PhD – June's Jottings

July Re-Cap

August 1, 2023 June L

Once again, I have neglected my blog over the past month. Not out of desire but more of necessity. July has been another weirdly busy month where nothing has happened (if that makes sense). I hope to rectify things and return to my usual blogging schedule as soon as I can. In the meantime, here is a re-cap of my July:

House selling

Sadly, our house is still on the market as I type up this blog. None of the family homes around here have shifted, and more are coming onto the market every week. Since my last blog post, we have had no viewers at all; indeed, at times I forget our house is even on the market. It’s really demoralising. The “one viewer” that everyone talks about is strangely elusive and we wait on, clocking up more fees for storage and gaining more and more grey hairs and worry lines. There is a fairly big (I’m told) cycling event happening in nearby Glentress Forest at the end of this week and our agent is hoping that with a lot of visitors in the town we may pick up some interest. But, I am not holding my breath. I’m usually a positive person – optimism is my default setting – but this whole experience of trying to sell our lovely home is chipping away at that bit by bit. Maybe I’m just tired. I know I’m impatient. Both my husband and I are so keen to move back to the city as soon as possible and it’s frustrating when the ability to do so seems to not be happening imminently.

We are also in great need of a holiday away but because of the shenanigans this year with house-selling, that isn’t going to happen. Instead, it’s a case of trying to chill at home.

Anyway, maybe next month’s blog will be different (I’m sure I also said this last month…..).

PhD thesis

I have been trying to chip away at this over the past month. I have definitely left the most tricky chapter until the end. I’ve found some very useful background information, but Powell’s pubs, clubs, and restaurants are described minimally in his Dance novels. From these minimal descriptions, and from his journal entries and memoirs, I am trying to piece together subchapters which maintain the theme upon which my thesis is based. It is far from easy. Maybe I’m finding it more challenging with all that is going on (or not) with the house, but I’m keeping on going and am determined to have this finished next summer at the earliest.

When I was a child, my parents used to drag me to swimming lessons (which I hated!). The swimming teacher always used to tell us to “keep kicking” so that we could complete lengths, even when we wanted just to float or take a rest. That “keep kicking” concept has been very much in my mind, and – no matter how hard I wish this was all done so I can take a wee break – I have to keep going. If I don’t “keep kicking”, it won’t be finished for ages. And I (and I’m sure my supervisor) want this finished.

Reading

This month, when I haven’t been reading articles and books about Fitzrovia and Soho, or Powell’s novels (for the umpteenth time), I have been reading the first in the trilogy of Peebles-based novels by O. Douglas (actually named Anna Buchan, sister of John Buchan who wrote the Hannay books). I’ve only lived here 23 years and am reading them just as I’m about to leave! It’s easy-reading but a lovely escape as I try (unsuccessfully) to identify the locations of the houses that appear in Penny Plain (the first book in the ‘Priorsford’ series). Published in 1925, this novel paints a very different town to the one I live in, particularly in this description:

“I often wonder why Priorsford is so unlike a story-book little town. We’re not nearly so interested enough in each other for one thing. We don’t gossip to excess. Everyone goes his or her own way. In books, people do things or are suspected of doing things, and are immediately cut out by a feverishly-interested neighbourhood. I can’t imagine that happening in Priorsford”.

One just needs to look at the town Facebook pages to see that this isn’t the case any more! And gossip….. well, let’s just say when I was sick 11 years ago, I learned from various people “through the grapevine” that I had been at ‘death’s door’, or re-admitted for yet another operation among other falsities. I guess this is the ‘joy’ of a small town.

TV/Netflix/Streaming

I haven’t had much time to watch TV (as usual) except for the Sewing Bee (which I also mentioned last month). I can’t be bothered with TV, to be honest. I’ve been in a more creative/reading mood this month.

