I found the second book much more enjoyable than the first, probably because I knew what to expect and was not holding it up against Catcher in the Rye. Taking it for what it was, I was able to slow down and enjoy the clever controlled phrasings of the author and submerge myself in the narrator's world. The characters from the first novel continue to dance in and out of Jenkins's life, and there is a definite sense of building. These first three novels appear to be Act I, in which the world and characters are being established before the second act comes to rattle them all up.
I can't say that I have any clearer idea what the novel is about, or what Powell is saying about the world around us. I have the vague notion that Powell is pointing to the time between the two World Wars as a transitional time in modern culture. The upper-class propriety of the university-educated boys in the first novel was punctured by the upward mobility of Sunny Farebrother and Widmerpool, and those issues of class seem even more prominent in this second book. Sunny and Widmerpool were still part of the dinners and dances of culture in the first book. Here, the main figure who frames the novel is Mr. Deacon, a painter who had some exchanges with Nick's parent when Nick was a boy. Running into him as an adult, Nick gets on friendly terms with Deacon and their worlds overlap, bringing Nick into a more solidly middle-class environment. Deacon and Gypsy Jones are like characters out of a Dickens novel, fun but not entirely scrupulous, and they make the sense of the social order seem less stable and more fluid than before. I feel, in short, that class is at issue in the novel, but what in the end is Powell's interest is still a mystery to me.
I do love the idea of making an epic story out of what seems a rather mundane set of circumstances. Due to Powell's careful construction, I have full faith in his ability to bring all the disparate narratives (which will certainly be getting still more disparate) together in meaningful ways down the road. There is an impressive tightness in the layering of incidences that suggests a formidable discipline at the core of the novels. Just as an example, the figure of E. St. John Clarke is raised by Widmerpool in the opening chapter when he discusses a bit of art criticism published in the papers. Clarke is again mentioned in passing at a party in a following scene, and crops up one or two more time before we learn that Members (one of Nick's acquaintances from university) is a secretary to Clarke. So even though the man himself never makes an appearance, he haunts the conversation of the novel. By doing so, along with similar careful references, Powell feels in complete control of his story, like a Pynchon without the added level of absurdity.
I am also interested in the sense of time in the novel. The past and present co-exist like a picture book with overlays. As Jenkins encounters a new experience he tells us both what he thought at the time and that such thoughts were the product of the too narrow experience of youth. Later, he assures us, he will be able to look back at this moment and understand what was really at issue. As he says at the end of the second book,
This is perhaps an image of how we live. For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected; so that, before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity.This is one of the reasons, I think, that the novel feels weak in plot at this stage. These are moments that have gained significance only in latter years of the narrator's life. These were not the tales he would have told a year after their happening, but they are the tales that lay the groundwork for where his life is to take him. At this point, I can gladly be patient for the story to build and take me someplace meaningful.
Before I go, I would like to pose a question to my non-existent co-readers. What is up with the individual titles in this series? How is the second book A Buyer's Market? Who is buying? Who is selling? And what is being sold? Deacon's art? His antiques? Memories? And what was questionable in the first novel, A Question of Upbringing? These titles make no direct reference to what's happening in the novel, and I can't help but feel that they are some type of clue to Powell's root concerns in the novels. Any help would be appreciated.
I will pick up the series when I reach 1955. For now, it is on to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
