A Dance to The Music of Time - Volume 3

The new perspective that we gain on Quiggin in The Acceptance World is brought about by his choice to identify himself as a Marxist and therefore isolating himself even more from the mainstream. The Marxists, even more radical than the socialists, were in a very precarious situation in the early 1930s, receiving very little support among the voters of Great Britain. Members, in contrast to Quiggin, supports the more popular socialist outlook. By associating with the Marxists, rather than simply the socialists, Quiggin is making a statement about his views of the world that may be quite subtle to modern-day readers.

One distinction between the socialists and the Marxists was the popular support and political power that each one wielded. Each ideology had its respective political movements: the Labour Party for the socialists, and the Communist Party for the Marxists. The Socialists were a relatively strong political force in Britain, the Labour Party having received a plurality in Parliament in the early 1920s, and then almost 47 percent of the House of Commons in 1929. The Labour Party also had a relatively wide support base, with 600,000 members and approximately 4 million Union workers across the country willing to support them. In comparison, the communists of Britain did not have a single member in parliament. They never attained any significant level of political power, mostly because the socialists had served as a compromise between Marxian theory and the capitalist society of Britain. Other than the shared ideal of public ownership of the means of production, the socialists and Marxists did not often agree, and frequently were at odds with each other more than they were with the long-standing capitalist parties. This theme is played out between the characters of Members and Quiggin throughout the story. They are often seen working together towards common goals, yet at the same time they are almost always at odds with each other, ever since they “habitually spoke of each other in a far from friendly manner” back at the University (ABM, 240).

The most radical difference between the two parties was in how they believed that the new government should come to power. The socialist supported a Democratic process, while Marxian doctrine states that the only way to successfully reform the government is through a violent overthrow by the proletariat, or working class. This insistence on violence was one of the main limiting factors in growth of support for the communists, as they had difficulty rallying support for a violent cause when the socialists were having some success through peaceful means. The idea was not altogether unjustified however, for “Marx could find no instance in history in which a major social and economic system freely abdicated to its successor.” Yet again, the conflict between Members and Quiggin arises. From a Marxist view, Members would never have left his position unless he was forcibly removed. This leads the reader to believe that Members was forced from his job, implying that Quiggin is hiding the truth. That Members returns to St. John’s bedside while Quiggin is away further insinuates a reluctance on the part of Members to leave for good.

Another unique pillar of the Marxist ideal was the idea that not only was a violent overthrow necessary, but it was also inevitable. To a Marxist, capitalism was doomed to failure for a few specific reasons. First, it was “rearing its own destroyer”; good capitalism inherently took from the worker to strengthen the bourgeoisie, in turn strengthening the resolve of the proletariat against the capitalists. Once again this relates back to the events of the book. By introducing Quiggin, Members unknowingly has sacrificed his position as secretary. In the true spirit of Marxism that Quiggin represents, Members has caused his own destruction. Marxists also believed that capitalism was doomed to suffer the effects of what Marx called alienation – that by working and offering his skills, a worker de-values his services by adding to the supply. This leads to dissatisfaction among the workers, and will eventually, in the view of Marx, lead to a revolution.

The events of the 1930s left British communists in a rather hard position. Germany had had one of the strongest proletarian forces in the world, so the rise of the fascist party over the communists did not bode well for future expansion of the party. At the same time, the Great Depression seemed to confirm Marx’s predictions that the capitalist economy would fail, and many Marxists found renewed hope for their ideals in the despair and unemployment of the depression.

Quiggin’s commitment to Marxism is deep and strong. Not only does he flat out declare himself a “practicing Marxist” (TAW, 97), but he knows the quotes offered by the Planchette board — “nothing to the left,” “wives in common,” and “force is the midwife” (95-96). We also know from Nick that Quiggin’s scholarship was revoked on account of “dissatisfaction to the authorities,” a cryptic phrase which gains new meaning as we come to understand his extreme minority political views (ABM, 238).

