Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [37]
‘Of course a novelist is serious only if he is a good novelist. You mention Molly Bloom. She offers an example of what I am saying. Obviously her sexual musings – and her husband’s – derive from the author, to the extent that he invented them. Such descriptions would have been a thousand times less convincing, if attributed to Stephen Dedalus – let alone to Joyce himself. Their strength lies in existence within the imaginary personalities of the Blooms. That such traits are much diminished, when given to a hero, is even to some extent exemplified in Ulysses. It may be acceptable to read of Bloom tossing off. A blow by blow account of the author doing so is hardly conceivable as interesting. Perhaps, at the base of it all, is the popular confusion of self-pity with compassion. What is effective is art, not what is “true” – using the term in inverted commas.’
‘Like Pilate.’
‘Unfortunately Pilate wasn’t a novelist.’
‘Or even a memoir-writer.’
‘Didn’t Petronius serve as a magistrate in some distant part of the Roman Empire? Think if the case had come up before him. Perhaps Petronius was a different period.’
The Satyricon was the only classical work ever freely quoted by Trapnel. He would often refer to it. I recalled his views on biography, reading Gwinnett’s – found on return home – and wondered how far Trapnel would have regarded this example as proving his point. That a biography of Trapnel should have been written at all was surprising enough, an eventuality beyond all guessing for those to whom he had been no more than another necessitous phantom at the bar, to stand or be stood a half pint of bitter. Now, by a process every bit as magical as any mutations on the astral plane claimed by Dr Trelawney, there would be casual readers to find entertainment in the chronicle of Trapnel’s days, professional critics adding to their reputation by analysis of his style, academics rummaging for nuggets among the Trapnel remains. It seemed unlikely that much was left over. Gwinnett had done a thorough job.
I had been friends with Trapnel only a few years, but in those years witnessed some of his most characteristic attitudes and performances. Here was a good instance of later trimmings that throw light on an already known story. Gwinnett had not only recorded the routine material well, he had dealt judiciously with much else of general interest at that immediately post-war period; one not specially easy to handle, especially for an American by no means steeped in English life. Prudently, Gwinnett had not always accepted Trapnel (given to self-fantasy) at his own estimation. The final disastrous spill (worse than any on the racecourse by his jockey father) – that is to say Trapnel’s infatuation with Pamela Widmerpool – had been treated with an altogether unexpected subtlety. Gwinnett had once implied that his own involvement with Pamela might impair objectivity, but only those who knew of that already were likely to recognize the extent to which author identified himself with subject. I wrote to Delavacquerie recommending that Death’s-head Swordsman should receive the year’s Magnus Donners Memorial Prize. He replied that, Emily Brightman and Mark Members being in agreement, he himself would, as arranged, approach Widmerpool. If Widmerpool objected to our choice, we should have to think again. In due course, Delavacquerie reported back on this matter. His letters, like his speech, always possessed a touch of formality.
‘There are to be no difficulties for the judges from that quarter. Lord Widmerpool’s assurances justify me in my own eyes. You would laugh at the professional pleasure I take in being able to write this, the quiet satisfaction I find in my own skill at negotiation. To tell the truth no negotiation had to take place. Lord Widmerpool informed me straightaway that he did not care a fart – that was his unexpected phrase – what was said about him in Professor Gwinnett’s book, either by name or anonymously. He gave no reason for this, but was evidently speaking without reservation of any kind. At first he said he did not