A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell (January 2024)

[Roman Clodia]

Hester wrote: "I had the same feeling but have decided to take an anthropological approach"

Your 'anthropological approach' has really struck a chord with me, Hester, and I keep thinking about it as I watch these people perform on the page.

I've finished this first volume now and am comparing it in my head with Waugh. I feel the latter is making judgements (he can join Judgmentals Anonymous any day!) when I think of the wife in A Handful of Dust, for example, whereas Powell seems almost documentary: this is a world he knows intimately and which he considers 'natural'.

Jenkins is a somewhat passive narrator though I'm guessing he's an avatar for Powell and will turn into a writer whose observations are part of his style?

Looking forward to the next volume.

[Roman Clodia]

My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/6072278589

[Nigeyb]

Roman Clodia wrote:


"Jenkins is a somewhat passive narrator"

And perhaps a tad unreliable too

Remember Widmerpool observes...

"Jenkins, do you mind home truths? First, you are a great deal too fond of criticising people: secondly, when a man's self-esteem has been injured he is to be commiserated with, not blamed. You will find it a help in life to remember these two points."

We also know next to nothing about Jenkins at this stage and, so far as I can recall, his personality only reveals itself very slowly over the course of the series

Hilary Spurling states that this book takes place over the 1921-24 timescale, the next one (A Buyer's Market (1962)) jumps ahead to 1928 or 1929

[Nigeyb]

Roman Clodia wrote:


"My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/6072278589"

Good review RC - thanks

Just picking up on a couple of matters arising...

The setting can also feel a little alienating to anyone not part of the Eton/Oxford/trust fund/job with daddy or some other influential friend of the family or contact brigade - or, indeed, anyone not male

I am male but far removed from the privilege of Eton/Oxford/trust fund/job with daddy brigade yet do not feel remotely alienated. That said this is second time around for me and I suspect I was a bit underwhelmed by this opening instalment after my first read when I didn't have the advantage of knowing the joys yet to come.

Hilary Spurling also found much to enjoy. I have a copy of her Invitation To The Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time which is extraordinarily helpful as a way to remind yourself who's who as there are so many characters to keep track of. The only downside is it's awash with spoilers.

As well as class being a defining factor in the story, gender is also pre-eminent

True, though being uber pedantic, JM Quiggin is at Oxford on a scholarship and is clearly very different from the other participants at Sillery's gathering. Pretty sure he reappears in the next book and has become a Marxist.

More female characters appear throughout the series as you will discover

(is it) just taken for granted that the moving parts of this world would be men, whether the boys and masters at Eton, or the dons and students at Oxford

Isn't it just a depiction of the reality of the era?

I think Vera Brittain was one of the first women at Oxford around the time this book is set. And guessing she would have been in a females only college? I don't understand how the college set up works at Oxford. I know there is some significance to each college with each perhaps operating differently? I seem to recall when we read Barbara Pym's biography she was in a women only college in the 1950s?

Has Eton ever admitted girls? I really don't have a clue but always assumed it was still solely a boys school. It certainly seems highly unlikely there would have been any girls in Powell's time.

[Susan_MG]

Nigeyb- I agree. It’s not easy to assess Jenkins since he’s narrating and it’s always about who he is meeting, observing or thinking about. I do hope we learn more about him as he seems, on the little we do know, to be less prone to life struggles than his three schoolmates.

[Roman Clodia]

Is Jenkins unreliable in the way that term is usually used in literature i.e. is deliberately re-creating and withholding as he tells the story to us (think Dr Faraday in The Little Stranger) or is he simply naive, inexperienced and, consequently, a bit judgy?

I noted that comment from Widmerpool too but am holding judgement (!) till I know them both better. But yes, I'm not necessarily taking everything Jenkins says as gospel.

[Susan]

I think they would have been women's colleges only at Oxford - there were certainly no women in Brideshead, except for the invasion bemoaned by Sebastian when, presumably, balls or parties were held. In fact, a quick internet search shows that women could not attend men's colleges at Oxford until 1974.

Eton is currently discussing being co-ed (I assume William and Kate moved to Windsor as George will attend Eton) and they trialled a handful of female students attending in the 1980's for a time.

I see Jenkins as something of a mirror of his time. He is - presumably - a little based on the author in terms of class and background. He shows us his experiences, but also his classmates and their expectations. I found it interesting that, having gone off to Oxford as expected, he was a little miffed when Widmerpool and his mother had decided it was not worth the effort or money and then others dropped out while he was there. So, perhaps he will be the character of the straight path of life, while others veer off? I have only read the first three novels, so I don't really know.

[Roman Clodia]

Interesting comments about the alienation - it strikes me that this privileged world is one we are all likely to know well from canonical English literature so it's not that I don't understand it but that I'm conscious, as I am with Brideshead, that it's not a world that would ever have been open to me or that would have found a place for me in it. I guess what I'm saying is that it's not 'universal' as we were discussing in another thread or even typical of most English people's experience of the 1920s, but it nevertheless gets positioned as 'our' joint history.

