Fiction – My Own RE:public

One Lady’s Birthday

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Miss Jane Austen.

Written “By a Lady” is a very special, even enigmatic, byline of sorts; and as thus did Jane Austen identify herself on the title pages of the four novels published in her life time. Was it modesty that prevailed or common-sense? To name herself; an unnecessary exposition perhaps, a vanity well suited to the social aspirations – and frivolities – of the landed class of Regency England from which she was not so far removed but not something to be trumpeted from the genteel surrounds of Chawton beholden to the conventions of village life? But, whilst closeting most of herself in anonymity, her gender Jane Austen seemed obliged to share – written “By a Lady”. As if to say: Please know that what you are about to read comes with all the sensibilities of a woman.

Depiction of Austen from *A Memoir of Jane Austen* (1871) written by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, and based on the sketch by her sister Cassandra.

So it is that today we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Jane Austen. In some respects the Brits and greater Anglophone world have been celebrating her all year with exhibitions, lectures, new editions, commentaries, etc., but in many respects very many more people all over the world pay tribute to her all the time in a multitude of ways: generation upon generation reading, studying, analyzing her work; being inspired by her literary genius, her gifts of observation, her humor, her optimism; translating her work, adapting her work into other art forms. A more beloved writer, a more iconic literary figure, is difficult to find. And how enigmatic she remains! We don’t really know what Jane Austen looked like nor have we an unprejudiced version of her personae and manner, and must depend on her sister, Cassandra’s depiction and hearsay and portraiture of other young women from the period. Much of her extensive correspondence was destroyed (again, Cassandra!) and all has been shaded in the last century of so by various factions competing for the right to define her narrative, and in more recent times all the countless cinematic portrayals of her work and pertaining to her person that show no sign of abating.

Earlier this year The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City had an exhibition dedicated to Austen, spotlighting the manuscripts in their possession and those held at Goucher College in Baltimore (both bequeathed by Alberta Hirshheimer Burke.) A video promotion is still available on YouTube:

A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 that ran from June 6 through September 14, 2025 at the Morgan Library and Museum.

Miss Austen does have of course a significant presence in the internet, but very many sites do seem to be, either directly or not so, selling something! (Well, why not?) This one not: Jane Austen’s World, a personal blog out of the United States, appears to be simply a labor of love. To be found a bevy of information and links, not just specific to Austen but also the world and society in which she lived and wrote. (Unlike Jane’s narratives and characters, some of the links are as dead as Regency era door nails, but many are not!)

Happy birthday Jane! (If I may be so bold as to address you as Jane?)

Stark reminder

Given that Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 novel All the King’s Men has maintained its reputation as one of the most lauded of American 20th century works of political fiction, I abstain here from too much (unqualified) comment. But I feel like I have to write something for it is a work of such merit and is, in my opinion, incredibly relevant to the contemporary political landscape.

A couple of years ago I saw a 2006 movie adaptation of the novel on Netflix with Sean Penn as Willie Stark; presumably a box-office flop and only tepidly received by critics but liked immensely by this person (that is, ME). Watching it at the time, I recall only being able to think of Donald Trump; by then out of office if not out of mind (HIS or mine I am not sure!), and confined to the annals of history one could have thunk. Well, one could have…! Alas. After his reelection in November, I was reminded again of Warren’s book and so, over the holidays (and for the first time), turned to the original stuff. And I had not been deceived, he (TRUMP) ghosts his way through the entire narrative. But not only does HE, but also a particular brand of populism that once set alight, blazes, may diminish, but continues to smoulder, ever ready to flare up again.

Now I have no idea when Trump became TRUMP, but one can follow Willie Stark as he progresses from an ambitious wannabe to THE BOSS, and one can follow, too, those around him facilitating his ascendancy. For instance, I was particularly taken by this exchange between the still-fledgling candidate and his runaround Jack Burden (the novel’s narrative voice) who, in an attempt to salvage the floundering gubernatorial campaign, launches into a rare tirade in an effort to persuade Willie to change tack – to forsake his formulaic, heavy-on-detail speeches for an oratory style with more, shall we say, entertainment value:

[…Willie says:] “They didn’t seem to be paying attention much tonight. Not while I was trying to explain about my tax program.”

[Jack:] “Maybe you try to tell ’em too much. It breaks down their brain cells. […] Just tell ’em you’re gonna soak the fat boys and forget the rest of the tax stuff.”

