WWI.  Oh, how very organic.  A man serves you in war and then follows you back to your estate in peace time as a servant.  The bond between master and servant is strong indeed!  Of course, I think this is gross.  (Looking ahead to The List, I was reminded of Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels. Melrose's father cut his teeth in the sadistic corners of Imperial England)

In the last scene of the novel, Nick reports to HQ and meets Widmerpool.  At this point, I'm rooting for the fat, ambitious, and bossy Widmerpool.  Nick is a bland boy.