Quiggin and Members are in constant contrast. Through them, Powell is playing out the larger social conflicts that dominated the early 1930s political scene in Britain. By associating with the Communists and Marxists rather than simply the socialists, Quiggin is defining himself as a supporter of violent means of change, and as a member of a very limited minority, in contrast to well-liked and socialist members, a supporter of gradual, democratic change.

In The Acceptance World, Powell introduces Myra Erdleigh, an eccentric and enigmatic fortune-teller and friend of Uncle Giles’. Along with Mrs. Erdleigh comes an emphasis on mysticism and the supernatural that is lacking in the first two novels of the movement. By reading the fortunes of Uncle Giles and Nick, and by “mediating” a game of Planchette, Mrs. Erdleigh is directly involved with, and in a way representative of, the emergence of the supernatural in the series. Throughout The Acceptance World, Powell treats mysticism as a genuine, reliable force. Because of this unconventional approach, the examples of mysticism serve to provide insight into characters and to outline important themes in the novel.

Powell uses mysticism as a distinct and effective plot device in The Acceptance World– the fortune reading and Planchette session essentially frame chapters one and three, and the themes that they present underlie the entire novel. Clearly, the main event in Chapter One is the introduction of Mrs. Erdleigh and the subsequent display of her powers of divination. Her fortune readings predict the two central themes of the novel-Nick’s relationship with Jean Templer, and the situation between St. John Clarke, Quiggin, and Members-in addition to the time and place of Nick’s next meeting with her, which also turns out to be his second experience with the supernatural (14-16). This second experience is, of course, a game of Planchette at Templer’s house. The game affects the St. John Clarke theme by both raising the important issue of Marxism, and by triggering Quiggin’s phone call to St. J, his exasperation over Members’ presence, and his hasty departure from the Templer home.

Powell also uses mysticism, both directly and indirectly, to provide insight into the characters. Though Nick often attempts to describe his uncle’s personality, Giles’ tolerance, even enthusiasm, for fortune-telling seems to contradict the “no nonsense” persona (however hypocritical it is) that Nick depicts in the first two novels. Conversely, Powell reveals a great deal about Quiggin’s personality through Quiggin’s intense scepticism and even contempt for Planchette, and through his reactions to what it writes (about Marxism). In these ways, Mrs. Erdleigh and mysticism indirectly provide new angles on Uncle Giles and Quiggin. At the same time, however, they also directly provide what is perhaps the only real “angle” on Nick’s personality at all. Thus far in The Dance Nick has included very little self-examination, especially of the kind that might enable the reader to develop any definitive sense of what Nick is actually like. It is through Mrs. Erdleigh’s fortune reading that Powell first offers an analysis of Nick’s character. This analysis comes as a bit of a surprise because, by raising some issues that the reader has not noticed, it shows just how little Nick has actually said about his own personality in the first two books of the series. Though Mrs. Erdleigh’s “severe analysis” is in some ways quite cryptic, it cannot, because of the way Powell presents it, be taken as anything but the truth (15).

Powell uses mysticism, portrayed as an authentic but inexplicable force, to frame the plot and premise of The Acceptance World. That he does this is surprising because of the intense scepticism that surrounds practices such as fortune-telling and Planchette, but is at the same time in keeping with the exaggerated, even unrealistic, coincidences that drive forward the plot of The Dance.

Towards the end of The Acceptance World, the third instalment of A Dance to the Music of Time, Jenkins finds himself at a party honoring his old housemaster, La Bas. There, several of his school friends are present and several “old boys” make speeches regarding their lives. However, as things start to wind down, Widmerpool begins to make an unwelcome speech that results inadvertently causes La Bas to have a stroke, effectively ending the party.

Though short, Widmerpool’s speech concentrates mainly on the economic situation of the world at the time. The Great Depression, or the “most devastating trade depression in our recorded history” (193) as Widmerpool refers to it, has taken a firm hold on global economies, with many countries reeling in debt.

