Susan Gerstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "anthony-powell"
The Pleasures of Reading Multivolume Books
Some years ago a wise older friend had asked me, during a conversation about Britain's role in the Second World War, if I had read Anthony Powell’s “Dance to the Music of Time”. Not only had I not read it, I informed my friend, but I had never even heard of it. He replied, wistfully: “How I envy you! For you have a glorious experience to look forward to!” Knowing my penchant for plunging into a long, long book, in this instance twelve volumes covering many decades and a multitude of characters, he knew what pleasures awaited me. The friend, a musician, described the twelve volumes, divided into four groups, as if they were music: First, Second, Third and Fourth Movements, forming an intricate puzzle that can be entered, my friend said, at any point, and followed to its circular conclusion. Ultimately I decided to follow the Movements as they were published: chronologically, in numerical order. I still think that is the best way to do it, though I had since known readers who started in the middle, with the – say – Third Movement and met the cast of characters at different stages of their lives. Then the First Movement might appear as a flashback. No matter. You start reading. A panorama of interconnected lives begins to form an intricate web. Over a period of time eras end, wars are fought, children grow up, betray each other, betray their country or fight for it, succeed or succumb. The vastness of the canvas on which this picture is painted seems inexhaustible; for a long time one feels that such an undertaking will never end and one will be able to go on reading about these new, intimate acquaintances forever. – Not true: thousands of pages later it does come to an end, a most bittersweet moment. You entered a world, thoroughly explored it, made it your own – and now you have to let it go. – But perhaps you will be able to re-read it some day, this time with an entirely different perspective since you know where everything and everyone are headed and need not be so concerned with whatt happens next but concentrate more on how and why it happens. The details. I am very grateful that I had the incredible good fortune of my friend’s recommendation, that I took his advice and “Dance to the Music of Time” became my world for an unforgettable period of time. And when, years later, I re-read it, I am not sure if it wasn’t even better the second time around.
There is a long list of books that provides just such an experience. Some of them are emotionally shattering, life-changing ones: you emerge at the end of the fourth, tenth, twentieth volume a different person, if for no other reason, because such a long time had gone by in your own life that change is almost inevitable. When I started reading Thomas Mann’s “Joseph” books, I expected it to be “difficult”, esoteric, an intellectual exercise; after all, biblical times and ancient Egypt as the locale for a very long novel did not signal an emotional experience to come. It turned out to be just that: one of the greatest ones, about the singular love of a parent for a favored child, sibling enmity, unrequited passion – and, of course, the passage of time. – Reading Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”; Paul Scott’s “The Raj Quartet”, John Le Carre’s “Smiley” books, John Updike’s “Rabbit” books all marked the periods of my life during which I read them.
Numerous friends tried to get me started on Patrick O’Brian’s twenty-volume sea-saga taking place during the Napoleonic wars. In fact when one of these friends had finally talked me into at least trying the first volume (“no, it’s not what you think, it is as much about the people and the period as the sea-battles” said the friend, for I couldn’t imagine why I would want to read about men killing each other aboard ship in 1805), there were only about 16 volumes published. I started reading “Master and Commander”, made the acquaintance of Jack Aubrey, Steven Maturin and was hooked. Superbly written, deeply affecting, funny, sad, it turned out to be hypnotic. Fortunately, while I read the initial volumes, the subsequent ones appeared. O’Brian died months after the final, twentieth volume was completed. The entire work turns out to be one vast novel, a masterpiece.
Then there are George Macdonald Fraser’s “Flashman” books. I came upon them because prior to traveling to China, one of the volumes was included in the syllabus of things to read as preparation for the trip. This seemed a joke initially, since the rest of the reading material consisted of scholarly articles about Chinese history and it was hard to see what Flashman was doing in this august company. The series is based on the dastardly schoolboy Harry Flashman, a character in Thomas Hughes’ “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”, a mid-nineteenth century novel. Fraser, a historian, introduces Flashman in his subsequent career as army officer and general cad who partakes in and witnesses events causing havoc in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Flashman roams the world and gets to the American West, India, Afghanistan, Germany, Madagascar – everywhere. The reason the “Chinese” volume was included in the list of books is that while hilariously funny and tongue-in-cheek, Flashman’s adventures in all the diverse parts of the British Empire are historically correct. After the extremely entertaining and informative “Chinese” volume I decided to read the others, all equally amusing, equally informative. One does not need to read them in sequence, each book is a unique adventure; and yet, if read chronologically, a slow, almost imperceptible change occurs in the outrageous Flashman character and at the end, yet again, one feels as if parting with, if not a friend, at least a phenomenally entertaining acquaintance.
