The writer's life: Dance to the Music of Time and the publishing biz

The 3rd (long) chapter (of 5) in Anthony Powell's vol 10, Books Do Furnish a Room, is about two parties and a conversation in a pub: the first party is at the home of the Latin American soldier-spy-diplomat Flores and his wife, Jean, formerly Dupont, and also the long-lost first love of narrator Nick Jenkins - he sees at this party how Jean has changed and how wealth becomes her, and he his wife, Isobel, about whom we know next to nothing, invite the Floreses to dinner at their house but learn that Flores has been summoned home because of some political changes - he's either rising in the government or a dead man. Second part is Jenkins and the title character of this vol Bagwich (?) meeting one of the promising authors for the new publishing house, a guy named X. Trapnel who characterizes the self-absorbed writer - everything about him is pretentious, including his walking stick with a skull at the head, his penchant for taking cabs everywhere in order to avoid, or so he says, bill collectors, and most of all his bloviating about his own writing. That said, it's about time that Powell start to give us some sense of the literary life in London - in that he is a writer, his series is somewhat autobiographical - in the same way that Search of Lost Time is, a writer's attempt to unfold his consciousness and experience in literary prose - and Jenkins himself is an acknowledged published novelist - though up to now we know almost nothing about his literary qualities, tastes, and habits. This volume, however, is the first that's really about the publishing world; the 3rd part of this chapters is about the kickoff party for the new lit magazine Fission; Jenkins is on as the book reviewer. The party is of course replete with the usual drunkenness and bluster - but holds out some hope that the writers will begin speaking (or Powell begin writing) about literature: and yet, we also see, quite accurately, that writers can be secretive and defensive and reluctant to talk about what they're writing or even what they're reading, and that most of the conversation is just high gossip.