Quiggan is interesting as he keeps trying to pretend that he's poorer than all the others but someone says they have seen how much income he receives, some of which is from various scholarships, and it's no less than the trust fund boys. I read this as a kind of pose of inverted snobbery. Scholarships, too, are not necessarily hardship awards but won for outstanding achievements.

Vera Brittain was an earlier generation as she went to Somerville (a female college, started admitting men in the 1990s, I think) before the outbreak of WW1. Dorothy L Sayers went there too and I think Pym as well. Women had been admitted to colleges from the nineteenth century, and many had been studying from the seventeenth century but they weren't allowed to take exams and thus be awarded degrees till much later - and I think London University was the first to award female degrees in the late nineteenth century, I have the feeling that Oxbridge held out till later in the twentieth century.

Eton and Harrow have strenuously resisted opening up to girls and remain boys only. But I don't think I was pointing out that the places of the book are structurally masculine since there are female characters in the novel, just that they're all just flattened objects for the boys/men to lust over: I'm thinking of the women that Templar sleeps with, the two women during the car crash, the women in France. My comment is an observation rather than a complaint :) And Mrs Foxe bucks the trend a little with Buster trailing after her.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Susan, thanks RC


Great intel from you both

Is Jenkins unreliable in the way that term is usually used in literature i.e. is deliberately re-creating and withholding as he tells the story to us (think Dr Faraday in The Little Stranger) or is he simply naive, inexperienced and, consequently, a bit judgy?

Oh the latter for sure


I thought, in addition to Mrs Foxe, Madame Leroy was also quite a strong character, and so also stood out in such a male dominated novel

[Nigeyb]

By the by, this is my original spoiler-free review from 2014 which I'll update when I finish, though doubt it will change overly...



A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve-volume cycle of novels by Anthony Powell, and A Question of Upbringing is the first of the twelve volumes.

I've wanted to read A Dance to the Music of Time since discovering that Julian Maclaren-Ross features somewhere in the series as a character called X. Trapnel. Such is my interest in Julian Maclaren-Ross (read Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The Bizarre Life of Writer, Actor, Soho Raconteur Julian Maclaren-Ross by Paul Willetts if you haven't already done so) that this is sufficient to inspire me to tackle one of the longest works of fiction in English literature.

Published in 1951, A Question of Upbringing is the reminiscences of Nick Jenkins (presumably based on Powell himself) who recounts his last few years at public school around 1921, a summer spent in France, and then onto university. It's a familiar world of gilded privilege, akin to the early sections of Brideshead Revisited, though with very little by way of drama or narrative. Instead the reader is introduced to a variety of disparate characters complete with some prescient anecdotes. I say prescient as Jenkins hints at the ways in which their lives will turn out.

What makes this book a delight is the beautiful writing, which really captures the era and milieu, and which is aligned to regular doses of humour. Powell captures the transition of adolescence into adulthood perfectly: the insecurities, the naivety, the fast changes, the gaucheness, the way friendships may evolve and fracture, and how life choices made at this stage can shape whole lives.

I suspect this series will get better and better and that A Question of Upbringing lays the groundwork for what it is to follow. I cannot wait to find out.

[Roman Clodia]

True, Mme Leroy - though I got bored in France and skipped a bit!

This debate got me googling some statistics: the population of England and Wales in 1921 was about 39 million. Only 9,000 undergraduate degrees were awarded, and only 1,600 postgrad degrees. That gives us a sense of exactly how elitist these boys are as that is teeny-tiny as a percentage of the national population. It's also a sign of unthinking privilege that they are so blasé about it and casually leave.

I remember how hard Vera Brittain studied in order to get into Somerville, how much anxiety she went through and how thrilled she was to get in - also how devastating it was for her to leave under the intense emotional impact of WW1 and the personal losses she sustained which made it impossible for her to carry on studying at that time. It's a striking juxtaposition.

[Nigeyb]

Absolutely. And we still get a disproportionate number of old Etonians in the upper echelons of Government despite so many examples of their unsuitability for high office

[Hester]

Good point RC . It's a long time since I read Testament of Youth but I seem to remember the disconnect between her generation , who had experienced the horrors of war , and the next coming fast on her heels . It's striking to me that this group of teenagers appears to be unaffected , although every family surely had it's casualties . Perhaps this is where the unreliable narrator of Jenkins is at play here ? Or maybe it reflects a need to forget and move on ....

[Roman Clodia]

There is a mention of a family photo quite early in the book where someone's sister, I think, is getting married to a man with the empty sleeve of his jacket pinned across his chest, which I assumed was a war wound.