General

Unlike May and June, July has been cool and wet here. I don’t think there has been a day, since the schools broke up at the end of June, when we haven’t had rain. I’m not complaining though; the heatwave we had in the spring was more than enough summer for me. And, I’d rather have what we have now than the excessively hot temperatures seen in many parts of the world over the past few weeks. I’ve tidied out the garden in the drier spells but have been spared the watering – God’s done that for me! Perhaps when the schools go back in a fortnight, we will get summer again (even though I am looking forward to autumn!).

Talking of which, yesterday was so wet and cold that I decided to make gingerbread. I felt autumnal and I wanted to make something to enjoy with a cuppa tea. I found an old recipe in a book my late Auntie gave me for my fifteenth birthday, and the end result is amazing. I’m going to make that again!

Our son was 23 last week, so he and my daughter came from their respective flats to stay for the weekend. It was lovely having the house full again. Now they have both gone, I really feel the vacuum they have left. Mind you, I have a lot of tidying up to do in their wake!

I’ve been chipping away at the cross-stitch picture that my Dad gave me for Christmas. It’s hard finding time as I usually feel guilty that I’m not writing my thesis, or doing my SST emails, or doing something else. However, I have done short bursts at a time and am two-thirds of the way through it. I think I have mentioned it before, but sewing – and art and craft in general – is my go-to de-stress activity. Also, there is a quotation in a book I read a few years ago (in The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams), which says:

‘”I clean, I help with the cooking. I set the fires. Everything I do gets eaten, or dirtied, or burned – at the end of the day there’s no proof I have been here at all”. She paused, kneeled down beside me, and stroked the embroidery on the edge of my skirt […]. “Me [sic] needlework will always be here […]. I see this and I feel….well, I don’t know the word. Like I’ll always be here”. “Permanent,” I said’.

That’s how I view my numerous cross-stitch pictures which will one day belong to the kids. They are lasting proof that I have existed. Does that sound sad?

Ooh, and also the new Karl Jenkins CD was released at the beginning of July; the CD for which our choir provided two songs: ‘Let’s Go (Babel)’ and ‘Savitur’. They sound a-maz-ing! Even better, the album reached number 1 in the classical charts, so now I can say that I have sung on a number 1 CD! The names of my husband and I are on the inlay slip as proof! See if you can see my name below…. (names listed alphabetically by first name).

So, that’s been July. I’m hoping August will see the changes we are seeking. Who knows?

Alternative About Me, Anthony Powell, General, PhD

Things that are important to me #3: my PhD study.

February 14, 2023August 18, 2023 June L

I have always loved learning things, and in particular, I have always loved reading. My parents used to tell me that ever since I could walk, I wouldn’t be seen anywhere without a book under each arm. By the time I was five, I was in the top reading group at school, reading well above my age level, and by the time I finished primary school, I was top in English, grammar, science, and maths and was (informal) Dux of my primary school (my teacher and headteacher told both me and my parents this, but actually she decided to formally award Dux to another girl in my class – who cheated at maths – because my class teacher didn’t like my handwriting! I am still bitter about it to this day, especially when people always compliment me on my handwriting…. Oddly enough, this was repeated later on with my Master’s degree – I was marked by two markers as having passed with Distinction, but then unexplainedly demoted by a third marker to a Merit despite my work having been graded ‘Excellent’ all down my marking sheet. Yeah, cheers for that. I wasn’t even allowed to appeal. Huh. Apparently, there were ‘too many’ Distinctions that year so mine went down a league. Even now I can’t look at my Master’s certificate without feeling cheated. However, ‘we move’ – as the youngsters these days say. I’m just so happy I got my Master’s, especially not having done a full English undergraduate degree).

