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Evelyn Waugh told Ann Fleming that ‘Tony Powell’s latest volume [Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant] is a sad disappointment — only three pages of Widmerpool’. That was in 1960. A few years earlier, my classics master, urging me to read Powell, said, ‘The pre-war novels; I don’t like this chap Widmerpool.’ Few Powell fans would agree. Most are on Waugh’s side, delighting in the monster.
Still, I’ve been thinking about a question posed by Colin Donald in a paper given at last December’s Anthony Powell Centenary Conference. ‘Does Widmerpool “add up” as a character?’ he asked. ‘He certainly has a varied career, progressing from awkward, unpopular boy to crazed, elderly hippy via stints as a solicitor’s clerk, bill broker, territorial officer, wartime major and DAAG, Cabinet Office military martinet, Labour MP, publisher, suspected Russian agent, university teacher, TV personality, Californian guru, trendy university chancellor and spectacularly embarrassing cult member’ — a list which omits only his time on Sir Magnus Donners’ staff.
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