First published in 1960 (London: Heinemann, New York: Little, Brown)
So far in A Dance, Nick Jenkins has been an observer of the worlds of school, society, business, and politics. In Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, Nick Jenkins comes most closely in contact with the world of the arts since the death of the painter Edgar Deacon and primarily by force of his friendship with the composer Hugh Moreland. Moreland is not just a man of music himself, but by his restless need for contact, even if confrontational, he drags Nick into the world of painting (Barnby), the theatre (Matilda’s performance of The Duchess of Malfi), and criticism (McClintick) as well.
Now well-established in his marriage, the nature of Nick’s engagement with the world shifts subtly in this volume. Up to now, he’s floated around on the fringe of different circles, never fully a part of them, even in his affair with Jean Duport. From here out, while he continues his incidental contacts with friends and acquaintances, he is venturing out from a fixed, stable, and trusted base: his relationship with Isobel. The fact that Nick’s marriage remains off-stage and unseen for virtually the rest of A Dance is less important than the fact that he narrates the entire series from the perspective of a mature man in a mature relationship. This goes a long way, I think, to explaining why he seems peripheral to the action: the action is, in many ways, peripheral to his own life with Isobel.
Hilary Spurling counts Hugh Moreland as Nick’s closest friend. Though Nick’s school friends (Charles Stringham and Peter Templer) and acquaintance (Kenneth Widmerpool) remain, intermittently and seemingly accidentally (as with so many encounters in A Dance), part of his life, Moreland is a friend by choice. Although there are dangers in reading A Dance too closely as a roman à clef, it’s hard not to find parallels between Moreland and Anthony Powell’s close friend, the composer Constant Lambert. Both were considered brilliant personalities, not just talents, but also subject to mood swings and black dog battles with alcoholism.
History is more of a presence than in previous volumes. Erridge ventures out to the Spanish Civil War, though much less heroically and with much less to show for the experience than Powell’s friend George Orwell. The abdication of King Edward VIII seems to upset one or another of Widmerpool’s schemes for advancement. The names of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin come up in conversations. The sense that a European war, perhaps spreading out from the Spanish Civil War, seems to be hovering unspoken in the back of many minds. And Nick the narrator is fully aware that that war does come, with the sight of the bombed-out remains of the Mortimer, the pub where Nick and Hugh Moreland first met.
Powell structures Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant in four chapters. His template of centering a chapter around one or two gatherings is set and varies little from now on.
- Chapter 1. Walking in London sometime after the war, Nick recognizes the remains of the Mortimer and hears a street singer he and Moreland had heard one of their early evenings together. Nick recalls their first meeting, back when Edgar Deacon was still alive, an evening that starts at the Mortimer, including Nick’s introduction to McClintick, and leads to Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, where they encounter Barnby. Moreland talks Nick into coming to a performance of The Duchess of Malfi in which Matilda, first met as the mistress of Sir Magnus Donners, and Norman Chandler appear. Nick dines with Moreland and Matilda, after which he relates that they marry, followed soon after by Nick’s marriage to Isobel.
- Chapter 2. A Sunday that starts with a luncheon at Lady Warminster’s with roughly half the Tolland siblings, at which talk is of St John Clarke and of Erridge’s plan to go to Spain. Later the same day, Nick visits Isobel at a nursing home where Matilda is due to deliver Moreland and her first child. There, Nick encounters Widmerpool, who is being treated for boils (his evil nature coming to the surface?), after which Nick and Moreland call on the McClinticks and find themselves in the midst of the McClinticks’ bitter civil war.
- Chapter 3. Matilda’s child dies soon after birth. Moreland’s first symphony is performed and Mrs. Foxe hosts a party afterward. At the party, the McClinticks argue, Matilda informs Nick that Moreland is in love with Priscilla Tolland, and Charles Stringham turns up drunk and becomes fascinated by Mrs. McClintick for some reason. Tuffy (Mrs. Weedon) arrives to take Stringham home. Unable to distract Moreland, Matilda leaves the party alone.
- Chapter 4. St John Clarke dies. Moreland is having an affair with Priscilla, and Erridge comes back from Spain (or perhaps the Republicans send him home?). Nick and Moreland visit the McClinticks again, where they find things very bad: McClintick out of work and abandoned by his wife. A few days after their visit, they learn of McClintick’s suicide. Priscilla Tolland ends her affair with Moreland and accepts Chips Lovell’s proposal. And everyone learns that Erridge has inherited St John Clarke’s estate, for reasons no one fathoms.
The scattered historical references make this book relatively easy to date. According to Hilary Spurling’s estimates:
- Chapter 1: 1933 (with Nick and Moreland already good friends), with a flashback to their first meeting in 1928 or 1929.
- Chapter 2: A Sunday in 1936, with the Spanish Civil War underway but still undecided.
- Chapter 3: In the days leading up to King Edward VIII’s abdication (10 December 1936).
- Chapter 4: Early the following spring (1937).
Along with Nick’s encounters with the arts world, two topics thread through Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant: marriage (successful (Nick and Isobel) and unsuccessful (Moreland and Matilda; the McClinticks)) and death (St John Clarke, Moreland and Matilda’s child). Marriages become less frequent but continue to play a role now and again, as they do in many adult lives; death, on the other hand, becomes a regular caller, as suggested in Powell’s discussion of the Eumenides at the start of The Kindly Ones, the next volume.