A Question of Upbringing

A Question of Upbringing

First edition (UK)
Author	Anthony Powell
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	A Dance to the Music of Time
Publisher	Heinemann
Publication date	1951
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	230 pp
Followed by	A Buyer's Market

A Question of Upbringing is the opening novel in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, a twelve-volume cycle spanning much of the 20th century.

Published in 1951, it begins the story of a trio of boys, Nicholas Jenkins (the narrator), Charles Stringham, and Peter Templer, who are friends at a nameless school (based upon Powell's public school Eton College) and then move on to different paths. A fourth figure, Kenneth Widmerpool, stands slightly apart from them, poised for greatness.

The novel is concerned with the flow and transience of life and the play of time upon love and friendship. Another major theme introduced in A Question of Upbringing is the consequence of living by the will.

In presenting four very different characters - "the artist, the romantic, the cynic, and the man of will" - the author sets the scene for an extended exploration of what it means to grow and mature. The language of youth, deployed with precision, is used to depict the emergence of the boys into manhood in a period when memories of the Great War overshadow many of their elders.

The title of the book had its origin in an incident in which Powell was a passenger in a car driven by his friend, the Old Etonian screenwriter, Thomas Wilton ("Tommy") Phipps. Phipps and Powell found themselves driving straight towards an oncoming vehicle. Powell later recorded, "Seizing the hand-brake as we sped towards what seemed imminent collision, Phipps muttered to himself, 'This is just going to be a question of upbringing.'"

A Question of Upbringing opens with the narrator reflecting on a view of some men working outside in the cold, and this leads to an eventual reference to Poussin's painting, A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator (Nick Jenkins) proceeds to recall his school days in 1921–22, when he, Charles Stringham, and Peter Templer had been friends. The character of a more senior student, Kenneth Widmerpool, is the subject of the initial remembrances; there is also a recollection of a visit from Nick's Uncle Giles and a practical joke played by Stringham on the boys' school housemaster. Templer and Stringham each depart permanently from school before Nick, but the boys nonetheless remain friends. Nick meets Stringham's mother, the glamorous Mrs Foxe, and her husband, Cdr. Buster Foxe, "a chic sailor." After Nick graduates, he also visits the Templers. There he sets eyes for the first time on Templer's sister Jean; he also meets the somewhat older Sunny Farebrother and Jimmy Stripling. Afterward, Nick encounters Widmerpool again while staying in France in order to improve his French. There, Nick first starts to consider Widmerpool as more than just a slightly farcical character when Widmerpool displays unexpected powers of persuasion in reconciling two of the other residents.