Monthly Archives: December 2015

Jenkins, talking with Rosie Manasch about the sale of Donners’ pictures by his widow, observes, “If I’d been Matilda, I’d have kept the Toulouse Lautrec.” [BDFR 109/ 101] Rosie replies: Do you realize that a relation of mine — Isadore Manasch … Continue reading →

At Thrubworth, after Erridge’s funeral, Pamela Widmerpool is going to be sick and looks about her:  “She glanced round about, her eyes coming to rest on the two tall oriental vessels, which Lord Huntercomb had disparaged as nineteenth-century copies.  Standing … Continue reading →

Wandering the back rooms of Thrubworth, Alfred Tolland identified some of the found objects: “That oil painting on its side’s the First Jubilee. Very old fashioned in style. Nobody paints like that now.” [BDFR 74/ ] The first jubilee, of … Continue reading →

We have already noted Jenkins’ interest in public monuments like those in St. Paul’s and the tension between his devotion to Modernism and his nostalgia for the unapologetic patriotism of earlier generations.  Now we will turn to more personal memorials. Within a few months, Jenkins … Continue reading →

Jenkins describes Sillery: Perhaps illusorily, his body and face had shrunk, physical contraction giving him a more simian look than formerly, though of no ordinary monkey; Brueghel’s Antwerp apes (admired by Pennistone) rather than the Douanier’s homely denizens of Tropiques, … Continue reading →

In describing his own state of irresolute depression after the war, Nick invokes Robert Burton’s seventeenth century treatise on the condition, The Anatomy of Melancholy.  Nick cites Burton’s own copious descriptors of the magnum opus itself, and then describes its … Continue reading →

After the war, Nick returns to university to write a book about Robert Burton, but finds the return of his memories of undergraduate years oddly depressing.  “The odd thing was how distant the recent past had also become, the army … Continue reading →