During Widmerpool’s long, boring speech, many people find themselves wanting to yank him off the stage, but when deciphered, his speech has great implications. Overall, Widmerpool states that some of the main problems leading to the Great Depression lay in the British government’s horrendous money lending policy, calling it “reckless and inadmissible,” while also calling the move from the Gold Standard a bad idea, since it seems to have caused rampant inflation and a significant drop in the financial confidence of the British government.

Overall, one might see the underlying economic themes present throughout the book. We have seen Quiggin’s Marxist beliefs displayed at the Templar household, specifically when the group begins to use the planchette. At the household, an important theme arises and that is Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Looking at it from a poetic view, these three would refer to creation, destruction, and balance/rebirth. But from an economic viewpoint, it could very well represent the Business Cycle, or Boom and Bust Cycle. The Cycle refers to economic growth, followed by recession, and then balancing out in preparation for the next boom. Obviously, the world is in the tough, Antithesis stage, or recession/depression stage.

An interesting point to make is that through the ideas Widmerpool displays in his speech, he seems to believe in a Keynesian and fiscal approach to economics. This showed him to be a sort of pioneer, since many economics in the thirties still believed in the classical economic model based on things like perfect competition and such. Widmerpool suggests that governments should regulate domestic prices in order to help end the global depression, “Now if a governmental policy of regulating domestic prices is to be arrived at in this or any other country, the moment assigned to the compilation of the index number which will establish the par of interest and process must obviously be that at which internal economic conditions are in a condition of relative equilibrium.”

During his speech, Widmerpool refers to a “curve drawn on a piece of paper.” This curve is critical in understanding the situation of the times. This graph representing the “average ratio of persistence,” which is comparable and influenced by the average ratio of progress, shows that England’s economy and GDP and GNP are slowly decreasing and contracting. Thus, England’s economy is shrinking, a very bad thing. Also, Widmerpool discusses methods in which the government can implement a ceiling and baseline price to bring the rampant inflation under control so that the road to recovery becomes easier with a hard currency that is reliably at a set value. But with this set value, production by suppliers will undoubtedly increase in an attempt to make more capital. Here, the government must also control the rate of production in order to insure that prices go neither too far up or down. However, once Widmerpool states that, “all that is clear enough,” he goes on into an unintelligible rant of index numbers and such that make no real sense. Here, either Powell is making fun of Widmerpool, or Widmerpool is just trying to squeeze his way through this part of the speech, trying to sound intelligent along the way.

 

     
The reader will probably wonder why Widmerpool would make such simple concepts in his speech sound so complicated. Widmerpool himself tries to make it seem simple by saying things like “No one would deny that,” “So far so good,” and “All that is clear enough” when everything obviously is not the way Widmerpool puts it. Now the question remains of whether, being the social and business climber that he is, he is just trying to portray himself as highly intelligent or he really is on top of the economic picture. Only time will tell.

Most of us consider the accuracy of fortune telling debatable. Fortunetellers tend to give ambiguous predictions; that way their predictions are hard to prove one hundred percent incorrect. Nick meets a rather eccentric character, Mrs. Erdleigh in the first chapter of The Acceptance World through his extremely eccentric Uncle Giles. When she tells Nick his fortune, he is skeptical about the accuracy of her talent. Surprisingly, unlike most fortunetellers, Mrs. Erdleigh is not very ambiguous, and she is very accurate in her predictions.

Mrs. Erdleigh makes a prediction about Nick’s love life, which proves to be absolutely correct. She predicts that he’ll have an affair with a women, “important lady” with, “medium hair” that Nick has” run across … once or twice before, though not recently” (15). Nick can’t figure out whom Mrs. Erdleigh is describing even with the description of this woman’s husband: “He is tallish…. Fair, possibly red hair. In business” (15). We know at once that this woman is Jean Duport and the husband is Bob Duport. Her description of Duport matches up with the description Nick gives us in AQU, “He was built on similar lines to Peter, thin and tall, with sandy hair” (191, AQU). Nick’s inability to figure out whom Mrs. Erdleigh is describing results from his overwhelming skepticism of fortune telling.

