After twelve volumes of his justly celebrated sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell, 75, has established himself as the reigning novelist of British understatement. In this third volume of his autobiography [Faces in My Time], the master whisperer so thoroughly muffles the barbarous yawps of the mid-20th century—from Dylan Thomas to World War II—that they emerge as discreetly as the sound of one teacup cracking.

As this most seemly of chronicles begins, Powell, 28, is about to marry Violet Pakenham, 22. An opportunity, surely, for a passing brushfire of emotion, recollected in tranquillity? Not at all. Whatever might be hot or sweet is buried in the cool shade of 13 pages devoted to Violet's family tree….

Pain, as Powell readers know, gets registered no more sharply than pleasure. There is, however, a good deal of subliminal throb. While his wife is writing for the press...