 Critics generally find Widmerpool the most interesting and absorbing of the sequence 's major characters . He has been described as " one of the most memorable characters of 20th century fiction " , and according to the literary critic John Bayley is as " famous a character in the annals of English fiction as either Pickwick or Jeeves " . Powell , in a 1978 interview , confessed that he had used Widmerpool as a bait to catch readers , but found that the character had taken over , to a greater extent than he would have wished . 