Not only does Mrs. Erdleigh make accurate predictions about Nick’s love life, but she also makes accurate predictions about his professional life. She says, “There is a small matter in your business that is going to cause inconvenience…. It has to do with an elderly man-and two young ones connected with him” (16). Again Nick is not able to figure out exactly who these people are. In fact he thinks that she is a little off with this prediction. He thinks that she must mean two elderly men, the writer St. John Clark and the painter Horace Isbister, and one young one, Mark Members. It turns out that the elderly man is St. John Clark and the two young ones are Members and J. G. Quiggin.

When Mrs. Erdleigh is saying goodbye to Nick she says, “We shall meet again…. In about a year from now…. Not before.” (16) This prediction, like her other ones, turns out to be correct. When Nick is at Templer’s house just over a year later he runs into Mrs. Erdleigh. This time she is in the company of Stripling. At their reunion Mrs. Erdleigh says to Nick, “You see I was right…. It is just a year,” (81).

Powell uses Mrs. Erdleigh as a way of foreshadowing Nick’s future. The fact that her predictions are so accurate makes it hard to believe that this could have actually happened. Mrs. Erdleigh is connected to every supernatural and unrealistic event in this book, the fortune telling and Planchette game. Mrs. Erdleigh is not a normal character. She is Powell’s tool that he uses to keep the story moving. While most fortune telling is ambiguous and not accurate, Mrs. Erdleigh’s ability is the opposite: specific and dead on.

Mrs. Erdleigh, the eccentric fortune-teller in Powell’s third book The Acceptance World introduces a surreal element to his novel. She predicts a fortune for Jenkins that proves mostly true and also reveals her extensive understanding of Jenkins’ personality. Later her knowledge of Planchette reiterates that she is somehow weirdly connected to the supernatural world. Her predictions turn out to be eerily valid, contrary perhaps to our expectations in that Powell would not give us such a huge insight into Jenkins’ future. They are divided between facts we already know about Jenkins after reading the first two books, and predictions that come true in the third one. “You live between two worlds,” she says. (14). This is a fact that we already know about Jenkins’. He is hopping between a group of artists and a group of businessmen. He is good friends with Barnby, a painter, and is interested in the novelist St. John Clarke and the works of the painter Isbister. His business world includes Peter Templer, and the Donners-Brebner group. He takes an active part in his artist world in that he is a writer but in relation to the business world, he remains slightly aloof. He is interested in the latest connections and goings-on but is not directly involved. However, this statement does not prove Mrs. Erdleigh’s insight as a fortune-teller because it is too general – most people live in two worlds, or even more. “You are thought cold, but you possess deep affections, sometimes for people worthless in themselves,” says Ms. Erdleigh. (14,15) Jenkins will fall hopelessly in love with Jean Templer and will tell her that he “adored [her] from the start” (134). However, early in the relationship, he did not bother calling her or expressing his interest because “[he] had a lot to put up with.” This seems a rather poor excuse for his passivity. Yet even now we sense that his feelings for her are far from indifferent: he will say, “Away from her, all activities seemed waste of time”(136). “You like women, and they like you, but you often find the company of men more amusing”(15). Here, Mrs. Erdleigh is referring to Jenkins’ awkwardness while interacting with members of the opposite sex. In the first and second books, he is portrayed as very naïve, having minimal knowledge of the world of sex. It is then that he falls in love with Jean Templer, but he has never followed up on his feelings for her. His nervousness also leads him, in a great comic scene, to make a love statement to Madame Dubisson, instead of to Suzette, his French love. In the first two books, we usually find Jenkins in the company of his male friends – Charles Stringham and Peter Templer at Eton, and Sillery’s tea parties at Oxford. Mrs. Erdleigh reveals a part of Jenkins’ character that has already shown through in the earlier books. “There is a small matter in your business … and two young [men] connected with him.”(16) Here, Mrs. Erdleigh predicts the upcoming matter involving Quiggin replacing Members as St. John Clarke’s secretary. Jenkins is confused because in his mind he is thinking about St. John Clarke, Isbister and Members, which makes two old men and one young. “[He] is not greatly struck by [her] insight”(16), because he thinks she is just guessing his fortune by including few, trivial details. However, she turns out to be spot-on with her prediction. Mrs. Erdleigh also predicts that Jean and Jenkins’ will get together in the near future. Even though it is pretty clear that Jean is the “important lady – medium hair” that Mrs. Erdleigh is talking about, Jenkins’ is totally clueless. “You expect too much, and yet you are also too resigned.” (15) Later Jenkins is astounded when he learns about Jean’s affair with Jimmy Stripling. Her revelation is a terrible shock to him, not only because he loves her, but also because he thinks of Jimmy Stripling as an unintelligent idiot and does not understand how his precious Jean can be with someone he thinks of as so completely inferior to himself. He also has high expectations of Jean’s feelings for him but he seems afraid to press them. “I wondered whether she would leave him and marry me. I had not asked her, and had no clear idea what the answer would be.” For Jenkins to even think of marriage in a situation where Jean already has a husband is an unreasonable expectation. He is resigned in that he has never expressed the depth of his feelings for her. Even though he doesn’t know if she will agree to his proposal, the fact that the thought of proposing to her crosses his mind shows that he thinks there is some chance of success. Mrs. Erdleigh is used as a mechanism to generate suspense in Powell’s third book. As mentioned earlier, it is unexpected that her predictions will come true, but an eagerness to learn of the outcome of her insight accompanies us in the reading of this novel.

