as had a fellow-Etonian, Henry Yorke (1905–1973). As ‘Henry Green’, Yorke too
wrote a series of novels, from Blindness (1929) to Doting (1962), including Living
(1929) and Loving (1945). Like their titles, these novels are elliptical and stylish,
combining a patterned surface with the social curiosity and clipped reportage of the
1930s. Green is once again gaining readers. The slimming effect of modernism, and
of the accelerating pace of life, on English fiction is taken further by Ivy Compton-
Burnett, whose novels consist of stylized dialogues between the heads of Victorian
houses and their juniors, conducted in a mood of courteous hatred.
Powell’s panorama, from A Question of Upbringing (1951) to Hearing Secret
Harmonies (1975), shows with remarkable objectivity the criss-crossing lives of a
group of schoolfriends, their wives and associates, from 1920 to 1970, via the narra-
tive voice of the self-effacing Nicholas Jenkins. Eton, Oxford, London, publishing,
the arts – an upper-class world, professional rather than rich. Among those who
dance to time’s music are a socialist peer, a critic on the make, a Freudian general, a
tragic composer, a South American diplomat, a tycoon (Sir Magnus Donners), and
the women around whom their lives revolve. There are pubs and parties, smart,
respectable or bohemian, with alcoholic and erotic casualties, but the navigation is
steady. At first the breadth of the canvas, the self-effacement of Jenkins, and the lack
of immediate purpose or subject, diffuses interest. The pace is even and the tone
quiet compared with the whip-crack Waugh. But the web of family and friendship
builds up a satisfying density, especially with the wartime volumes. The reader looks
forward to the appearances of the pompous Widmerpool, a youth disliked at school,
whose drive takes him ever higher in social, industrial and political circles, as he
trims his sails to the next wind. Each success of this toady is crowned with a social
humiliation which spurs him on to his next incarnation; he falls at last for a sinister
occultism.The twel ve novels follow the signs of the zodiac, a circle not an advance.
Unlike Proust, Powell is neither inward nor philosophical: he perseveres in a
tempered observation of the oddity of individual lives and their apparently random
regroupings. But the composition gives the gossip-column materials a strange sense
ofpattern. Time yields slow-burning comic sequences and tragic revelations. The
acceptance of marital breakdown and of cynicism about the public world shows ‘the
disintegration of society in its traditional forms’, and, eccentric as the dancers are,
the Dance has representative value. It lives through its curiosity, quiet humour and
skilful composition. The skill and range of Powell’s post-war achievement have not
been matched by other British novelists. Muriel Spark is lighter, William Golding
heavier, though Powell remains more consistently than they do at the level of the
mundane.
Powell’s stamina is demonstrated in his Memoirs, which open with a stupefying
family history. They offer judgements of his fellow Etonians, Cyril Connolly and Eric
Blair (‘George Orwell’, 1904–1950), who became influential journalists, Connolly as
reviewer and editor of the journal Horizon (1939–50), Orwell as a campaigning
reporter and political commentator. Connolly reviewed regularly in The Sunday
Timesuntil his death in 1974, maintaining a literary standard which has not been
matched since.George Orwell
The cult of Orwell has not faded as much as that of Connolly. His name will live
through Animal Farm (1945), a political allegory of the Russian Revolution which
became a modern classic. The animals depose Farmer Jones, but the pigs (the Party),372 13 · FROM POST-WAR TO POST-WAR: 1920–55