[Willie:] “What we need is a balanced tax program. Right now the ratio between income tax and total income for the state gives an index that -“

[Jack:] “… they don’t give a damn […] Hell, make ’em cry, make ’em laugh, make ’em think you’re their weak erring pal, or make ’em think you’re God Almighty. Or make ’em mad. Even mad at you. Just stir ’em up, it doesn’t matter how or why, and they’ll love you and come back for more. Pinch ’em in the soft place. They aren’t alive, most of ’em and haven’t been alive in twenty years. Hell, their wives have lost their teeth and their shape, and likker won’t set on their stomachs, and they don’t believe in God, so it’s up to you to give ’em something to stir ’em up and make ’em feel alive again. Just for half an hour. That’s what they come for. Tell ’em anything. But for Sweet Jesus’ sake don’t try to improve their minds.”

-“All the King’s Men” (Penguin Modern Classics) [p.108]

Now if that ain’t the winning formula for a Trumpian scorched earth rally! A major difference of course is that nobody has needed to nudge Trump; what Willie had to learn, Trump seems to know instinctively.

Embedded below is a sample reading of the first chapter of this legendary novel from the U.S. publisher’s website. For the uninitiated: Think Faulkner just not as difficult, the Deep South almost palpable – the heat, the poverty, the religious (irreligious, and anything else) fervor, the politicking, the corruption. Then exchange Louisiana for Queens, rural poverty for urban wealth – inherited both, Willie Stark or Huey Long (an inspiration for Stark, though one which Warren sought to minimize) for Donald Trump, and you can imagine your way to the here and now. Mag(a)nificent (sic) – to imagine, that is. In reality anything but.

Pas de deux

Le Pays des autres 2: Regardez-nous danser (read by me in German as Schaut, we wir tanzen, and available in English translation as Watch Us Dance) continues Leïla Slimani’s family saga; a fictional dive into the colorful, often murky and treacherous depths of her own dynastic history, the first part of which I wrote enthusiastically about here and which ended with the beginning of the end of colonial rule in Morocco.

When the story continues, it is the summer of 1968 and more than a decade has passed since Morocco gained its independence from France (in 1956), but the country is struggling now under another – this time home-grown – brand of tyranny: defined through its authoritarian monarch, a brutal police and judicial system in cahoots with a corrupted elite and a patriarchal hegemony. It is to this Morocco that Aïcha, who so entranced with her intelligence and originality as a little girl, returns after some years studying medicine in Strasbourg. For one summer – and then perhaps a lifetime. One is tempted to say: she returns to the fold. But that is something for sheep, and an instinctive follower is this young woman not. Nor lost, nor castout. Rather it is to the bosom of her family in Meknès that she returns; their fortunes having risen in the ensuing years and now with a place amongst a burgeoning new marocaine bourgeoisie. The reader remains alert still to Aïcha’s contrariness: her self-possession and her selflessness; her wanting to please and her not giving a fig; her intellectual rationality and discipline and her emotional inner-life and flights into religious mysticism. One empathizes with Aïcha, with each dilemma she faces (and faces down) – her love of family, of friends and two nations; and the loyalties demanded and the conflicts that ensue – always knowing that the latest will be not the last.

And because she so fascinated me in In the Country of Others, I concentrate on Aïcha (and I suspect Slimani developed her character to be the focus – clearly inspired by her mother but also with a good dose of self one could think), others in the Belhaj family have central moments; both individually and in their interactions amongst each other. (The changing perspectives are – along with her blissfully short and elegant sentences – a defining quality of Slimani’s writing.) Aïcha’s parents, Amine and Mathilda, of course: the very personification of two nations in co-habitation; each with their own truth, intimately attached and profoundly detached, forgiving and unforgiving in equal measure. It is not always clear who is controlling whom. But there is a sort of love, that is frayed, tested, rarely acknowledged – and a lot of regret. The radical choices of Amine’s siblings, Omar and Selma, have only become more so since the first book. But this story here is one of more youthful years spent during a time of immense social and political upheaval, and so Aïcha’s path is very much juxtaposed against that of her younger brother Selim – restless, sexually awakened in ways unexpected. As Aïcha returns to the nest so does Selim take wing.