Jenkin’s behavior, both as conducted throughout the first part of The Acceptance World and as predicted by Mrs. Erdleigh, is consistent with his military upbringing. In a parody of a Russian novel, he says,”I was born in the city of L—-, the son of an infantry officer.”(AW, 34) Jenkins has demonstrated that he is critical in his judgement of others and he is rigid in his perceptions of others. When asked by Gypsy, “Why are you so stuck up?” he responds, ” I’m just made that way, and I can’t see why I should fight it”(BM, 249). With this statement, Jenkins demonstrates that he does not feel the need to change the way he interacts with or perceives others. Mrs. Erdleigh provides an opportunity for Jenkins to gain insight into his own character from an outside observer. Jenkins, for the first time, becomes exposed to an outside perception into the depths of his true character. Mrs. Erdleigh gives a window into Jenkins’s inner self, by highlighting what she perceives as the two worlds that Jenkins lives in. “You live between two worlds. Perhaps more than two worlds”(AW, 14), says Mrs. Erdleigh. These different worlds, his military upbringing and his current social world, affect profoundly Jenkins’s confidence and personality. They dictate how he moves about interacting with others in his life.

Jenkins’s family’s military world has shaped his more reserved nature. A military lifestyle is a highly structured environment with high standards for behavior and conduct. Mrs. Erdleigh tells Jenkins, “You expect too much, and yet you are also too resigned.”(AW, 15) Similar to the military, Jenkins has high expectations for the behavior of his friends and is not quick to forgive someone who has violated the bond of friendship. When Stringham cuts Jenkins at the conclusion of the first book, Jenkins views this as a severing act. He often makes such judgements; as he waits for Members to arrive for dinner, he quickly assumes that Members has cut him because, “something better turned up”(AW,35). Jenkins immediately jumps to the conclusion that his guest values him less and has thus found a more profitable use of his time, revealing a lack of self-confidence.