Also uncle Giles ended up at the Paris peace conference, didn't he? Not that I imagine someone like uncle Giles would have ended up in the trenches!

[Roman Clodia]

Nigeyb wrote: "Absolutely. And we still get a disproportionate number of old Etonians in the upper echelons of Government despite so many examples of their unsuitability for high office"

Or, indeed, any office at all! ;))

[Nigeyb]

I wouldn't let any of them run the village fete, let alone the country 🤠

[Nigeyb]

Roman Clodia wrote:


"There is a mention of a family photo quite early in the book where someone's sister, I think, is getting married to a man with the empty sleeve of his jacket pinned across his chest, which I assumed was a war wound

And of course Sunny Farebrother had had a good war to the chagrin of Jimmy Stripling (Templer's brother-in-law) who hated being confronted by people with a good war record. The subsequent row over starching collars certainly makes for a memorable scene.

[Sonia]

Nigeyb wrote: "I wouldn't let any of them run the village fete, let alone the country 🤠"

They'd find an excellent woman to run the village fete.

[Roman Clodia]

Nigeyb wrote: "The subsequent row over starching collars certainly makes for a memorable scene."

Haha, yes, I loved the complete absurdity of that scene.

[Nigeyb]

Before Mrs Foxe and Buster are due to arrive for the lunch to discuss Peter Stringham leaving Oxford to work with Sir Magnus Donners alongside Bill Truscott, Sillery asks Jenkins about his relationship with J. G. Quiggin. Jenkins says they both attended the same lecture and, prompted by Sillery, acknowledged it was mainly attended by women. I mention this to highlight that perhaps there were more women around than I'd previously assumed.

[Susan]

I have to admit that I have jumped into the second book. Probably as the Audible version is a trilogy.

[Roman Clodia]

Good catch, Nigeyb.

I have the feeling that there were a number of women's colleges at Oxford at this point: Somerville which we've mentioned and Lady Margaret Hall, a denominational college, spring to mind but I think there were others too. So there would have been more female students around than some books of the period indicate. Jenkins is so awkward around women that I can imagine him not daring to speak to them!

[Roman Clodia]

Stringham going to work for Sir Magnus is a fine example of nepotism - also still alive and well.

This is an example of where Powell's tone escapes me: is he exposing this practice which keeps the 'top' people at the top and everyone else excluded or is he simply noting it as something 'natural'? The idea of these people being 'born to rule'?

[Nigeyb]

The novels are part reportage so primarily the former.


And remember Quiggin strikes a critical note about the nepotistic manner of the appointment....

"I knew at once there would be no chance of Truscott thinking of me. Not good enough, I suppose…. Not good enough by a long chalk"

And despite Sillery's obervation that...

"Quiggin is an able young man… we must not forget that"


Also, when Quiggin borrows The Green Hat from Jenkins he says...

"I suppose that depicts the kind of world that you friend Stringham will enter"

[Roman Clodia]

It's an interesting question about Powell's position but I don't want to make a call after just the first book so will keep the question at the back of my head.

Good point about Quiggin vs. Stringham though.

[Roman Clodia]

Susan wrote: "I have to admit that I have jumped into the second book. Probably as the Audible version is a trilogy."

I was tempted to move straight on too but need to pace myself as we have a lot of tempting stuff going on in January :)

[Nigeyb]

I am very tempted to continue once I finish but I have too many other January reads to get finished plus I want to ration it out a bit and make the experience last for all of 2024 (if I can).

I'd better get the Feb and March threads ready for you though Susan. Coming soon....

[Susan]

I think I read the first three previously. Otherwise, I will try to stick to the schedule and I can set up the threads, don't worry.

[Nigeyb]

I'm on it, and feel free to read at your own pace. Given I am often guilty of exactly the same thing it would be hypocritical to suggest you do anything other than whatever suits your mood. The series is emminently binge-worthy and I seem to recall reading the lot in under three months the first time round

[David]

I've been enjoying this thread, especially comments from those new to the series.

RC's questions are good ones. It's hard not to answer without the benefit of reading all 12 volumes.

[Roman Clodia]

I would usually be concerned about forgetting who people are reading this over a year but given that we have Nigey as a walking Powell encyclopaedia, I'm not too worried!

[Roman Clodia]

I know it's a day early but I've put our December books away and January books all now on the home page as currently reading - exciting!

[Roman Clodia]

Btw, something mentioned a few times is the extent to which Nick is an alter ego for Powell and the books veer towards memoir as well as fiction - is this established or just supposition?

[Nigeyb]

I don't know for sure but I would guess that it is heavily autobiographical. Write about what you know and all that.

