Like Nick Jenkins, the amiable narrator of his roman-fleuve, "A Dance to the Music of Time," Mr. Powell tends to be self-effacing and reserved when it comes to talking about himself. He eschews glimpses "into the person crater, with its scene of Hieronymus Bosch activities taking place in the depths," preferring the role of observer; like another famous narrator named Nick—Nick Carraway of "The Great Gatsby"—he remains a sympathetic but somewhat distant guest at the carnival by the sea. And yet if Mr. Powell's own life seems less than remarkable on the surface, his memoirs still promise a special fascination, for the author belongs to and has chronicled that remarkable generation of English writers who came of age between the wars—a generation that includes Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Cyril Connolly, Henry Green, Harold Acton and Malcolm Muggeridge. (p. 9)

More discursive than the previous...