I knew when I started senior school that I wanted to study English at Uni when I finished school. It was always my strongest subject, closely followed by Biology. I wanted to spend my life researching books and writing about books, and lecturing people about books. I applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities for their English Language and Literature degrees (as they were in those days) and got accepted by Glasgow but rejected by Edinburgh (which, incidentally, was my dream university). However, to cut a long story short, I eventually turned down my place at Glasgow; they had a scarcity of accommodation, and I would have needed to have commuted in every day from Edinburgh which really wasn’t feasible and would be expensive financially and time-wise. As it was too late by then to apply for a space on another course that year, I spent my Gap Year as a nursing assistant in a psychogeriatric ward in order to earn some money and ‘experience’ the world a bit. I ended up loving this so much that I decided to ditch applying again for English, and instead applied for a nursing degree at the university which was literally seven minutes’ walk from my home.

Fast forward sixteen years, and I had to medically retire from nursing due to my third cancer diagnosis. I loved my job – particularly in critical care – but there was no way I could continue. The long hours (usually working long shifts on days off too to cover for absent colleagues), minimal sleep between shifts, and the general low morale and excessive stress of the job took their collective toll on me. So, I had to think about what to do with my life. I was 41 years old – in my view, most people had their lives sorted by now, and here was me about to start from the bottom again. As my cancer treatment was lengthy and debilitating, one evening I made the bold move of enrolling on an undergraduate Open University English module (in the days you could just randomly apply to do any module you liked whether you were working for a degree or not). I was going to do this English study that I so desired when I was a teenager. I’ve written blogs on my Open Uni journey so won’t repeat myself suffice to say that I absolutely loved my studies so much that I enrolled on and completed a Master’s in English, also through the Open Uni. I have since been studying for my PhD at Edinburgh Uni (my dream university) where I am a-l-m-o-s-t finished writing my thesis. I have the best supervisor in the world and I am loving every minute of researching for my degree – well, mostly loving every minute. Let’s not gloss over the fact that it’s tough and there are days when impostor syndrome kicks in, self-doubt, and just general fed up-ness with my never-ending thesis.

I embarked on my part-time PhD when I was in my mid-40s, a time when my kids were all grown up and at Uni or finishing school and were increasingly independent. At the time, my parents were both well as was my mother-in-law, and circumstances seemed to continue as they had been throughout my Open Uni study. I had a wee office to hide away in every day at home (which I preferred to the open plan, distracting PhD office at the uni) – first year was a breeze. It was different though. I was the dinosaur of my cohort. It’s something I didn’t feel with online study as most people were about my age plus, learning remotely, you only really interact through formal forums or through dedicated Facebook groups. But I really noticed it on campus. The youngsters (all in their 20s) were all wanting to meet up to go out in the evenings, when I just wanted to go home, put my PJs on and just read with a hot chocolate. They’d all talk about their favourite music bands, and I’m thinking that I still remember the original version of the cover song they are talking about. Don’t get me wrong, they were (and are) a lovely bunch and never let me feel excluded, but when you feel that inside you are their age, but you’re actually not, it can be a little odd. I have to admit to feeling envious of those youngsters though and the fact that they were studying for their PhDs whilst they were in their 20s – they have a whole life ahead of them to follow their dreams, while I’m likely to be way too old by the time I finish mine to follow my own.

Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ series – I am writing my thesis on these wonderful books.

I presented my first conference at Oxford Uni in the late summer of 2018, and then – at the start of second year – everything seemed to go downhill. My Mum was misdiagnosed by her GP as having ‘swine flu’ but which, several months and a private CT scan later, turned out to be advanced metastatic breast cancer. Then my mother-in-law kept falling/fitting and going into hospital at six-weekly intervals. On top of this, my daughter was having a tough time with her mental health and, as a result of all of these, my PhD study took a major hit. I had to be daughter, daughter-in-law, and mother to these three women – there was no way I could focus on my studies. Any time I could focus, it was well into the evening – after tutoring my school students – when I was physically exhausted. So, on the advice of my supervisor, I took an interruption from my PhD study for 8 months. Being able to do take that break in order to be the supportive family member that I needed to be, was so great; by the time I returned to my studies just before Christmas 2020, things had calmed down – Mum’s cancer was being controlled well, mother-in-law had had her medication updated, and my daughter was at Uni (albeit under COVID lockdown). I felt mentally and emotionally ready to get going on my research again and so I set to on my second thesis chapter.

