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A Dance to the Music of Time, Complete Set: 1st Movement, 2nd Movement, 3rd Movement, 4th Movement
Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art. In the second volume they move to London in a whirl of marriage and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures. These books "provide an unsurpassed picture, at once gay and melancholy, of social and artistic life in Britain between the wars" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.). The third volume follows Nick into army life and evokes London during the blitz. In the climactic final volume, England has won the war and must now count the losses.
Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkins—a budding writer—shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars.
Includes these
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World
"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. Hisadmirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."—Chicago Tribune
"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times
"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker
Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkins—a budding writer—shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars.
Includes these
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World
"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. Hisadmirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."—Chicago Tribune
"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times
"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker
2940 pages
First published January 1, 1975
57 people are currently reading
591 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Powell
107 books336 followersPeople best know British writer Anthony Dymoke Powell for
A Dance to the Music of Time
, a cycle of 12 satirical novels from 1951 to 1975.
This Englishman published his volumes of work. Television and radio dramatizations subjected major work of Powell in print continuously. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Powell among their list of "the fifty greatest British writers since 1945."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony...
This Englishman published his volumes of work. Television and radio dramatizations subjected major work of Powell in print continuously. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Powell among their list of "the fifty greatest British writers since 1945."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony...
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 27, 2017
The men at work at the corner of the street had made a kind of camp for themselves, where, marked out by tripods hung with red hurricane-lamps, an abyss in the road led down to a network of subterranean drain-pipes. Gathered round the bucket of coke that burned in front of the shelter, several figures were swinging arms against bodies and rubbing hands together with large, pantomimic gestures; like comedians giving formal expression to the concept of extreme cold.
So begins the series of twelve novels by Anthony Powell (1905-2000), collectively called A Dance to the Music of Time, published between the years 1951 and 1975.
A Dance to the Music of Time, Nicolas Poussin, ~1635
I generally don’t go in for reading series of novels. Sometimes, if one does hooked, they seem to go on as long as the writer does, and after a while one gets the impression that it has become a cash cow for a writer who has run out of the desire, or ability, to be newly creative. (See The Wheel of Time.)
Of course that’s not a problem if one begins the read when the series is complete, and especially if the author is dead. No sequels will be forthcoming.
Powell refrained from continuing the Dance for a quarter century, with each passing year demonstrating more persuasively that he was finished with it.
This is only the second long series of novels I have completely read. The first was Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels (named such after the two main characters) - nautical historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars (the first being Master and Commander.)
I enjoyed each series enormously. Usually when I started reading a book I read little else till I was finished, which is very unusual for me. Both series involve wonderful characters, and are frequently humorous; but there are some significant differences between them.
First, it must be said that though O’Brian is a wonderful story teller, he is not quite on the literary level that Powell is. Powell has a magical way of expressing very normal observations in a unique grammar which I found a constant joy.
The Aubrey-Maturin novels tell the reader, in a third person narrative, about a time, and a very particular slice of that time, the British Navy in the age of fighting sail. Powell’s series concerns of course a different time. But far beyond that, his “subject” is not such a narrow slice.
Powell’s first person narrative is set in the British upper-middle (or lower-upper?) class, people who go to the British “public” schools, graduate college, and set about a life certainly not as a blue collar worker - a life is often concerned with the “arts” (writing, music, painting) or with politics in one of its many facets. So that is a narrow slice, like O’Brian’s.
But Powell has a much wider interest. His narrator, Nick Jenkins, expresses observations which pertain to human beings in general, not specifically those of his own class; and in particular, insights about a person’s path through life, the changing perspectives one obtains about other people known, and the way these change as we dance to time’s music.
Here’s a list of reviews I’ve written on parts of the series.
On the first three novels Spring
(I hope to review these three separately this year.)
A Dance … #4 At Lady Molly’s
A Dance … #5 Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant
A Dance … #6 The Kindly Ones
A Dance … #7 The Valley of Bones
A Dance … #8 The Soldier’s Art
A Dance … #9 The Military Philosophers
A Dance … #10 Books Do Furnish a Room
A Dance … #11 Temporary Kings
A Dance … #12 Hearing Secret Harmonies
and a great guide to the series Invitation to the Dance
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Summer of '49 baseball
Random review: King John Shakespeare
Next review: The Really Big One public service announcement
So begins the series of twelve novels by Anthony Powell (1905-2000), collectively called A Dance to the Music of Time, published between the years 1951 and 1975.