Aïcha pursues her career in obstetrics. Aïcha marries Mehdi – once, theoretically, a Marxist, now, practically speaking, beholden to the government. The book ends in 1971; the king has survived an assassination attempt, and Aïcha has brought her own child into the world.

Explicit in the title, dancing can be extended from the very reality of the clubs and bars of Casablanca and beyond where the young of Morocco gather to a metaphorical place; for it is a heady time of post-colonial uncertainty when power dynamics have changed and can be visualized as two parties skirting around each other, conscious of their position in any one moment, but unsure of their next step, and this reflected in the age-old story of when boy meets girl, of codes and signals, of swirling skirts and feigned youthful insouciance. Dualities abound in Leïla Slimani’s narrative, and this series could be well described as a pas de deux, whereby here there are no clear partitions; each blends into the next; from the entrée to the adagio and with some variations. I await with anticipation the continuation and culmination (coda) – presumably due from Gallimard this year or next.

Did I mention the translation? No, I did not. Translators should always be credited. I know enough to be quite confident that Amelie Thoma captures Slimani’s literary voice beautifully in German. (Of the English translation I cannot say, but Sam Taylor has creds so to speak!)

After-world & Afterword

My blog entry below in which I write on Zadie Smith’s novel, The Fraud, ended before it should have. I did have a couple of things to say to do with the book’s end … well, two and a bit actually:

In the final chapter: As William Ainsworth lays dead on his study floor, he is already entering Eliza Touchet’s memory, and she knows not whether it will be as the truth or as a false memory, or if ultimately there is any difference. Will the real Ainsworth stand up, please! With William’s death comes Eliza’s last shot at freedom; he is now just one of the cast of characters imagined in her own secret manuscript with the title, The Fraud. Or will ‘dear William’, in death, be party to another fraud, or at least another’s truth?
From the Afterword: If one were to doubt her existence, it is useful to know that in 2009 Eliza Touchet’s 1842 edition of A Christmas Carol, signed to ‘Mrs. Touchet’, was sold at auction for the highest ever price for a Dicken’s work.
Apropos Dickens: In Chapter 29, the Ainsworths and Eliza Touchet visit the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and later Mrs. Touchet reads Dickens and Horne’s review of the event in Household Words. Now this piece I have mentioned before (and here it is)! Eliza’s reaction to the article, in which the two good gentlemen hail to the hilt the virtues of western progress (machines) and mock the traditional ware (crafts) of the east, and which is contrary to her own aesthetic reception of the items on display, has the touchiness of all her interactions with Dickens (as given in Smith’s fictional rendering). (Why do I think with Eliza T., the Boz had met his match? And knew it!)

Fakery is afoot

Zadie Smith’s latest work of big F fiction is anything but fraudulent but (The) Fraud is writ large on its cover and permeates the narrative – bold faced is the text even when writ small.

To my mind, a veritable romp of a read, but not one to be deconstructed to an allegoric tale of he who was once (and god forbid not future) American president as some – particularly on the other side of the Atlantic – would have it. I mean to say, contemporary comparisons and reflections are always warranted but, loathe as I am to repeat myself, Trump is far less of an aberration than many would have it – rather just the latest in a line of crooks and con-artists – yes, frauds! – who have, and in various incarnations and with various degrees of success, elbowed their way to center stage for times long and short. (Granted, an encore performance there did not have to be!)

The Fraud is Zadie Smith’s first foray into historical fiction, and she does it with aplomb, perhaps not with the absolute Leichtigkeit that she brings when her subjects occupy a space she so totally gets – the northern London suburbs, for example, and characters pulled from that landscape spreading their wings near and far. Here is a writer exploring what is, for her, new (literary) terrain. But I think she succeeds in constructing a 19th century tale that does not feel so distant in time nor in space, rather, has the immediacy of now; certainly, her main protagonist, Eliza Touchet, and those who rotate about her, and whether they be in London or the Home Counties, don’t present as somehow being stuck in a Dickens or Thackeray door-stopper but, instead, read as having the potential to be time-shifters in a Netflix show-stopper. (By the way, these two aforesaid gents I mention not by chance, but because they and others and most especially Eliza’s cousin, William Harrison Ainsworth, are of the cultural and social milieu from which the narrative springs. As a reviewer said, do keep Google at the ready, behind the Fiction are various degrees of Fact. There they are: those F words again!) The success of the novel may also have something to do with style; the post-modern realism in which Zadie Smith writes fits with the uglier, even brutal, side of the burgeoning global world and the intertwined strands leading from Andrew Bogle to the slave plantations of Jamaica and from The (Tichborne) Claimant to the still colony of Australia where England could still banish its unwanted or troublesome and make capital in the process. Suggesting that almost two centuries on, the ghosts of colonialism still haunt the global ambitions of both the once oppressed and the oppressors.

