Running in Literature: Widmerpool

An occasional series that will be continued whenever I come across a character who has any sort of interesting relationship with running.

Dance to the Music of Time is a sequence of twelve novels that describes the social milieu around the central narrator Nicholas Jenkins. There two main types of reaction to it: some people reject it as just the social record of a load of toffs, whilst others make extraordinarily high claims. (There is a quote on my copy from Clive James 'I think it is now becoming clear that A Dance To The Music of Time is going to become the greatest modern novel since Ulysses'). Myself, I think it is wonderful, full of insight and wry observation, but that is neither here nor there as I am not here to write a review. I only want to highlight a small detail that in a novel sequence with a precise architecture, where patterns and symmetries are important, it begins and end with running.

Widmerpool is probably the character who looms the largest throughout the novels. Although not likeable or sympathetic, he is a force and fascinating in his strengths and weaknesses. In the beginning he is fixed as he comes out of the mist.

By this stage of the year - exercise no longer contestable five days a week - the road was empty; except for Widmerpool, in a sweater once white and a cap one size too small, hobbling unevenly, though with determination on the flat heels of spiked running shoes…Widmerpool was known to go voluntarily for 'a run' by himself every afternoon. This was his return from the plough in drizzle that had been falling since early school…As the damp , insistent cold struck up from the road, two thin jets of steam drifted out of his nostrils, by nature much distended, and all at once he seemed to possess a painful solidarity that talk about him had never conveyed. Something comfortless and inelegant in his appearance suddenly impressed itself on the observer, as stiffly, almost majestically, Widmerpool moved on his heels out of the mist.

I think this is fine writing with small details like the 'two thin jets of steam' making the picture vivid. But the point is that the character of Widmerpool becomes clear through his activity - through running, which is solitary (Widmerpool is always an outsider), determined, but pursued without any great talent. Yet despite all this there is something almost majestic about him.

I love the idea of seeing people through their actions. This may be a bit sad but all the time I am looking at runners and making judgements. Mostly they are superficial, merely being about the way the body moves, whether it is fluid or stiff, elegant or clumsy. At other times you do catch glimpses of character, though you have no way of knowing if that flash of insight is accurate or not. However the activities we choose are never neutral, they all show something about us. For example you can never take up running if you hate being by yourself, as no matter how social you might be, running is mostly solitary. You also have to have a certain amount of doggedness run consistently and so it is the perfect activity to introduce Widmerpool who forms his own life purely through the force of will.

Yes running is only a small detail in the novels but it is cleverly chosen. I will however draw a veil over the ending where Widmerpool dies running naked, part of a crank sect.

We may run but we are not mean we have to be anything like him.