Jean is now a sleek, thoroughly modern grande dame, barely recognizable and almost as frightening in her friendly remoteness as she had seemed to the young Nick the first time they met. Once I had thought life unthinkable without her. As with Widmerpool, the characters are complex, their relationships circular and ultimately unfathomable. Powell also excelled at depicting conflict within organizations, be they army, civil service or publishing. In fact Powell is good on all ranks above and including general, a skittish class of men who, he feels, are best handled with the sort of care usually lavished on elderly ladies.
Paintings figure large throughout the sequence.
Art provides useful analogies when comparing the lives and work of Powell and Evelyn Waugh. Powell's work is comedy, albeit comedy of an exceptionally dry type. Waugh is a caricaturist, while Powell's style is more that of a painter building up layers of glazes. By the age of 45, Waugh had lost all sympathy with the world. By contrast, Powell at 70 could master the idioms of a traveling hippie caravan, circa 1971, without once being wrong-footed.