And F can stand for more than (just) Fraud. Recently, I read Daniel Kehlmann’s novel ‘F’ (Rowohlt, 2014), and I see now that, presumably on the back of his previous successes (especially this one) in the international market, it was indeed translated (Vintage, 2015). In any obvious way Kehlmann’s work, set in a contemporary German-speaking space somewhere (if specified, I seem to have missed it), would not necessarily have too much in common with Zadie Smith’s historical novel.

But then there are these damnable F words that call out to me to consider. And it is Fortunate for this comparison some words map quite nicely from German to English, and interconnected F words are prevalent in both languages. The now universality of Fake, for instance; after all just a shade of Fraud (or, is it, Freud?), or the other way around. And Fame and Fortune: Fortune-telling (show me the Future) and changing Family Fortunes for a Father and a Fraternity of three, each with a life defined by Finance and (non-) Fidelity, (not so) Fine Art and Forgery, Food and (feigned) Faith, This, again, is a novel about deception, the power of suggestion and, yes, Fälschung – about Fakery (or something more carnal) being afoot and other forms of Foolery.

And Fate. Towards the end of the novel, the mostly absent Father – he by whom the die was cast, Iacta alea est, and who casts his shadow from the first pages – says:

“Fatum” […].”Das grosse F. Aber der Zufall is mächtig, und plötzlich bekommt man ein Schicksal, das nie für einen bestimmt war. Irgendein Zufallsschicksal […”

“Fate” […] “The big F. But chance is a powerful thing, and suddenly you find yourself living a destiny that was never meant for you. Some random fate […]”
F by Daniel Kehlmann; my own translation

An imperfect book, but an interesting (and often funny) novel in which Kehlmann uses his narrative talents to philosophize on the blurring of lines between that which is true and that which is imagined and that which is just plain false. At the time of publication almost a decade ago, I am not sure that the range of possibilities for bad players to prey upon a digitalized, connected world were fully understood, nor the repercussions; ‘fakery’ mostly remained still in the realm of the classical and obvious forms of deception – human beings telling human lies in very human ways; even a charlatan or trickster of whatever persuasion, peddling whatever their wares is but a sophisticated version of this. Now, a new breed of ‘mover’ – regionally or globally – is sowing seeds of discontent – or just after the next quick buck; harnessing digital technologies to open up new fields of activity beyond the obvious – and anybody can just as easily be the next perpetrator as the next victim.

And F is for Fiction. Two really good works of fiction, from two terrific writers. I think I am correct in saying they are friends.

Emma B. & Elizabeth F.

Over a festive season that stretched my resources, I turned to a German translation of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; translated by Elisabeth Edl (admired by me for her translations of Patrick Modiano) and much lauded at the time of publication in 2012. And, I must say it seems to have left a greater impression upon me than whatever English version I may have read in the past (but not the one by Lydia Davis, also from 2012) did; for I don’t remember previously having been as stimulated … or, as moved … as this reading has left me.

To be said on this particular edition: Beyond the literary work, the notes throughout are extensive, as is Edl’s translation essay; included also in the volume are the proceedings from the law case brought against Flaubert for … what? … obscenity, shall we say … by the French public prosecutors of the day. This latter inclusion was a first in the German language, and whether it has found its way into any of the English translations to date I don’t know. At least, it – the trial, the outcome (‘case dismissed’, so to speak), the repercussions (for society, for literature) – lives, still, in academia. This essay by Christine Haines published in French Politics, Culture & Society Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 2005), pp 1-27 and available on JSTOR is just one example.