I had almost finished this when I needed to take another break a year later. Mother-in-law had fallen ill again on Boxing Day (from which she ultimately passed away two weeks later) and it was becoming more evident that Mum wasn’t going to be around much longer. The previous July we had received the news that her cancer had spread to her liver; by the December she was a skeleton of a lady and was really not well. So, I took another six months off so that I could spend Mum’s remaining weeks with her. She passed away at the end of February 2022. I was all for giving up my PhD then – I thought my supervisor would be frustrated with me, and fed up that I was still about, writing this magnum opus. I had had no focus for months and Mum’s passing hit me hard – reading anything was too much let alone books by my beloved Anthony Powell. I also thought of my full-time cohort, many of whom had already graduated while I am still stuck with only two out of three chapters written and no appetite to get back to it. But on the last day she had the ability to speak, Mum made me promise to see my studies through. She knew this was my dream degree, and she said she didn’t want her not being about to stop me finishing what I had started. So, I did promise her I would see it through – and I am, albeit at a pace akin to a snail as we now prepare our house for selling.

Me finally meeting the woman whose encyclopaedia of Powell’s ‘Dance’ novels is making writing my thesis so much easier – Hilary Spurling. She was the only author with whom Anthony Powell entrusted the writing of his biography.

Taking breaks during such big projects is absolutely OK. Researching for a PhD is a lonely business – unlike a school or undergraduate/Master’s university class where you have course-mates studying the same things as you. Add on top of this family issues, personal health issues, or anything else, then your standard of work is going to suffer. When I started my studies, I was determined I would finish in four years. A super-fast part-timer. But, life threw the kitchen sink (and the toolbox) at me and here I am, about to start year six, still plodding on. I’ll get there. I’ll do it. But I want to be well in the process. I presented my second paper at a conference last summer and got such encouraging feedback from it, that I remembered just why I am doing this research in the first place. Although I have had to take time out, twice, I would rather submit a thesis that I loved doing and is my very best work rather than plough onwards and feel that I resented doing it every minute. I’ve invested time, money, and energy into this – I’m going to make it count even if it takes me that little bit longer.

These are only some factors which make my PhD very important to me. Besides these, I love researching the author Anthony Powell (who, annoyingly, very few people have heard of) and finding brand new links that have not been connected before. I argue that he is just as effective a commentator of London society in the 1920s – 1970s as Charles Dickens was in the previous century. I have ambitions to teach a Powell course at the university – whether that be an evening class or by another means – and I have a post-doctoral research area all ready (if I am offered a place to study for this when I finish my PhD). My love of learning and reading that was part of my identity as a toddler still remains to this day.

This level of study does mean a lot of sacrifices – I am self-funding and so I have to pay the yearly fees, but my tutoring helps cover these. It means sacrificing some aspects of my free time or social life, but it is worth it. I am aiming to finish early 2024 – family health permitting. I want my almost 90-year old Dad to come to my graduation. I want to realise my teenage dream. The importance of my PhD to me is also because I’m not just doing it for me, or my late Mum, or indeed my family. I am also doing it for my supervisor (whose knowledge is inspiring), my friends at the Anthony Powell Society, (who have been so encouraging and informative), for my recently retired second supervisor, (who gave me such valuable feedback during the first two years of my studies), and also for Anthony Powell himself. Although he is no longer alive, I hope that my thesis will raise his profile a bit in the literary world so that more people can see for themselves the genius behind his writing.

Anthony Powell in his library at The Chantry

Monthly Re-Caps

January Re-cap

February 2, 2023February 1, 2023 June L

Reading

Other than reading extensively for my thesis, and starting my final chapter, I have tried to dig myself out of a reading slump by attacking the pile of books that line the floors in my study. As we are putting the house up for sale in a few weeks’ time, most of my thousands of books will be going into storage, and so I am trying to read as many of the books I want to read most before they disappear until the summer.