Jenkins’s rigid, military standards for friendship and behavior affect his ability to interact socially. He demonstrates his inability to forgive easily when he says, “Thinking about Members that evening, I found myself unable to consider him without prejudice.”(AW, 33) Jenkins realizes that Members is responsible for preventing St.John Clarke from writing the Isbister introduction, and true to his military background, he finds this behavior clearly unacceptable. The military world in which Jenkins has been brought up colors his perceptions. When his friends fall from grace he tends to see things in black and white, rather than leaving room for an interpretive gray area of human error. Mrs. Erdleigh explains to Jenkins, “You must try to understand life…. You must make a greater effort in life”(AW, 15). It is impossible for Jenkins to have a solid or intimate relationship with anyone if his rigid standards prevent him from embracing human error. The incident in which Gypsy called Jenkins “stuck up” exemplifies his inability to accept the instability of human nature. He disapproves of her treatment of Widmerpool. When he makes his condemnation known, she feels he is acting stuck up. Mrs. Erdleigh senses that Jenkins must let go and live a little by embracing life and making a greater effort to forgive people’s human frailty. In The Acceptance World Jenkins finds himself caught between the world of his childhood and the more complicated world he is now faced with as he tries to integrate socially into the upper class. The upper class society creates a world of uncertainty, less clearly defined in expectations compared to his military background. Jenkins has difficulty freeing himself from the more rigid standards of his military upbringing in order to engage in and embrace more fully his adult lifestyle, thus making his lifeless fulfilling than he would like it to be.

Life is a pattern. Just as “in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before,” every happening in life is a consequence of a previous action(63). In the third volume of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, Jenkins makes the very first explicit reference to the metaphor of life as a dance. Throughout the first, second, and third volumes, a recurring theme of reunion between people is quite evident.

First and foremost, this theme can be seen through Uncle Giles’s character. He frames the first volume and continues to show up in Jenkins’s life, sporadically, throughout the course of the next two volumes. He appears in the opening and closing scenes of A Question of Upbringing. He acts as a method for comparison among other characters, through the eyes of Jenkins in the second volume. In the first few pages of A Buyer’s Market, Jenkins describes Sir Gavin by saying that his “air of supposing life to have treated him less generously than his talents deserved made him, although a far more forceful personality, sometimes seem to resemble Uncle Giles” (20). Again, Sir Gavin is compared to Uncle Giles when Jenkins notes that after making a comment about being “no medievalist,” he “looked round the table challengingly as Uncle Giles was inclined to glare about him after making some more or less tendentious statement….” (183-184) The reader understands by now that Giles is fairly significant and that he will reappear, time and again, whether in person, or simply in thought. Although he is not always physically present, and he appears to be a minor player in the plot, he is very important. Jenkins’ unusual meetings with him occur randomly in the novel, but with each one, comes an understanding of why he was there. His constant appearances reinstate the fact that that life follows a certain pattern.

This continuity is also seen through Jenkins’s love, Jean Templer. At first she plays a major role in Jenkins’s life but as time proceeds, she is slowly retired. When Jenkins sees Isobel for the first time and ponders over whether love at first sight is possible, he alludes to the possibility of his still not being “wholly cured” of his affection for Jean. But it is clear that she gets displaced as Jenkins becomes closer to Isobel; she is totally out of the picture when Jenkins and Isobel share wedding vows.

Another area in which the pattern of life is displayed is with Widmerpool. In the second section of A Question of Upbringing, Jenkins experiences an unexpected encounter with him. This takes place at La Grenadiere. Jenkins had attended Eton with Widmerpool but never shared a close relationship with him; certainly, they did not plan to uphold a relationship after those years. “He had cropped up in my life before, and, if I considered him at all as a recurrent factor, I should have been prepared to admit that he might crop up again. I did not, however, as yet see him as one of those symbolic figures, of whom most people possess at least one example, if not more, round whom the past and the future have a way of assembling”(29). It was quite a surprise for Jenkins to find that, of all people, the “l’autre monsieur anglais” was Widmerpool and that he would be sharing this experience of France with him. Widmerpool became more of a friend to Jenkins as time passed; that could possibly be because Jenkins acknowledged that people are going to show up continuously in his life, expectedly or unexpectedly. That’s what life is all about.

