Books Do Furnish a Room

Cecil Beaton, Graham Vivian Sutherland, Somerset Maugham, 1949

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

9 novels down and 3 to go until I finish Dance.  Good grief!  The plot is this: its 1945 and Jenkins returns to his university (Cambridge or Oxford, natch) after the Wars to research a book on Robert Burton, the 17th century author of The Anatomy of Melancholy.  While visiting Sillery, Jenkins meets his new secretary, Ada Leintwardine.  Quiggin starts a literary magazine called Fussion.  This venture was to be sponsored by Erridge, but he suddenly dies.  Erridge's funeral at Thrubworth brings together Quiggin, the Widmerpools, and Gypsy Jones (now Lady Craggs).  At a launch party for the magazine, Jenkins encounters the dapper bohemian, X Trapnel.  Pamela and Trapnel start an affair, and Pamela flees Kenneth.  Pamela eventually abandons Trapnel and throws his book manuscript into a canal.  The novel ends with Jenkins returning to his old prep school (the scene of the action in A Question of Upbringing).  La Bas is in his 80s and working in the school library as a reference librarian.  The Widmerpools are also visiting the school that day, and Kenneth leans against a stone wall in dejection.