Finished Temporary Kings on Saturday evening, in a bar in Paris as it happens. Popped over on Eurostar to get away post-final examiners' meeting and the carnage of May Week. Amongst other things I dropped in on Marcel (avec la famille Proust) at Pere Lachaise cemetery - he seemed to be doing well (all things considered) and was adorned with fresh flowers for the occasion. Also saw a splendidly silly reconstruction of his cork-lined chambre a la Musee Carnavalet .
Don't especially have an awful lot to add to others' comments about TK. It ambled along nicely, and the final section - told from the POV of Moreland and Odo Stevens (who I side entirely with Isobel on, and absolutely can't stand... what is it about that man?!) was certainly entertaining enough. Also enjoyed the opening sections in Venice and the Tiepolo descriptions. Definitely a different feel about this novel with the introduction of some American characters and a feel that whilst times are a-changing they seem to be passing Jenkins by.
My real Powell highlight came later in the trip's reading. Flaubert's Parrot was my francophile novel of choice - although any Barnes would probably have done - and came across this gem at the start of Chapter 5.
"In the more bookish areas of English middle-class society, whenever a coincidence occurs there is usually someone at hand to comment, 'It's just like Anthony Powell.' Often the coincidence turns out, on the shortest examination, to be unremarkable: typically, it might consist of two acquaintances from school or university running into one another after a gap of several years. But the name of Powell is invoked to give legitimacy to the event; it's rather like getting the priest to bless your car."
Barnes, or at least his protagonist Braithwaite, then launches into a mini-rant about how he doesn't care for coincidence as a plot device, and finishes with this piece of comic brilliance.
"I don't even care for harmless, comic coincidences. I once went out to dinner and discovered that the seven other people present had all just finished reading A Dance to the Music of Time. I didn't relish this: not least because it meant that I didn't break my silence until the cheese course."
Incidentally, Flaubert's Parrot has one of the most perfectly written opening chapters of any novel I have read in recent years, and as a whole works extremely well. I'm a fan of Barnes, as most of you know, and this is as good as any of his... it has a Proust reference too.
Right - silliness coming up this weekend with the Powell denouement, then let's plot a dinner with a cheese course.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
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