The Fisher King

Anthony Powell’s final novel is set on a cruise ship engaged in what seems an unlikely voyage around Britain and the Orkneys. The ship is called the Alecto, named after one of the three Furies of Greek mythology, which are also known euphemistically as The Kindly Ones, contributing the title of the sixth volume of the Dance series. In a book replete with mythological references, the significance of this one is not obvious nor is it explained. Perhaps, as one reviewer commented, given Alecto’s status as a Fury, “it is plain from the outset that we will be sailing in fairly deep water.”

The novel is narrated in large part by a chorus of two couples who are passengers on the Alecto: Valentine and Louise Beals and Piers and Fay Middlecote. Beals, the primary narrator, is a writer of historical novels which achieve little critical attention but large sales. Middlecote, an advertising executive with a wry sense of humour, and the two wives offer comments on Beals’ narrative when he goes over the top. Parts of the book are narrated by the author and occasionally one of the other characters.

The other passengers include Saul Henchman, a well-known photographer who was badly crippled and disfigured in World War II. He moves about on crutches and is accompanied by his assistant Barberina Rookwood, a noted beauty and former ballerina who gave up her career to live with and care for Henchman. He has booked on the cruise in an effort to forestall what he sees as the imminent drying up of his photographic powers, something like writer’s block. Gary Lamont is a media executive who was a former suitor of Barberina during her ballerina days. He is recently widowed and has booked passage on the cruise to renew his suit. Mrs Jilson and her sickly son, Robin, have joined the cruise to aid his recuperation from a recent bout of an unnamed muscular disease which has caused him to lose his job in a bank. He now has plans of taking up a career in photography. Sir Dixon and Lady Tiptoft and their daughter Lorna make up another group. He is a retired senior civil servant with a reputation for being difficult and is also a keen amateur photographer. Lorna, no beauty, is a medical doctor respected in her field. There is also an American professor, Willard Kopf, and his youngish wife, Elaine. Kopf shares an interest with Beals in the subject of Arthurian legend. Finally, there is Mr Jack, who does not have a direct role in the plot but provides comic relief. He is a retired travel courier with a drinking problem who might well have stumbled onto the cruise from the pages of Dance. His dialogue with Lamont in the ship’s bar is worthy of Ted Jeavons in one of his more effusive moments.

Beals is already acquainted with Henchman and knows a good deal about his life story. An inveterate storyteller and gossip, Beals becomes somewhat obsessive in seeking to demonstrate that Henchman is the embodiment of the Fisher King, an actor in the legend of Perceval (or Parsifal in his Wagnerian incarnation). In the story, as recited by Beals, Perceval, in an attempt to attain the status of a Knight of the Round Table, undertakes a journey to acquire the necessary sophistication. Early in his quest, he comes into the realm of the Fisher King, who is crippled, lives in a barren land (“The Waste Land” of Eliot’s poem) and whose only enjoyment is fishing. If Perceval can ask the right question, the Fisher King will be cured and his lands made fertile. But Perceval, still rather “diffident and naïve,” fails to ask the question. He resumes his journey and, after many more adventures, returns to the Round Table, where he is accepted as a Knight, only to encounter the Loathly Damsel, “a hideous young woman [who] upbraided him for letting down the Fisher King”. As it turns out, she is the special subject of Professor Kopf.

In the course of the voyage, Barberina becomes infatuated with Jilson (the Perceval figure), who is also pursued by Lorna Tiptoft (the Loathly Damsel). Gary Lamont watches for an opportunity to seduce Barberina, and Henchman watches all this, sensing that he is at risk of losing Barberina. During a tour of Hadrian’s Wall, Jilson is injured, and both Barberina and Lorna openly compete to care for him. As the ship proceeds to Edinburgh, the principals gather at a meal for a Powellian set piece in which Henchman confronts Barberina, Lamont and Jilson with his knowledge of their goings on. Later that evening, Barberina, having left the table, returns to hear the orchestra playing selections from Swan Lake and begins to dance, to the acclaim of the onlookers. This has the effect of putting Henchman on notice that their association has ended. Later, Lamont visits her room in an attempt to persuade her to join him, but she refuses, and he encounters both Jilson and Henchman in the corridor as he exits her cabin. The shock causes Jilson to suffer another attack of his illness, and he is swept away by Lorna, leaving Barberina alone to resume her dancing career.

The story ends at the Ring of Standing Stones in the Orkneys (an apparent allusion to the Devil’s Fingers from Dance) where Henchman leaves the cruise to pursue his interest in fishing, with Mr Jack as his new helper. Beals is overjoyed with this last piece of his Fisher King analogy falling into place. Beals has also spun out another theory that will resonate with Dance fans: the primary players are all men and women of the will who are acting out their willfulness on each other. This includes even the seemingly wet Jilson, who exhibits the willfulness of the indulged child. In a final reference to Dance, one of the stones has an inscription “G. Isbister 1881.” Fay Middlecote wonders whether this is a relative of the portrait painter, Horace Isbister, but Henchman replies that Isbister is a local Orkadian name and the inscription is more likely that of a local than a tourist. So, while not quite the sequel to Dance which some Powell readers may have hoped for, this last novel offers up several echoes from the earlier sequence in an attempt to satisfy their thirst for the Dance to resume.