Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [58]
‘It’s Mr Widmerpool, isn’t it? Do forgive my introducing myself. My name’s X. Trapnel. I’m a writer. JG was talking about you the other day. He said you were one of the few MPs who are trying to make the Government get a move on. I do hope you’ll do something about the laws defining certain kinds of writing as obscene, when it’s nothing of the sort. They really ought to be looked into. As a writer I can speak. You won’t have heard of me, but I’m published by Quiggin & Craggs. I’ve a short story in this opening number of Fission.’
‘Of course, of course.’
It was not possible to judge how far Widmerpool had taken in Trapnel’s identity. I was at a loss to understand the meaning of this move. Trapnel continued to speak his piece.
‘I don’t want to bother you, just to say this. It looks as if there might be a danger of their bringing a case against Alaric Kydd’s Sweetskin. I haven’t read it, of course, because it isn’t out yet – but we don’t want JG put inside just because some liverish judge happens to take a dislike to Kydd’s work.’
Widmerpool, if rather taken aback at being appealed to in this manner, was at the same time not unflattered to be regarded as the natural protector of publishers, now that he was in a sense a publisher himself. The manoeuvre was quite uncharacteristic of Trapnel. Like most writers in favour of abolishing current restrictions, such as they were, he was not so far as I knew specially interested in the question of ‘censorship’. Trapnel’s writing was not of the sort to be greatly affected by prohibitions of language or subject matter. He was competent to express whatever he wanted in an oblique manner. At the same time, he might well feel that, if obliquity in the context were less concordant than bluntness, it was absurd for bluntness to be forbidden by law. Language was a matter of taste. It looked as if the theme of censorship had been evoked on the spur of the moment as a medium convenient for making himself known to Widmerpool. Although Trapnel’s appearance was of a kind to which he was unused, Widmerpool showed himself equal to the challenge.
‘I’m happy you mention the matter. It is one that has always been at the back of my mind as of prime importance. As with so many questions of a similar sort, there are two sides. We must consider all the evidence carefully, especially that of those best fitted to judge in such matters. Amongst them I don’t doubt you are one, Mr Trapnel, an author yourself and man of experience, well versed in the subject. My own feeling is that we want to do away with the interference of old-fashioned busybodies to the furthest possible extent, while at the same time taking care not to offend the susceptibilities of simple people with a simple point of view, and their livings to earn, people who haven’t time to concern themselves too closely with what may easily have the appearance of contradictory arguments put forward by the pundits of the so-called intellectual world, men whom you and I perhaps respect less than they respect themselves. The prejudices of such people may seem unnecessarily complicated to the man in the street, who has been brought up with what could sometimes be justly regarded as a lot of out-of-date notions, but notions that are nevertheless dear to him, if only because they have been dear in the past to someone whose opinion he knew and revered – I mean of course to his mother.’
Widmerpool, who had dropped his voice at the last sentence, paused and smiled. The reply was one with which no politician could have found fault. Surprisingly enough, it seemed equally satisfactory to Trapnel. His acceptance of such an answer was as inexplicable as his reason for asking the question.
‘Admirably expressed, Mr Widmerpool. What I envy about an MP like yourself is not the power he wields, it’s his constituency. Going round and seeing how all