This article (well worth a read in its entireity) supports that view...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

....he ransacked his whole life for it: Eton, Oxford, parents, publishers, painters and musicians, deb parties, country-house weekends, love affairs, marriage, and, in marvellous detail, service in the war. Though often compared unfavorably with Waugh’s great “Sword of Honour” trilogy, Powell’s three wartime volumes are among his best, showing us not just the random destructiveness of the Blitz but also a side of military life we seldom hear about, one of bureaucracy and paper-pushing, backstabbing and angling for preferment—like working for a corporation, only more boring and with bosses who are more inept.

...and...

Spurling isn’t obsessive about pointing out all the parallels between fiction and reality, but her book quickly makes it apparent that, in one way or another, almost everything that takes place in the novel actually happened to Powell. She even slips in a scoop of sorts: that, during the war, Violet had an affair with a man unnamed here but said by a friend to have been “the love of her life,” and that Powell’s pain, when he found out, accounts for Nick Jenkins’s chief vulnerability—his fits of sexual jealousy

(BTW the WW2 era trio are my favourites of the series - at least so my memory tells me)

I've actually read Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling but remember next to nothing about it. Lucky I write reviews eh?....

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My review mentions....

Part of the pleasure of Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time is discovering how Anthony Powell wrote A Dance to the Music of Time, who he collaborated with, which autobiographical details he included, who he based some of the characters on, and so forth.

[Roman Clodia]

You're a wealth of knowledge, Nigeyb - thanks!

[Nigeyb]

Finished. Will update my review tomorrow


Thoroughly enjoyed it

[Hester]

I feel a tad precocious , finishing this on New Years Day, but it was such an engrossing read I couldn't stop once started . Looking forward to having a discussion about the substance of the novel but , no spoilers , I felt It could be subtitled Brief Encounters as what we have a series of set pieces at Eton , in school holidays and at Oxford ( "The University" made me chuckle ). We are introduced to a cast of, mainly maie, characters through whom Jenkins, the narrator, observes the transient nature of friendship , how to operate with guile and ambition , how the world is a broader canvas than school and university and experiences the first , but readily suppressed, passions of attraction . Its character , character , character and jenkins is having an education , education education. He has little agency or apparent impulse to make things happen . intrigued to see what happens next and i may keep reading ahead , if only to keep everyone in my head .

[Nigeyb]

Yes indeed Hester. I agree with all of that.


If you lose track of who is who then post on the relevant thread. I can help as I have a copy of Invitation To The Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time

[Susan]

Interesting thoughts, Hester, and I am so pleased you enjoyed it. Jenkins, certainly at this point, seems to be someone who witnesses and observes, but has not yet reached the level of maturity to know these are lessons he can learn from. I have jumped into the second book (mainly as I am listening to an Audible trilogy).

[Nigeyb]

I'm resisting the urge to press straight on despite wanting to binge the lot now

[Roman Clodia]

Jenkins is interesting because he is so passive: he's almost like the proverbial blank slate on whom life happens. But, of course, he's also deeply embedded in this world so is no outsider in value terms looking in: he has had the same upbringing, the same family money with that trust that so agitates uncle Giles, the same unquestioning Eton/Oxford trajectory.

It also interests me that there's something nineteenth century about the writing and feel of the book: modernism seems, so far, to have passed it by - T.S. Eliot, James Joyce even E.M. Forster and D H. Lawrence might never have existed in terms of how they think about writing and how Powell appears to. There's something very patrician, I feel, about Powell's stance (an observation, not a complaint).

[Roman Clodia]

Nigeyb wrote: "I'm resisting the urge to press straight on despite wanting to binge the lot now"

Me too! I want to try Hamilton first - an interesting juxtaposition of twentieth century worlds.

[Nigeyb]

Your wandering amongst some of my sacred cows RC 🙌🏻


Be gentle 🤠

Jenkins is indeed a blank slate but over time we discover bits and pieces. And yes, clearly no outsider. We're getting the insider perpective.

[Roman Clodia]

Oh I'm not dismissing Powell, I enjoyed the book, am looking forward to the next one, just can't help myself by 'placing' him historically.

[Nigeyb]

A subtly amended review as my opinion is pretty much unchanged. This is a delightful opening to a wonderful series that gets better as it goes along...


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...



Roll on February 2024 and....

A Buyer's Market

[Stephen]

Finished this yesterday. I felt it was a range of set pieces, in places quite humourous (the collars), that will over the series flesh out the characters. I wonder if AP had the 12 novels drafted out in his mind, or if he wrote one after the other not really knowing where it was all going, or probably a combination of the two.
And did anyone feel that Sillery was in some ways like Jean Brodie in terms of control?
On to volume 2.

[Nigeyb]

Yes good point, there are some parallels between Jean Brodie and Sillery. Although Sillery is not as malevolent

I'm sure Powell had a good idea where the whole series was headed even at this early stage

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog]

Ok So I am 4 months behind on this read. It may be that you are in need of some new blood?

[Roman Clodia]

Definitely - we love having discussions re-opened so feel free.

[Nigeyb]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