Wonderful times await you with Anthony Trollope’s “Palliser” books, John Galsworthy’s “Forsythe Saga”, Lawrence Durell’s “Alexandria Quartet”. For the young, or young at heart there is Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, “Harry Potter”, Philipp Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”, Dorothy Dunnet’s “The Lymond Chronicles”. The list is goes on.
At present among the as yet unfinished multivolumes missing the third and final one, Hilary Mantel’s “Cromwell” books promise to join the greats. George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice” hangs in the balance at the moment: it is so vast, its plot is so complicated that with two more volumes still to come (completing the planned seven), all will depend on whether it can arrive at a satisfactory ending. If it does, I believe it will be part of the great fantasy books rivaling Tolkien; if not, possibly a great disappointment. Keeping fingers crossed.
There is a long list of books that provides just such an experience. Some of them are emotionally shattering, life-changing ones: you emerge at the end of the fourth, tenth, twentieth volume a different person, if for no other reason, because such a long time had gone by in your own life that change is almost inevitable. When I started reading Thomas Mann’s “Joseph” books, I expected it to be “difficult”, esoteric, an intellectual exercise; after all, biblical times and ancient Egypt as the locale for a very long novel did not signal an emotional experience to come. It turned out to be just that: one of the greatest ones, about the singular love of a parent for a favored child, sibling enmity, unrequited passion – and, of course, the passage of time. – Reading Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”; Paul Scott’s “The Raj Quartet”, John Le Carre’s “Smiley” books, John Updike’s “Rabbit” books all marked the periods of my life during which I read them.
Numerous friends tried to get me started on Patrick O’Brian’s twenty-volume sea-saga taking place during the Napoleonic wars. In fact when one of these friends had finally talked me into at least trying the first volume (“no, it’s not what you think, it is as much about the people and the period as the sea-battles” said the friend, for I couldn’t imagine why I would want to read about men killing each other aboard ship in 1805), there were only about 16 volumes published. I started reading “Master and Commander”, made the acquaintance of Jack Aubrey, Steven Maturin and was hooked. Superbly written, deeply affecting, funny, sad, it turned out to be hypnotic. Fortunately, while I read the initial volumes, the subsequent ones appeared. O’Brian died months after the final, twentieth volume was completed. The entire work turns out to be one vast novel, a masterpiece.
Then there are George Macdonald Fraser’s “Flashman” books. I came upon them because prior to traveling to China, one of the volumes was included in the syllabus of things to read as preparation for the trip. This seemed a joke initially, since the rest of the reading material consisted of scholarly articles about Chinese history and it was hard to see what Flashman was doing in this august company. The series is based on the dastardly schoolboy Harry Flashman, a character in Thomas Hughes’ “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”, a mid-nineteenth century novel. Fraser, a historian, introduces Flashman in his subsequent career as army officer and general cad who partakes in and witnesses events causing havoc in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Flashman roams the world and gets to the American West, India, Afghanistan, Germany, Madagascar – everywhere. The reason the “Chinese” volume was included in the list of books is that while hilariously funny and tongue-in-cheek, Flashman’s adventures in all the diverse parts of the British Empire are historically correct. After the extremely entertaining and informative “Chinese” volume I decided to read the others, all equally amusing, equally informative. One does not need to read them in sequence, each book is a unique adventure; and yet, if read chronologically, a slow, almost imperceptible change occurs in the outrageous Flashman character and at the end, yet again, one feels as if parting with, if not a friend, at least a phenomenally entertaining acquaintance.