Of an evening (that is, in bed!) my seriously serious book reading is intermittently interrupted by other forms of Lektüre, sometimes of a more frivolous nature and sometimes not. Definitely belonging to the latter; the latest (or the one before that) issue of the LRB. And, it was there, around about this Christmas time, that I was interested to read a review piece by Julian Barnes (Vol. 45 No. 24 · 14 December 2023) inspired by a new Monet biography by Jackie Wollschläger. With that, I won’t flex my (puny) Impressionist muscles; Julian Barnes may be able to get away with being an amateur art critic/historian/connoisseur, but, I not! It just reminded me that Barnes and Flaubert appear to have taken up firm residence in a similar crevice of my brain. Hardly surprising says she (to herself), recalling a stuffed parrot. But, amongst other things, I also remember his essay (also in the LRB) on the Lydia Davis translation of Madame Bovary, and that it was far from complimentary. And, this I remember because I remember it having coincided with my reading of the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time in a then new translation and also from Davis, and I further remember having been momentarily concerned that I wasn’t getting the best of Proust. What, if anything, Barnes has had to say about her Swann’s Way, I don’t know. Or, just can’t remember!

Stitches in Time

Of lists & threads – of the information they impart & the tale they weave

From my recent post and having been inspired by the newly (by me) discovered Gertrude Trevelyan and, therefore, as ever, by musings on Woolf, as one who had (probably) inspired her (and in more ways than the room and 500 quid), I had thought to write some more on the Pargiters. But, as I am only right now going about, and rather ponderously at that, re-reading and writing up Woolf’s diary that covers that period immediately following her speech to the National Society for Women’s Service on 21 January 1931 from which The Years (as lived by the Pargiter family) would evolve (and not in the way Woolf had at that time envisaged), I realize now this to be a more complex exercise than I thought; it seems there is a lot to be said on literary method and creative choices, and deserving, therefore, of greater attention. Simply said: this, whilst not exactly relegated to the bucket list, a task to be held in abeyance until I have pulled the very many threads together to do it justice.

…as “threads” with their own “tale to tell” – hanging there like stitches in Time […] so cleverly entwined that they become inherent to the composition; implemented to establish the focus, shift the perspective – visual or temporal …

On which, then, this thread must find an end … but just before finishing up on Trevelyan’s book (and the Trevelyans), it has occurred to me that I didn’t previously emphasize one particular characteristic enough. From the very first page, the novel’s narrative is interspersed by the listing of factual events – some short, some long; from close to home and from far shores; some of historical significance such that they are still familiar but very many now lost in the passing years; and which David Trotter in his essay variously refers to as a “database”, “news crawl”, or as “threads” with their own “tale to tell” – hanging there like stitches in Time. But they are so cleverly entwined that they become inherent to the composition; implemented to establish the focus, shift the perspective – visual or temporal, often reflecting out of or into Katherine’s classroom, or Robert’s lab or bed-sit.

An unusual stylistic choice, and one that could easily date a book; and one that may have contributed to Trevelyan’s novel disappearing into obscurity for so long – others perhaps making the (superficially based) decision that later and contemporary readers would be put off by (or ignorant of) the real world goings on during those between the wars years.

Finally, I end with the admission that I can not think of a book quite like Two Thousand Million Man-Power. (Writing about the same time but on a grander scale, Dos Passos – sorry a gap in my education! – is mentioned as one employing a similar methodology.) Coming to my mind is only a song – albeit, a list song – that tracks the post-war years in the second half of the century, and that has special significance to me (another story!). Radically different, yet with something in common, these two listings of the people and events of different generations – strewn realities to be made palpable, and therefore relatable, only with the sensory overload stimulated by the natural phenomena of noise and fire respectively. Take it away … Mr. Billy Joel!

G.E. Trevelyan was not a bloke

David Trotter’s review in the LRB of the re-discovered and re-published novel, Two Thousand Million Man-Power by Gertrude Trevelyan was interesting enough such that I downloaded a copy post-haste. And I read it likewise. Not so the writing up, but then both the novel and the review encouraged some deeper reflections on my part.

Enough that Trotter begins: “Gertrude Trevelyan lived the Virginia Woolf dream: £500 a year and a room of one’s own in which to write experimental novels. […]” And enough that that room has been foremost on my mind (again!) during the last days.