As each volume to A Dance to the Music of Time unfolds, the “dance” of life perpetuates. Each occurrence, however bizarre it seems at the moment, can be explained or understood through a previous action of someone earlier in the novel. Life follows a pattern and Anthony Powell carefully intertwines most of the characters from the novel, using that intertwining as an underlying theme.

Anthony Powell’s The Acceptance World is not about the “acceptance world” as Templer describes it. Instead, it narrates Nick’s acceptance into a significant world, the world of love, as well as many other worlds, such as the world of art. Accurate prediction comprises a major theme of the novel; Nick’s acceptance into the world of love – acceptance by his first love, Jean – is predicted in two ways: through Mrs. Erdleigh’s intentional divination when she reads his tarot, and through Templer’s metynomic and unintentional description when he describes the “acceptance world” for Nick:

If you have goods you want to sell to a firm in Bolivia, you probably do not touch your money in an ordinary way until the stuff arrives there. Certain houses, therefore, are prepared to `accept’ the debt. They will advance you the money on the strength of your reputation. It is alright when the going is good, but sooner or later you are tempted to plunge. Then there is an alteration in the value of the Bolivian exchange, or a revolution, or perhaps the firm just goes bust – and you find yourself stung. That is, if you guess wrong. (45)

Though he intends to describe only the economic world, Templer’s portrayal relates two types of acceptance worlds: literally the financial world; and symbolically the world of love, represented by Nick’s relationship with Jean. This description links these two worlds and contributes to the theme of accurate prediction, because his precise description of the first world also acts as a symbolic description of the second. The theme of accurate prediction is conveyed in two ways throughout the novel: through the fulfillment of an intentional divination-Mrs. Erdleigh’s, and through the fulfillment of a metonymic description-Templer’s.

Mrs. Erdleigh reads the cards for Nick during their first encounter:

I expect he wants to hear about love… This is a much more important lady-medium hair, I should say-and I think you have run across her once or twice before, though not recently. But there seems to be another man interested, too. He might even be a husband. You don’t like him much. He is tallish, I should guess. Fair, possibly red hair. In business. Often goes abroad. (15)

This divination from the cards exemplifies the theme of accurate description in the novel. The “important lady” of whom she speaks is Jean, whose redheaded husband, Bob Duport, Nick despises, as he relates in chapter three of A Question of Upbringing. Nick’s relationship with Jean demonstrates the truth of her reading, which comprises the intentional divination aspect of the major theme.

Templer’s definition of the “acceptance world” acts doubly by both describing the world that Duport and Widmerpool are entering and by outlining the progression of Nick’s relationship with Jean. Nick “has goods that he wants to sell to a firm in Bolivia”, which she symbolizes, but does not touch his currency “in the ordinary way until the stuff arrives there” (45). He gives his love, the goods, to her but does not collect the profit of this until it arrives there, until she first recognizes his feelings in the cab, when: “I took Jean in my arms” (65). Templer’s description continues to outline their relationship: “then there is an alteration in the value of the Bolivian exchange, or a revolution, or perhaps the firm just goes bust-and you find yourself stung” (45). The alteration that occurs in their relationship is the imminent return of Bob Duport, which represents a possible revolution in the love affair. Though never directly stated, Nick and Jean’s relationship appears over at the end of the novel. She says, “Did Peter mention Bob is coming back…. And his prospects are not too bad…. That may make difficulties” (214). He then tells the reader, “things still had their enchantment” (214). The word “still” implies that the relationship is afloat but will end after the conclusion of the novel. Templer’s description of the “acceptance world” foretells the progression of their relationship and comprises the aspect of metonymic description in the major theme of accurate prediction.

On page 170, Nick discusses the aptness of Templer’s phrase:

Even as a technical definition, it seemed to suggest what we are all doing; not only in business, but in love [and] art… Sometimes the goods are delivered, even a small profit made; sometimes the goods are not delivered, and disaster follows; sometimes the goods are delivered, but the value of the currency is changed. Besides, in another sense, the whole world is the Acceptance World as one approaches thirty; at least some illusions are discarded.

