Understanding Anthony Powell

Understanding Contemporary British Literature (2022)

by Nicholas Birns

Suggesting that the literary world is just beginning to realize the extent of Anthony Powell's achievements, Nicholas Birns provides a fresh examination of the British writer's career and growing reputation in this introduction to his work. Birns takes a global view of Powell's corpus, situating his works in context and explaining his place among Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Henry Green, in the second generation of British modernists. Birns adds to the understanding of how Powell and his compatriots pioneered a "next wave" modernism in which experimentation and traditional narrative combined in a sustainable mode.
Birns offers readings of Powell's entire oeuvre, including the novels Afternoon Men, Venusberg, and The Fisher King, and his journals, which appeared in print between 1995 and 1997. Looking especially closely at A Dance to the Music of Time, the twelve-volume sequence of novels that is Powell's masterpiece, Birns sets the series in its social and historical context, emphasizing the role that both world wars and the cold war played in Powell's life and writing. He makes a particular study of the novel's dominating force - the arrogant, opportunistic Widmerpool, a social climber who delights in his own good fortune and gloats over the sufferings of others. While noting Widmerpool's central position, Birns illumines Powell's subtle aesthetic resistance, epitomized by minor characters and the voice of the narrator, against Widmerpool and his ilk. Birns shows that instead of setting forth a single champion against evil, Powell subtly communicates a half-melancholy, half-humorous sensibility in which he invites the reader to share.

389 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[David]

An excellent survey which raises many interesting points for discussion. Particularly good with respect to AP’s non-fiction. 3rd reading.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A full survey of Powell's work, up to and including A Writer's Notebook (though without much attention to the plays). Gives a good survey of Powell's career, from the earliest novels of the 1930s, through A Dance to the Music of Time and into the memoir/journal years at the end of AP's career, written by a second-generation Powell fan and scholar, well-disposed to the subject and the task.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A companion to my third re-reading of Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. It's an excellent book to read along with the series.