Hearing Secret Harmonies

Arnold Newman, Cecil Beaton, 1978

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

Viola!  Finis!  The final novel in Dance.  AP's world view revolves around two poles: the exercise of domination--a will-to-power--along with chance and coincidence. These are the two factors that move the plot forward in Hearing Secret Harmonies and throughout the 12 novel cycle.  Jenkins is now a believably middle aged novelist living in the late 60s or early 70s when the story opens.  His family hosts a caravan of hippies that include is niece, Fiona Cutts, and a creepy cult leader named Scorpio Murtlock.  Widmerpool is a chancellor at a US university and a convert to the counter culture.  Nick visits Matilda Donners and is shown the photographs of the Seven Deadly Sins tableaux taken decades ago.  The Donners Memorial Prize, a literary award, is established, and Jenkins is a member of the jury panel.  Russell Gwinnet is awarded the prize for his biography of X Trapnel.  Fiona leaves Murtlock's cult and marries Gwinnet.  Widmerpool is back in England and takes up with Scorpio or "Scorp" as he calls him.  Widmerpool and Murtlock battle for control of the hippies, and Widmerpool suffers a humiliating defeat.  With tragic absurdity, Widmerpool dies running naked with the cult in the early morning hours.  The novel ends, as the series began: workmen are laboring in the street and this reminds AP of the stories, myths of the ancient world.

So, how is AP like Proust?  Not very is my response.  I found an old but wonderful book about AP entitled Criticism of Soceity in the Englsih Novel Bewteen the War by Hena Maes-Jelink that helped me think more clearly about this question.   Maes-Jelink writes, "Feelings are set to one side and a real exploration of personal relationships are left off."  This captures what I find so frustrating about Dance.  Jenkins rarely ventures beyond the world of appearances.  By contrast, Marcel is so extremely sensitive and possesses a rich emotional life.  There isn't much psychological analysis in AP.  Maes-Jelink continues, "Powell reconstructs the past chronologically without referring to the inner life of his characters; he relies almost exclusively on facts to describe relations between individuals and between individuals and society."