Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘Many a literary parasite met his Waterloo in that sitting-room,’ said Members. ‘There were crises when shelling out seemed unavoidable. St J. always held out right up to the time he was himself remaindered by the Great Publisher. I wonder what luck X. Trapnel would have had on that stricken field of borrowers.’

It was an interesting question. Trapnel was just about old enough to have applied for aid before St John Clarke’s passing. His panoramic memory for the plots of twentieth-century novels certainly retained all the better known of St John Clarke’s works; as of almost every other novelist, good, bad or indifferent, published in Great Britain since the beginning of the century. As to the United States, Trapnel was less reliable, though he could put up a respectable display of familiarity with American novelists too; anyway since the end of the first war. An apt quotation from Dust Thou Art (in the College rooms), Match Me Such Marvel (Bithel’s favourite) or the much more elusive Mimosa (brought to my notice by Trapnel himself), might well have done the trick, produced at the right moment by a young, articulate, undeniably handsome fan; the intoxicating sound to St John Clarke of his own prose repeated aloud bringing off the miracle of success, where so many tired old leathery hands at the game had failed. In the face of what might sound damaging, even contradictory evidence, Trapnel was no professional sponge in the manner of characters often depicted in nineteenth-century novels, borrowing compulsively and indiscriminately, while at the same time managing to live in comparative comfort. That was the picture Members painted of the St John Clarke petitioners, spectres from the novelist’s younger, more haphazard days, who felt an old acquaintance had been allowed too long to exist in undisturbed affluence. Members had paused for a phrase. ‘Somewhere between men of letters and blackmailers, a largely forgotten type.’

No one could say Trapnel resembled these. He neither lived comfortably, nor, once the need to take taxis were recognized, borrowed frivolously. Indeed, when things were going badly, there was nothing frivolous about Trapnel’s condition except the manner in which he faced it. He borrowed literally to keep alive, a good example of something often unrecognized outside the world of books, that a writer can have his name spread all over the papers, at the same time net perhaps only a hundred pounds to keep him going until he next writes a book. Finally, the battle against all but overwhelming economic pressures might have been lost without the support of Trapnel’s chief weapon — to use the contemporary euphemism ‘moral deterrent’ — the swordstick. The death’s head, the concealed blade, in the last resort gained the day.

I have given a long account of Trapnel and his ways in order to set in perspective what happened later. Not all this description is derived from first-hand knowledge. Part is Trapnel legend, of which there was a good deal. He reviewed fairly regularly for Fission , wrote an occasional short story, article or parody — he was an accomplished parodist of his contemporaries — and on the whole, in spite of friction now and then, when he lost his temper with a book or one of his pieces was too long or too short, the magazine suited him, he the magazine. His own volume of collected short stories Bin Ends was published. Trapnel’s reputation increased. At the same time he was clearly no stranger to what Burton called ‘those excrementitious humours of the third concoction, blood and tears’.

One day the blow fell. Alaric Kydd’s Sweetskin appeared on the shelf for review. Even Quiggin was known to have reservations about the novel’s merits. Several supposedly outspoken passages made him unwilling to identify himself with the author in his accustomed manner, in case there was a prosecution. In addition to that, a lack of humdrum qualities likely to appeal to critics caused him worry about its reception. These anxieties Quiggin had already transmitted to Bagshaw. Sweetskin was a disappointing book. Kydd had been coaxed away from Clapham’s firm. Now he seemed to be only a liability. On the one hand, the novel might be suppressed, the firm fined, a director possibly sent to gaol; on the other, the alleged lubricities being in themselves not sufficient to guarantee by any means a large sale, Sweetskin might easily not even pay off its considerable advance of royalties. How was the book to be treated in Fission ? Kydd was too well known to be ignored completely. That would be worse than an offensive review. Who could be found, without too hopelessly letting down the critical reputation of Fission itself, to hold some balance between feelings on either side of the backyard at the Quiggin & Craggs office?

Then an opportune thing happened. Trapnel rang up Bagshaw, and asked if he could deal with Kydd, in whose early work he was interested, even though he thought the standard had not been maintained. If he could see Sweetskin , he might want to write a longer piece, saying something about Kydd’s origins and development, in which the new book would naturally be mentioned. Bagshaw got in touch with me about this. It seemed the answer. Trapnel’s representative came round the same afternoon to collect the review copy.

The following week, when I was at Fission ‘doing’ the books, Trapnel rang up. He said he was bringing the Sweetskin review along himself late that afternoon, and suggested we should have a drink together. There was something he particularly wanted to talk about. This was a fairly normal thing to happen, though the weather was not the sort to encourage hanging about in pubs. I also wanted to get back to Burton. However, Trapnel was unusually pressing. When he arrived he was in a jumpy state, hard to say whether pleased or exasperated. Like most great egoists, a bad arriver, he lacked ease until settled down into whatever role he was going to play. Something was evidently on his mind.

‘Would you object to The Hero? That’s the place I’d feel it easiest to tell you about this.’

If the object of the meeting was to disclose some intimate matter that required dissection, even allowing for Trapnel’s reasonably competent control of his creatures, few worse places could be thought of, but the venue was clearly demanded by some quirk of pub mystique. These fears were unjustified. The immoderate cold had kept most of the usual customers away. The place was almost empty. We sat down. Trapnel looked round the saloon bar rather wildly. His dark-lensed spectacles brought to The Hero’s draught-swept enclaves a hint of warmer shores, bluer skies, olives, vines, in spite of the fact that the turn-ups of the tussore trousers were soaked from contact with the snow. He at once began a diatribe against Sweetskin , his notice of which had been left unread at the office.

‘I warned you it wasn’t much good.’

This would mean embarrassment for Quiggin, if Trapnel had been unremittingly scathing. Coming on top of the ‘touch’, unfavourable comment from such a source would make Kydd more resentful than ever. However, that was primarily Quiggin’s worry. So far as I was concerned the juggernaut of critical opinion must be allowed to take its irrefragable course. If too fervent worshippers, like Kydd, were crushed to powder beneath the pitiless wheels of its car, nothing could be done. Only their own adoration of the idol made them so vulnerable. Trapnel was specially contemptuous of Kydd’s attempts at eroticism. To be fair, Sweetskin was in due course the object of prosecution, so presumably someone found the book erotic, but Trapnel became almost frenzied in his expostulations to the contrary. It was then suddenly revealed that Trapnel was in the middle of a row with Quiggin & Craggs.