This quote highlights the connection between Templer’s description and Nick’s coincident acceptance into the two worlds described; it describes and predicts Nick’s acceptance into the worlds of love and art. In Nick and Jean’s relationship “the goods are delivered, even a small profit made” for a while, but, with the advent of Duport’s return, “the goods are delivered, but the value of the currency is changed”(170). Nick’s acceptance into the world of art is his business relationship with the novelist St. John Clarke, which developed because of his employment in a firm involved with “the publication of art books” (8). In this relationship, “the goods [the contracted Art of Horace Isbister] are not delivered, and disaster follows” (170). This quote, like Templer’s definition, describes and predicts Nick’s acceptance into separate worlds and contributes to the novel’s major theme of accurate description.

Nick’s relationship with Jean fulfils Mrs. Erdleigh’s tarot predictions uttered during their first meeting, and it follows the course laid out by Templer when he describes the “acceptance world.” The fulfillment of these predictions, the development and progression of their relationship, comprises the major theme of accurate description in the novel.

In the second and third books of A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell isolates a few specific characters from those he seems to deem more “main-stream” by giving them leftist political ideals. As Powell contrasts the “bougouise” and the “revolutionaries,” he hints at the formation of a deeper social and political schism, possibly resulting from the hardships of the “slump.” Although Powell appears to be relatively indifferent to the onset of socialism during the third book of Dance, he does use it as an objective means of illustrating tensions and social changes undoubtedly brewing at the time.

Gypsy Jones is the first socialist character Powell brings into Dance, and immediately he distinguishes her from other women already introduced. Though obviously different from women like Barbara Goring and Baby Wentworth, Gypsy is no less socially affluent or powerful. By hinting at the rapid ascendance of this “undeniably sluttish” (ABM 168) woman through the ranks of the communist party, (“Edgar swears that she is the toast of the 1917 club,” ABM 171) Powell uncovers a new social niche, one in which women like Gypsy, not Mrs. Andriadis, gain status. In the case of J.G. Quiggin, Powell similarly illustrates how people who do not meet conventional social standards could, by gaining recognition within the socialist underground, displace someone as conventionally successful as Peter Templer.

Through the progression of St. John Clarke’s secretaries, from Members to Quiggin to Guggenbuhl, Powell shows how the socialist underground progresses towards increasingly severe ideologies: socialism, Marxism, Trotskyism. Quiggins’ eventual warning to “steer clear of Trotskyists” (TAW 174) reveals that the leftist organization is growing large and powerful enough to sub-divide into these specific ideological leanings.

In St. John Clarke, Powell creates a social barometer, for weak minds often serve as such, to keep track of these ideological changes happening at the time. Barnby’s reference to the “outward and visible sign of St. John Clarke’s conversion” (TAW 25) sarcastically relates Marxism to religious fanaticism through a clever parody on theology. Quiggins’ similar announcement that he is a “practising Marxist” (TAW 97), again reveals an almost religious dedication to leftist ideals.

Nick’s observation of the increasing frequency and size of local socialist demonstrations also reveals the growing importance of such ideologies at the time. Jenkins feels estranged from these demonstrators, and though he is friends with a few of them, he begins to experience the divisive quality of such political theories. (TAW 167) Particularly in the case of Quiggin, Jenkins thinks he can identify people of these political leanings strictly by their appearance. (TAW 62) It seems as if socialism, something that had previously been considered but a fad passing through the idle minds of the upper class, is gaining enough strength and support to become a self conscious and identifiable society.

Powell outlines how, at the time, an entirely new and different social circle was gaining strength, possibly quickly enough to rival the more conservative ones to which Jenkins belonged. The differences in appearance, sexual habits (in the case of Gypsy), and social events, of these two groups, reveals the possibility of a complete separation between the leftist world, and Nick’s more conventional one.