Two Thousand Million Man-Power by Gertrude Trevelyan Boiler House Press, 297 pp., November 2022, 978 1 913861 85 8

Whilst now finding herself published as Gertrude T., the times in which the writer lived were such that this and her other works were originally put out in a frenzied world by the androgynous (sounding) ‘G.E.’. Whether this had been her own decision, suggested to or forced upon her, who could say, but it may well have been also a personal swipe at the dynastic overgrowth and the familial predilection to initials. Where exactly she, formerly known as G.E., fits into this constellation is anyone’s guess. To name but a few: there was that distant cousin (so says Trotter): G.M. Trevelyan. But also his elder brothers: C.P, who got the title and the middle brother R.C. – ‘BobTrev’ to his friends, including the Woolfs (this not mentioned by Trotter), and as ‘Bob’ frequently mentioned in Virginia Woolf’s diary and in her letters. It is, though, the first said, George Macaulay T., that gets the treatment in A Room of One’s Own – the preeminent historian of his time was after all just there for the blokes!

History scarcely mentions her. And I turned to Professor Trevelyan again to see what history meant to him […] Occasionally an individual woman is mentioned, an Elizabeth, or a Mary; a queen or a great lady. But by no possible means could middle-class women with nothing but brains and character at their command have taken part in any one of the great movements which, brought together, constitute the historian’s view of the past. […]She never writes her own life and scarcely keeps a diary; there are only a handful of her letters in existence. She left no plays or poems by which we can judge her. What one wants, I thought—and why does not some brilliant student at Newnham or Girton supply it?—is a mass of information; at what age did she marry; how many children had she as a rule; what was her house like, had she a room to herself; did she do the cooking; would she be likely to have a servant? All these facts lie somewhere, presumably, in parish registers and account books; the life of the average Elizabethan woman must be scattered about somewhere, could one collect it and make a book of it.
Virginia Woolf. A Room of One’s Own (Kindle Locations 547-555). Kindle Edition.

This comes after Woolf has unsuccessfully excavated G.M. Trevelyan’s History of England (1926) in search of women through the ages, mused that the contemporary student (of say Newnham) could do such research better than her, and then would be inspired to famously imagine that Shakespeare had a sister called Judith. (The part of the essay that everyone remembers!)

“Social Survey of the World Today” by Ian Colvin in Universal History of the World Vol. viii 1927

David Trotter claims in his review of Gertrude Trevelyan’s novel that the unusual – obscure, even – title of the book, divulging scant hint of the narrative to follow, derives from a chapter written by Ian Colvin in the final volume of a certain – also, obscure – Universal History of the World in 1927. There is little reason to doubt this. Only in the reading does the title make sense.

Having said that, I admit to some uncertainty as to the sense in which the novel was conceived and intended to be received. Does Trevelyan want to instruct, convert, persuade? Is she calling upon the reader’s good sense of being a citizen of the world – a common sense to navigate a society undergoing radical change? Or is it more personal than that – a work of introspection? An attempt to reconcile the sensory from within with the reality from without? This latter I find plausible – also imaginative and daring. Any wonder that I am undecided when the author may well have been herself, and is studiously tracing her changing perspective in this her chosen narrative.

It may be (as Trotter suggests) that Gertrude Trevelyan was thinking about something that could be broadly described as a novel of ideas – a philosophical tract on the social (dis)order arising out of the inherent (but surely not irreconcilable?) tensions between labor and commerce and, within that context, man and machine. And, then, found in the writing, her own positions were anything but fixed; shifting with the same tempo as the society about her; Trevelyan calling upon her own sensory attributes and experience to navigate through her own journey of rational discovery – in a literary sense – and illustrated well by her characters’ growing sensitivity to the pulsation of progress about them, the growing ‘noise’ of modernity.

[…]He goes home and has supper and lights a pipe while he waits for the wireless stations to close down at ten. He sits and smokes, feet on fender, and waits for the noise to stop. Twenty thousand new houses erected in one year, two hundred and seven persons killed in London streets in three months, wireless station, one of the world’s greatest, completed at Rugby, motor firm turns out forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twelve cars in 1925 against three hundred and thirty-seven in 1919, it is found necessary to install soundproof floors in a mammoth block of flats in Park Lane, the B.B.C. institutes a transmission of dance music until midnight — “dance music the backbone of British broadcasting” — every day with the exception of Sundays. Robert clenches his teeth and tries to concentrate: he thinks if he had Katherine there to keep him to it he might be able to get more done.
Trevelyan, Gertrude. Two Thousand Million Man-Power (p. 64). Boiler House Press. Kindle Edition.