If you are a Member of the AP Society, you will not need to be reminded of Simon Barnes’s excellence as a funny, perceptive and unexpected commentator on AP’s world. If you are, there is, to remind you, a piece by him in the latest issue of the Newsletter, on the subject of Powell and others and poetry. Several people came up with the idea, more or less at the same time, of collecting his pieces for the Newsletter and for Secret Harmonies into a book, and that is what we have done. It is a treat to have them all together and not to have to wait months for the next one.
Here is how this book, entitled Twelve Books to Furnish a Room is introduced in the latest Newsletter:
Simon Barnes has strong views on many of the opinions – canards in his view – trotted out about Dance. No, he asserts, Dance is not a roman à clef. Nor is Dance snobbish; Dukes might appeal in life – although in truth they are thin on the ground in the Journals – but Powell was too good a writer to let that upset the cold-eyed universality of the book.
Some Powellians are more bothered than others by AP’s use of coincidence. Simon tackles this head on, at length and convincingly, using among other things what appears to be algebra.
He then proceeds to less-commonly-explored issues. Did AP understand the proper care of horses or how racing odds are calculated? Did he know about LSD? Did he know what effect it had? Did he rely on the Daily Telegraph for this? Did he imagine the ambience of Murtlock’s and Widmerpool’s cult just from what was in the air?
Finally, Widmerpool, Jenkins, Stringham and Templer are reimagined as greyhounds, pitted against each other at The Wimbledon Dogs. Guess who wins.
Twelve Books to Furnish a Room is available, with an attractive cover and a new introduction, in the Society’s online shop at https://www.anthonypowell.org/online-shop. Read, marvel, laugh and learn. Just like Dance.
