100 pages into HSH and it's not THAT bad... yet. OK, it probably wouldn't take Mrs Erdleigh to predict that it's about to head steadily downhill, what with Widmerpool's appearance with the Quiggin twins on his arm.
Actually I've really enjoyed this whole section on the Donners book award. I had dinner with one of the Booker Prize judges recently (I'd drop his name in as subtly as the rest of this anecdote, but in truth I can't remember it!) and this was eerily close to the reality he let me in on - both the dubious appointment to such panels and the horror of the lean year. I won't let on which one(s) he considered lean.
Enjoyed Powell's little aside, via Trapnel, declaring that coincidence is just a manifestation of magic. Also, I think I'm enjoying those Proustian glimpses of the past e.g. Widmerpool's dress sense, but not sure we needed to be reminded YET AGAIN of Barbara Goring and the bloody sugar-pouring incident. Honestly, Jenkins does remind me rather of those boorish individuals who are living in the past and constantly recanting "amusing" incidents from the undergraduate days... oh, wait... don't we all do that?
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A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve-volume cycle of novels by Anthony Powell, inspired by the painting of the same name by Nicolas Poussin. It has sometimes, erroneously, been referred to as a roman à clef. One of the longest works of fiction in literature, it was published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. In 2008/09, following a similar and (for the most part) successful attempt to read Proust, we finally got around to it.
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OK, Page 200 update... it's become very silly, and is about to get sillier still. Also, do we REALLY need to be picturing Widmerpool naked quite so often Mr Powell?
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