In January, I managed to read 7 books (some are pictured in my Goodreads sidebar thingummy to the right of this post). Unusually for me, I only read five books last year – some of them before my Mum passed away and so seven in one month this year is a little victory! I had bought Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible years ago and, like most of my other intended reads, it got put in one of my bookcases and left to mature until last week. The urgency of having to pack things up suddenly hit me, and so I retrieved it and committed myself to reading it when I wasn’t writing or doing other things. My tutees have had 3 weeks off during their Prelims, so it was an excellent time for me to try and see how much of the 600-odd page novel I could get through, before I picked my next one.

I finished it on Monday, taking only just short of a week to read it. Beforehand, I knew nothing about the history of the Congo and so I found this text very enlightening historically as well as very lyrical descriptively. Doing a surface review, it was an enjoyable read if a tad long. I think it would have been better being about 200 pages slimmer than it is. However, it was nice to spend a cold and dark January reading about the hot Congo, albeit including the much more primitive living arrangements the characters had to endure.

I’ve now rescued another book from one of my many storage boxes: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark. It’s another novel I bought years ago but it started calling me asking me to spare it from ‘the box’. It’s also another biggie; it’s over 1,000 pages long. I’m about one-fifth of the way into it and am LOVING it so far. It’s my treat for when I manage to write a decent amount of my chapter!

House-selling Prep

This feels like running through custard with lead boots on. Man, are we hoarders? I don’t know if the attic will ever get cleared. Plus we still have rooms to paint, a new bathroom to be installed (after them cancelling our start of January fitting), and some roof work to be done (again, the company have been ‘kicking the can down the road’ with us since October). The storage boxes have arrived, and we are starting to pack some of our clutter away so that when we can access the storage facility in a couple of weeks, we can shove them on the van and be done with them. As mentioned above, I need about 50 boxes alone for my books (I am obviously keeping my PhD books, and my nicely bound ones) but trying to choose which ones to keep with me is like trying to choose which of your children you want to banish for 3 months. It is a nightmare. A nightmare, I tell you!

Now, I must remember NOT to pack my Anthony Powell books away. Nor my textbooks/ articles files……..

PhD

I have been chipping away at this and the final chapter is taking shape. I’ve found a few little nuggets from my reading, so am hoping that they make sense in the finished chapter. I’m aiming to have this chapter done in the autumn (taking into account our house move etc) and then it’s just the final editing to do. Although at times I can see my thesis far enough, I’m still really enjoying it and am thankful that the uni have given me this chance to follow my dream – even though I suspect I will be wayyyyy too old to pursue my dream job of being an academic/lecturer when I finish. I’m glowering at 2017 me who was certain that she would get this done in 4 years. Hah! Well, I guess with events over the next couple of years, that wasn’t likely to happen. I’m keeping on going anyway. I’m just grateful that my supervisor has the patience of a saint.

TV/Netflix

I don’t actually watch very much TV but this January I was absolutely hooked on The Traitors. It’s a psychological reality show where, within a group of strangers, three of them are allocated the role of traitor (these traitors ‘murder’ a ‘faithful’ contestant every night) and the others (the ‘faithful’) have to try and work out who the traitors are. I ended up watching the UK and the US versions – it was that good. The series’ are still available on BBC iPlayer.

As far as Netflix goes, it was Gilmore Girls all the way. This has been my favourite show since the 2000s and Lorelai is one of my fictional heroines. When I’m having an unproductive writing day, or am having a blue day as I’m missing my Mum, a couple of episodes of GG goes on Netflix and the world is a better place again. I’ve already watched every single episode of every single series (and the re-union) several times but, like ‘Friends’, they are worth a re-watch over and over again. Even more gratifying is getting my daughter hooked on it too; we sometimes share watch-parties, me in my home and my daughter in her flat in Dundee. I want to live in Stars Hollow. Even if it is just a stage set (the same one that was used for the town in the original – and best – ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’). I need a Luke’s where soup-bowlfuls of coffee are served all the time. Nowhere here sells coffee in massive mugs. Big letdown.

