Fact and Fiction

Abstract

There are many connections between Anthony Powell’s life and his fiction. He published five novels between 1931 and 1939 and two more in the 1980s; A Dance to the Music of Time (1951–76) is a novel-sequence in twelve volumes.1 His memoirs, To Keep the Ball Rolling, appeared in four volumes between 1976 and 1982. Powell has warned us against the idea of real models for fictional creations, but he does yield to the attraction of exploring the autobiographical sources of his novels, and readers who enjoy his books will probably share his gossipy inquisitiveness about how people, places and events can be linked with characters, settings and stories.2 The memoirs are full of clues to starting points for the novelist’s imagination — or, in his phrase, ‘creative fantasy’. The relation between fact and fiction, always problematic, is most interesting in the case of Nicholas Jenkins, narrator of Dance, whose career and personality resemble the author’s. Powell told an interviewer, ‘Nick is a person like myself, and added that ‘if you’re writing a novel you must have a point of view, and it should be one fairly near your own’.3 To Keep the Ball Rolling is useful as an introduction to the novels for what it shows of their background and of their approach to life.