A Dance to the Music of Time, Nicolas Poussin, ~1635
I generally don’t go in for reading series of novels. Sometimes, if one does hooked, they seem to go on as long as the writer does, and after a while one gets the impression that it has become a cash cow for a writer who has run out of the desire, or ability, to be newly creative. (See The Wheel of Time.)
Of course that’s not a problem if one begins the read when the series is complete, and especially if the author is dead. No sequels will be forthcoming.
Powell refrained from continuing the Dance for a quarter century, with each passing year demonstrating more persuasively that he was finished with it.
This is only the second long series of novels I have completely read. The first was Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels (named such after the two main characters) - nautical historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars (the first being Master and Commander.)
I enjoyed each series enormously. Usually when I started reading a book I read little else till I was finished, which is very unusual for me. Both series involve wonderful characters, and are frequently humorous; but there are some significant differences between them.
First, it must be said that though O’Brian is a wonderful story teller, he is not quite on the literary level that Powell is. Powell has a magical way of expressing very normal observations in a unique grammar which I found a constant joy.
The Aubrey-Maturin novels tell the reader, in a third person narrative, about a time, and a very particular slice of that time, the British Navy in the age of fighting sail. Powell’s series concerns of course a different time. But far beyond that, his “subject” is not such a narrow slice.
Powell’s first person narrative is set in the British upper-middle (or lower-upper?) class, people who go to the British “public” schools, graduate college, and set about a life certainly not as a blue collar worker - a life is often concerned with the “arts” (writing, music, painting) or with politics in one of its many facets. So that is a narrow slice, like O’Brian’s.
But Powell has a much wider interest. His narrator, Nick Jenkins, expresses observations which pertain to human beings in general, not specifically those of his own class; and in particular, insights about a person’s path through life, the changing perspectives one obtains about other people known, and the way these change as we dance to time’s music.
Here’s a list of reviews I’ve written on parts of the series.
On the first three novels Spring
(I hope to review these three separately this year.)
A Dance … #4 At Lady Molly’s
A Dance … #5 Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant
A Dance … #6 The Kindly Ones
A Dance … #7 The Valley of Bones
A Dance … #8 The Soldier’s Art
A Dance … #9 The Military Philosophers
A Dance … #10 Books Do Furnish a Room
A Dance … #11 Temporary Kings
A Dance … #12 Hearing Secret Harmonies
and a great guide to the series Invitation to the Dance
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Summer of '49 baseball
Random review: King John Shakespeare
Next review: The Really Big One public service announcement
March 29, 2013
Have you ever taken a long road trip, one where you marveled at the diverse scenery that you passed along the way, crossed the desert, maybe even stopped long enough to explore a cave, a quaint little shop, or for a swim in the ocean? Perhaps you stopped long enough to meet new and interesting people, tried different foods and took in that open air concert at the town square. You've had wonderful experiences and enjoyed the trip immensely, but oh the relief to have the trip over, to put your feet up and give a sigh of contentment that you are back home to once again sleep in your own bed that fits your body perfectly amidst all your belongings that make it your home.
That is how I feel now that my journey through this novel and its 2,940+ pages is over. It was a memorable trip with Jenkins and his friends, watching them as they grew from schoolboys to young men just stepping into that half-way stage between teenagers and adults then on to the beginnings of their careers and adult relationships. A side trip, called the war, derailed their lives for six long years but we met more people on this path, people not normally to be met during peacetime, and most soon out of their lives again.