Wonderful times await you with Anthony Trollope’s “Palliser” books, John Galsworthy’s “Forsythe Saga”, Lawrence Durell’s “Alexandria Quartet”. For the young, or young at heart there is Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, “Harry Potter”, Philipp Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”, Dorothy Dunnet’s “The Lymond Chronicles”. The list is goes on.
At present among the as yet unfinished multivolumes missing the third and final one, Hilary Mantel’s “Cromwell” books promise to join the greats. George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice” hangs in the balance at the moment: it is so vast, its plot is so complicated that with two more volumes still to come (completing the planned seven), all will depend on whether it can arrive at a satisfactory ending. If it does, I believe it will be part of the great fantasy books rivaling Tolkien; if not, possibly a great disappointment. Keeping fingers crossed.
A Year-end Roundup
As an antidote to the sadness I experienced from the recent election, I needed a diversion from current events. So here are three books that took my mind off, to some extent, of what one wants to forget.
“Razor Girl” by Carl Hiaasen
In one of his funniest sagas about life, low-life, corruption and general mayhem in Southern Florida, this is a wild ride among phony businessmen, ruthless real estate operators, Mafiosi, exotic critters, reality-TV shenanigans and much more, as the honest-cup-demoted-to-restaurant-inspector attempts to unravel a very raveled storyline. That storyline is of secondary consequence in Carl Hiaasen’s series of novels over the last thirty years: the point is the exaggerated but eminently recognizable cast of characters who are prototypes for whichever foibles of humanity he chooses to satirize. Hiaasen, who is also a journalist and columnist for The Miami Herald, has been producing these treasures of hilarity that number, by now, some fifteen novels. They have provided me with welcome amusement for many years; may he continue to produce them. “Razor Girl” is the latest one of the lot, one of the best. If you need laughter, read it.
“Mister Monkey” by Francine Prose
I had been reading Francine Prose’s articles and essays for a long time, but somehow never her novels; “Mister Monkey”, recently published, is the first one, and a wonderfully rewarding experience it has been. The book is one of those masterly balancing acts that manage to be incredibly sad and extremely funny simultaneously, breaking your heart with recognition of people you know. It is written somewhat as a series of short stories: we proceed through events with the changing viewpoints of several of the protagonists. It all begins at a dim, off-off-off-Broadway production of a children’s play, "Mister Monkey", and the sad, passed-their-prime theater people involved in it; the grandfather and grandson in the audience; the author of the book on which the play is based; an “admirer of the Theater” who happens to be a waiter in the restaurant in which an earnest young teacher is having a date from hell. They all interconnect and we are privy to their thoughts. It is about the discrepancy between early expectations and hopes and the dim achievements of middle and old age; the painful difficulties of being young, the near-hopelessness of finding reciprocated love or professional success commensurate with young ambition. Lest you should think it all too depressing, the achievement of “Mister Monkey” is that it has deep sympathy for all its characters, and that it finds the hope and the amusement in the human condition it depicts.
“Exposure” by Helen Dunmore
Once again, I encountered this newly published and well-reviewed novel by an author who had written several during the past twenty years, and yet this is the first one I had read. “Exposure” could be characterized, I suppose, as a “spy novel”, though that would not be fair to it, it is so much more than that. Taking place in the late fifties and early sixties in London, during the worst period of the Cold War and the notorious events concerning Burgess, McLean, Philby and their ilk, we are in Le Carre country. But this book is not imitation Le Carre. Helen Dunmore chooses to tell her story obliquely, her protagonists are not the main players of the drama but innocent people unwittingly caught up in it. The noose tightens around the ordinary family: the husband who inadvertently becomes a suspect and then a prisoner; the refugee wife whose secure life in law-abiding England turns on its head, and the children who have to grow up very fast to cope with an incomprehensible change in circumstances. This family is beset, on the one hand, by the real culprits who need them as scapegoats, and on the other, by the authorities who see a criminal where none exists. Meanwhile, each player in the drama has his or her own past to contend with, a past that always reaches into the present. “Exposure” is a page-turner that does not resolve until the very last page, and by then we have come to care deeply for the people we have met and rooted for.
