From a View to a Death
Anthony Powell
 Arthur Zouch, portrait painter and self-declared "superman," comes to stay at Passenger Court, ostensibly to paint the portrait of the younger Passenger daughter, Mary, but in no small part on the lookout for any opportunity he can find to improve either his social, financial, or sexual satisfaction. At Passenger court, he finds opportunity for all three, but he also finds unanticipated conflict in the person of Vernon Passenger, also a self-proclaimed "superman." Meanwhile, the neighboring Fosdick family – the Major, his sons Torquil and Jasper – carry on a seemingly perpetual feud with the Passengers that is as often characterized by displays of better manners and more proper etiquette as it is by bad temper and argument. Joanna Brandon, a local young woman, further complicates the lives of several of the principals; she may be Powell’s most sensitively rendered female character. The novel moves through ten chapters toward an inescapable denouement, though never tipping its hand as to precisely how the foreshadowing of the title shall be brought to fruition. The parallel plots (at times almost Lear-like in the development of the neighbouring families) reach a double climax from which only one ‘superman’ can emerge.