I have also been watching Suits, as I have done for years. It’s quite compelling. And the US version of The Office, which I love. But nothing tops Gilmore Girls. Sorry, not sorry.

Music

Photo by Elviss Railijs Bitu0101ns on Pexels.com

Music I have enjoyed over the past month has included a bit of Magnum. I have no idea why, in January and February, I end up playing Magnum and Pink Floyd more than at any other time of year. I guess I see them as ‘winter bands’. Odd – that’s the synaesthesia again. Best song, by far, by Magnum has to be ‘On a Storyteller’s Night’. That whole album is pretty darn good, mind you. I’ve also been re-visiting my love of Dire Straits. They don’t make bands like them any more!

Additionally, I always have some ambient music playing when I’m thesis-writing, and have been enjoying albums by Karl Jenkins (my utter favourite), Mythos, Lesiem, and Mehdi a lot. Chill out synth music with lyrics in another tongue – made up or not – which doesn’t distract me from my work. Perfect.

Interesting article:

Here’s a thing I read that I found interesting: There is a saying “you are only as old as you feel”. But, is that actual chronological age, or biological age? Aren’t they the same, you ask? Well, according to this article in the National Geographic, they could differ vastly. Knowledge of the biological age of someone could be “worth a thousand blood tests” in health promotion and disease prevention. How is biological age ascertained? By 3D imaging. It sounds expensive (a basic xray is fairly costly, alone) but the potential benefits to be gleaned from this in the future, particularly in relation to medical diagnoses and treatments (such as those for cancer which, according to the article, can cause premature ageing) are profound. Will it ever take off in our cash-strapped NHS (if, indeed, the NHS still exists in decades’ time), or would it likely be a procedure only accessible to the wealthy? One wonders.

Onward to February, my least favourite of months for many reasons. At least it’s the shortest!

Anthony Powell, PhD

PhD update

January 20, 2023January 20, 2023 June L

It’s been a hot minute since I last updated the world on my ever-so-slow PhD progress (if anybody is bursting to know). Yes, I’m still at it but the finish line is just about in sight now. Working towards this degree part-time is tough. Six years seems to be forevvvvvver especially when, like me, you’ve had to take two Interruptions from Study that collectively total over a year (first of all because my Mum was struggling with the immediate effects of treatment after her shock advanced cancer diagnosis – an illness which also coincided with my Mother-in-law also falling very ill and recovering at 6 weekly intervals. Then the last one was when I realised my Mum only had a few weeks left, and the surprise death of my Mother-in-law. So last year was a bit tricky!). Although it has been amazing seeing most of my full-time cohort graduate with their degrees, I can’t but help being a wee bit jealous as I scratch my head and stare at random paragraphs wishing that they would write themselves.

However, I soldier on. Two chapters done, one to go. And of course, I leave the hardest one until last; thank you, 2017 June. It is really rewarding though, and I am loving finding new things about Anthony Powell’s places in Dance that haven’t been studied before. He is really a brilliant author.

Last summer I also loved presenting some of my research at the Anthony Powell Society conference – my paper appeared to be very popular which was just the encouragement I needed on return from leave following my Mum’s death. The Anthony Powell Society have been (and still are) an extremely knowledgeable group of people and I am indebted to them for their help on various aspects of my research. I’m doing this thesis for them as well as my beloved Mum (who made me promise not to quit it), my family, and my supervisor.

So, I’ll keep trudging on toward that submission date (hopefully early 2024 at the latest). My supervisor has been the best – so patient with bumbling old me as well as being incredibly supportive and encouraging. Couldn’t ask for better. My thesis acknowledgements are almost going to be as long as my introduction! Almost there, me. Almost there.

Back to the research……..

Anthony Powell, PhD

PhD chat: Why Anthony Powell?