*
And now I will do what most comforts me: return to something I have loved in the past. “Dance to the Music of Time”. Anthony Powell’s giant, twelve-volume saga of between-war and post-war England is one of the several life-changing reading experiences I have been fortunate to have; and now is a good time to disappear into it for however long a time it will take to re-meet Charles Stringham, Peter Templer, Nick Jenkins, and last but not least Widmerpool, whose career so reminds one of the rise some current politicians. Rereading these books is a promise I made to myself long ago and I am about to fulfill it.
“Razor Girl” by Carl Hiaasen
In one of his funniest sagas about life, low-life, corruption and general mayhem in Southern Florida, this is a wild ride among phony businessmen, ruthless real estate operators, Mafiosi, exotic critters, reality-TV shenanigans and much more, as the honest-cup-demoted-to-restaurant-inspector attempts to unravel a very raveled storyline. That storyline is of secondary consequence in Carl Hiaasen’s series of novels over the last thirty years: the point is the exaggerated but eminently recognizable cast of characters who are prototypes for whichever foibles of humanity he chooses to satirize. Hiaasen, who is also a journalist and columnist for The Miami Herald, has been producing these treasures of hilarity that number, by now, some fifteen novels. They have provided me with welcome amusement for many years; may he continue to produce them. “Razor Girl” is the latest one of the lot, one of the best. If you need laughter, read it.
“Mister Monkey” by Francine Prose
I had been reading Francine Prose’s articles and essays for a long time, but somehow never her novels; “Mister Monkey”, recently published, is the first one, and a wonderfully rewarding experience it has been. The book is one of those masterly balancing acts that manage to be incredibly sad and extremely funny simultaneously, breaking your heart with recognition of people you know. It is written somewhat as a series of short stories: we proceed through events with the changing viewpoints of several of the protagonists. It all begins at a dim, off-off-off-Broadway production of a children’s play, "Mister Monkey", and the sad, passed-their-prime theater people involved in it; the grandfather and grandson in the audience; the author of the book on which the play is based; an “admirer of the Theater” who happens to be a waiter in the restaurant in which an earnest young teacher is having a date from hell. They all interconnect and we are privy to their thoughts. It is about the discrepancy between early expectations and hopes and the dim achievements of middle and old age; the painful difficulties of being young, the near-hopelessness of finding reciprocated love or professional success commensurate with young ambition. Lest you should think it all too depressing, the achievement of “Mister Monkey” is that it has deep sympathy for all its characters, and that it finds the hope and the amusement in the human condition it depicts.
“Exposure” by Helen Dunmore
Once again, I encountered this newly published and well-reviewed novel by an author who had written several during the past twenty years, and yet this is the first one I had read. “Exposure” could be characterized, I suppose, as a “spy novel”, though that would not be fair to it, it is so much more than that. Taking place in the late fifties and early sixties in London, during the worst period of the Cold War and the notorious events concerning Burgess, McLean, Philby and their ilk, we are in Le Carre country. But this book is not imitation Le Carre. Helen Dunmore chooses to tell her story obliquely, her protagonists are not the main players of the drama but innocent people unwittingly caught up in it. The noose tightens around the ordinary family: the husband who inadvertently becomes a suspect and then a prisoner; the refugee wife whose secure life in law-abiding England turns on its head, and the children who have to grow up very fast to cope with an incomprehensible change in circumstances. This family is beset, on the one hand, by the real culprits who need them as scapegoats, and on the other, by the authorities who see a criminal where none exists. Meanwhile, each player in the drama has his or her own past to contend with, a past that always reaches into the present. “Exposure” is a page-turner that does not resolve until the very last page, and by then we have come to care deeply for the people we have met and rooted for.
*
And now I will do what most comforts me: return to something I have loved in the past. “Dance to the Music of Time”. Anthony Powell’s giant, twelve-volume saga of between-war and post-war England is one of the several life-changing reading experiences I have been fortunate to have; and now is a good time to disappear into it for however long a time it will take to re-meet Charles Stringham, Peter Templer, Nick Jenkins, and last but not least Widmerpool, whose career so reminds one of the rise some current politicians. Rereading these books is a promise I made to myself long ago and I am about to fulfill it.