To give a detailed description of a book of this length with the number of characters introduced is a task far beyond the capabilities of this reader so what I'll present are my highly condensed thoughts. The entire 12 novel sequence, primarily set in England between the two wars, was narrated in the first person by Nicholas Jenkins who drew detailed pictures of his friends, Stringham, Templer, Moreland, Widmerpool and others, their triumphs, their joys, their personalities, and their troubles, so well that we could relate them to people and events we have known in our own lives. We were taken into the world of the arts, literature and fine art with writers, artists, actors, composers, film makers, publishers and politicians and saw their struggles for acceptance and financial success in England, France and Venice as we also watched the overall changing societal culture of the time. Jenkins proved to be a reliable yet dispassionate narrator and a keen observer of events and those people around him. At the same time, other than his career path Jenkins was strangely reticent about his own personal life. Except for his Uncle Giles, we were told little to give us a picture of his own parents and family or his life with them. We know he married a woman named Isobel Tolland but in addition to the name we know nothing of her as a person except as an extension of himself. He spoke often about her aunts, uncles and siblings and their doings but seldom of Isobel herself. Of his offspring we know even less. He mentions a child but never gives its name and except for a few brief references to a son he almost totally ignores his existence. I finished the book learning very little about the man Jenkins himself so was unable to form any emotional attachment to him. This whole saga was written with such seeming dispassion that this reader also felt detached from emotion.
The last two books of the sequence brought a close to the stories of the main characters with happy outcomes for some, less happy for others and truly sad endings for still others. Here Jenkins did also introduce a whole new generation of young adults with their happenings but a whole new novel will have to be written to take us further.
According to Wikipedia, Powell is reputed to have taken inspiration for his sequence and the name A Dance to The Music of Time from the painting of the same title by Nicolas Poissin c 1636 and based many of his characters on actual people of his time including Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley and John Galsworthy. I have read that Powell introduced about 300 characters into the novel and I can readily believe it. Some we grew to know well, others we met with a handshake or a nod of the head, others were brief acquaintances, in and out of Jenkins life rapidly, but each leaving his footprints behind. It is to Powell's credit that he maintained the flavor of his characters as well as the tone of the sequence throughout which was no mean feat considering the time span taken to write the book from the first to the last. Some books I enjoyed more than others with Jenkins war-time life being my least favorite but my interest never waned throughout. Although the quality and enjoyment of each book varied individually, when taken as a whole the novel shines.
Rather than a plot there is a gentle movement of events and people advancing through the years. If you are more interested in good characterization than reading a fast action plot, if you can invest the time required to complete the series then I do recommend it. As each of the 12 books builds upon previous books with no conclusion in each but merely picking up where the last book left off, you might find yourself unsatisfied if you abandon it before completing the sequence. This doesn't mean that it should be read in one fell swoop as I basically did, it would work equally as well if broken up into the various books or movements and read over a longer period of time as it was first published. Myself, I just had to go directly on to the next to find out what was happening to those people I'd grown to know and care for. I'm very glad that I read it, truly enjoyed every page to a greater or lesser degree with my only regret being that I won't be able to experience this book again for the first time.
I highly recommend this book !!
That is how I feel now that my journey through this novel and its 2,940+ pages is over. It was a memorable trip with Jenkins and his friends, watching them as they grew from schoolboys to young men just stepping into that half-way stage between teenagers and adults then on to the beginnings of their careers and adult relationships. A side trip, called the war, derailed their lives for six long years but we met more people on this path, people not normally to be met during peacetime, and most soon out of their lives again.
To give a detailed description of a book of this length with the number of characters introduced is a task far beyond the capabilities of this reader so what I'll present are my highly condensed thoughts. The entire 12 novel sequence, primarily set in England between the two wars, was narrated in the first person by Nicholas Jenkins who drew detailed pictures of his friends, Stringham, Templer, Moreland, Widmerpool and others, their triumphs, their joys, their personalities, and their troubles, so well that we could relate them to people and events we have known in our own lives. We were taken into the world of the arts, literature and fine art with writers, artists, actors, composers, film makers, publishers and politicians and saw their struggles for acceptance and financial success in England, France and Venice as we also watched the overall changing societal culture of the time. Jenkins proved to be a reliable yet dispassionate narrator and a keen observer of events and those people around him. At the same time, other than his career path Jenkins was strangely reticent about his own personal life. Except for his Uncle Giles, we were told little to give us a picture of his own parents and family or his life with them. We know he married a woman named Isobel Tolland but in addition to the name we know nothing of her as a person except as an extension of himself. He spoke often about her aunts, uncles and siblings and their doings but seldom of Isobel herself. Of his offspring we know even less. He mentions a child but never gives its name and except for a few brief references to a son he almost totally ignores his existence. I finished the book learning very little about the man Jenkins himself so was unable to form any emotional attachment to him. This whole saga was written with such seeming dispassion that this reader also felt detached from emotion.