October 23, 2017August 18, 2023 June L

The usual pattern of conversation these days goes something like this…….

A.N.OTHER: “So, what is your PhD subject?”

ME: “I’m researching the Gothic and spatial theory in relation to Anthony Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ novels”.

A.N.OTHER: “Sorry, who? And what?”

Thus ensues the usual short explanation of who Powell was, a twentieth-century author, who wrote many novels which are often viewed as comedies of manners in mid to late twentieth century Britain. My research is concerned with the twelve novels which collectively make up his magnum opus ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’. And then I try and stutter through the spattering of spatial theory I have actually understood (which isn’t much) over the preceding few days.

Then comes the question: “Why did you decide to base your research on Anthony Powell?” This is an easy, yet hard question to explain.

*Two Folio Society editions of ‘Dance’. I’m searching for the other two*

Just before I was diagnosed with my latest lot of cancer, I had taken some sick time off work, as I was in pain and feeling pretty poorly. To banish the boredom of lying in bed and to distract me from my symptoms, I read book after book. After having read ten in the first week, I decided I needed a nice thick tome to get my teeth into (I am a huge fan of big books), so I googled ‘the longest book in English’, and Powell’s ‘Dance’ series appeared near to the top of the results page, after Proust. Without hesitation, I downloaded the first three novels of the series onto my Kindle and from then my love of Powell began. Within 10 days, I had read all twelve!

What struck me about these novels? Well, this is where it gets tricky to explain. To me, the narrative evoked colours, so that while I was reading them, a huge oil painting was developing in my mind. Each character was a colour, each setting had its own hue. By the time I finished, I had this abstract mental image, richly coloured, in a circular pattern. I have synaesthesia (as I have blogged about here), and often see colour in music or words – their distinctiveness make some songs/musical pieces or books very memorable. But Powell’s novels went beyond that for some unexplainable reason; the experience of reading them making me feel like I didn’t ever want to stop as I would be unlikely ever to read anything like this again. It was like a form of literary sublime!

I was extremely interested to discover, in Powell’s journal, that he admitted to being a synaesthete, and I began to wonder if this was an underlying influence in his writing, which drew me to it:

“V and I were talking about someone (possibly Rimbaud) remarking that he saw letters of the alphabet in different colours. I said I did; V, uncertain herself, suggested I ought to write down what these colours seem to me, so I do so: A, very dark red, almost black; B, very dark brown, almost black; C, light blue, almost grey; D, very dark blue; E, lightish brown; F, slightly lighter brown than E; G, about the same sort of brown as F; H, black; I, black; J, lightish brown; K, fairly light grey; L, darker grey; M, purplish red; N, brownish red; O, white; P, light green; Q, pale yellow; R, dark grey, almost black; S, darkish green; T, dark red; U, very light pale yellow; V, palish brown; W, darker brown; X, black; Y, lightish brownish yellow; Z, black”. (Tuesday, 10th June, 1986).

I have to say, compared those I ‘see’, the majority of Powell’s letters are very dark in colour and many are repeated. That could have been a PhD thesis right there, but it encroached too much into psychology, and I wanted to avoid that! I decided instead to focus on the darker ‘paint’ in my mental masterpiece: the more gothic strands to the series. I don’t want to give away too much on my public blog about my thesis – yet anyway – suffice to say that each re-reading of ‘Dance’ evokes different images and different colours that appear as a palimpsest painting. See what I mean about being hard to explain why? This hugely underrated author wrote more than just a ‘comedy of manners’, he wrote what I consider to be the best modernist/postmodernist (I can’t quite make out which) prose of the twentieth century, and my mission is to encourage more people to read it.

I would be interested to know if any other Powell scholars or ‘fans’ (apologies, I hate that word but it seems the best one to use in this situation) who are synaesthetes have the same experience as myself, and if it was this that attracted them to the ‘Dance’.

Cited work:

Powell, Anthony, Journals 1982 – 1986, (London: Arrow Books, 2015), p.245.