O, How the Wheel Becomes It!

Anthony Powell’s first post-Dance novel (actually, at 143 pages more of a novella) was written after the publication of his Memoirs. It marks something of a return to the pre-war novels in that is written from the point of view of the story’s protagonist, GFH Shadbold, but is narrated by the author who takes no part in the story. The title of the novel is taken from a line spoken by Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet which is explained at the beginning of the novel’s narrative.

Shadbold is a literary journalist, recently deceased at the time of writing, who before the World War II published a bit of everything. The central plot begins with a request by Shadbold’s publisher, Jason Price, that he read the manuscript of a diary written by a former colleague, Cedric Winterwade, who died in the war. Winterwade dabbled briefly in literature producing single novel in the late 1920’s which according to Shadbold exhibited “faint echoes of HG Wells, Arnold Bennett and even George Gissing,” and has disappeared without a trace by the 1970’s. Shadbold viewed Winterwade, a friend from both school and university, as something of a rival. The third principal character is Isolde Upjohn, a noted London beauty of the 1920’s, who lived in Chelsea and worked in the fashion business as a model and graphic designer.

Shadbold agrees to read the diaries and finds something quite damaging to his pride. He was one among many unsuccessful suitors of Isolde and thought Winterwade to be her mere acquaintance. The diaries reveal that Winterwade was, in fact, her lover, having consummated their affair unknown to Shadbold. Moreover, Winterwade as a diarist proves more adept than he was as a novelist, and Shadbold fears that publication of the diaries might well succeed in belatedly establishing his literary reputation. Without even bothering to read them to the end (out of an additional fear that they they might reveal a brilliant military career for Winterwade (in a war in which Shadbold sat on the sidelines), Shadbold recommends to Price that the diaries not be published.

Winterwade’s ghost will not, however, be laid to rest. Shadbold is invited by Horace Grigham, an Eng. Lit. professor at a redbrick university and former husband of Shadbold’s current wife, Prudence (aka. Proserpine Gunning, a successful writer of detective novels) to lecture to his students. At the end of Shadbold’s lecture, Grigham announces that he is considering the addition of Winterwade’s long-forgotten novel to the syllabus. Shadbold seeks to divert the discussion to other matters, engaging Grigham in a debate on modern theories of literary criticism, most of which Grigham seems to have embraced. In this instance, Shadbold uncharacteristically comes out the winner, revealing Grigham to be something of a fraud.

In the novel’s pivotal scene (a Powellian set piece) the by now much-married Isolde appears unexpectedly, wishing to discuss with Shadbold the impending publication of her memoirs. Her visit coincides with the arrival at Shadbold’s cottage of a TV crew planning to film an interview to be conducted by Rod Cubbage, who exhibits many of the characteristics which Powell in his Journals found irritating in TV personalities. As it turns out, Cubbage includes Isolde in the interview, and she reveals all the embarrassing details Shadbold hoped to suppress, concluding with a plea that Shadbold find out how Winterwade met his end.

In yet another coincidence, “Major” Crowter, the landlord of the nearby pub, where she had been a guest, sees Isolde’s plea on TV and shows up at Shadbold’s to provide the details of Winterwade’s death. Crowter reveals that Winterwade was a mere cipher clerk in Bombay at the time of his death, which occurred at the hands of local low-lifes during a brothel crawl on which Crowter conducted him as a non-participating observer. With this knowledge, Shadbold now sees a way to turn Winterwade’s diaries to his advantage. He arranges a meeting with Jason Price to reopen the question of editing the diaries. Price reveals that these have now been destroyed but offers Shadbold the opportunity to write the introduction to Isolde’s memoirs. This is all too much for Shadbold, who returns home and shortly thereafter expires.

Shadbold and his predicament are somewhat reminiscent of literary figures in Powell’s earlier novels such as Mark Members and JG Quiggen. But it is the subsidiary characters that give the irony in this novel its bite. Indeed, Grigham the academic, Cubbage the TV interviewer, and Price the publishing “whiz kid” offer Powell the opportunity to apply his irony to contemporary cultural figures with more comic effect than he was able to muster in the final volume of Dance, demonstrating, if nothing else, that he hadn’t lost his touch.