The last two books of the sequence brought a close to the stories of the main characters with happy outcomes for some, less happy for others and truly sad endings for still others. Here Jenkins did also introduce a whole new generation of young adults with their happenings but a whole new novel will have to be written to take us further.
According to Wikipedia, Powell is reputed to have taken inspiration for his sequence and the name A Dance to The Music of Time from the painting of the same title by Nicolas Poissin c 1636 and based many of his characters on actual people of his time including Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley and John Galsworthy. I have read that Powell introduced about 300 characters into the novel and I can readily believe it. Some we grew to know well, others we met with a handshake or a nod of the head, others were brief acquaintances, in and out of Jenkins life rapidly, but each leaving his footprints behind. It is to Powell's credit that he maintained the flavor of his characters as well as the tone of the sequence throughout which was no mean feat considering the time span taken to write the book from the first to the last. Some books I enjoyed more than others with Jenkins war-time life being my least favorite but my interest never waned throughout. Although the quality and enjoyment of each book varied individually, when taken as a whole the novel shines.
Rather than a plot there is a gentle movement of events and people advancing through the years. If you are more interested in good characterization than reading a fast action plot, if you can invest the time required to complete the series then I do recommend it. As each of the 12 books builds upon previous books with no conclusion in each but merely picking up where the last book left off, you might find yourself unsatisfied if you abandon it before completing the sequence. This doesn't mean that it should be read in one fell swoop as I basically did, it would work equally as well if broken up into the various books or movements and read over a longer period of time as it was first published. Myself, I just had to go directly on to the next to find out what was happening to those people I'd grown to know and care for. I'm very glad that I read it, truly enjoyed every page to a greater or lesser degree with my only regret being that I won't be able to experience this book again for the first time.
I highly recommend this book !!
December 15, 2016
It is hard to explain the appeal and rational for reading this book to friends. I like big books (I cannot lie). But it isn't just that. Powell's motivation for writing this novel is similar to my desire to read it. Powell wanted to capture the changes that happened in England from the period right after WWI through the 1960s. He wanted to deal with big themes (class, love, duty, death)* I've been super impressed with Powell's execution and talent. He is able to keep 300 characters over 40 years. He was able to weave together a narrative that was coherent over 12 novels, but each also seemed to exist, artistically, in its own space.
* Stole this from Manny.
* Stole this from Manny.
August 22, 2021
UPDATE: I just finished reading Proust's fourth volume of "In Search of Lost Time" in which the merits of the artist, Poussin, are discussed. Anthony Powell, no doubt inspired by Proust, uses Poussin's "Dance to the Music of Time" painting for the cover artwork of the edition I read, and was no doubt also inspired by the painting itself. And, Powell picks up, time wise, where Proust ends his work. One can argue that Proust and Powell effectively cover the first 50 years of Europe in the 20th century.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I spent most of 2014 with a bookmark somewhere within these 4 volumes, these good-to-great 12 novels. Powell's writing is usually beautiful with passages worth several reads. It's so hard to think of these stories as fiction as they feel so true. My favorite segment is the middle portion of the 4th Movement, the beautiful set piece with most of the characters staring at, and discussing, a mural on a ceiling in a Venetian palace. But for me the stories slip a bit here and there, and I believe it would be easy to read the first novel (or a portion thereof) and just put the entire set back on a shelf. I can't see that any of these 12 novels would be successful alone. But together, they represent quite a literary achievement.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I spent most of 2014 with a bookmark somewhere within these 4 volumes, these good-to-great 12 novels. Powell's writing is usually beautiful with passages worth several reads. It's so hard to think of these stories as fiction as they feel so true. My favorite segment is the middle portion of the 4th Movement, the beautiful set piece with most of the characters staring at, and discussing, a mural on a ceiling in a Venetian palace. But for me the stories slip a bit here and there, and I believe it would be easy to read the first novel (or a portion thereof) and just put the entire set back on a shelf. I can't see that any of these 12 novels would be successful alone. But together, they represent quite a literary achievement.
December 21, 2016
Finished today after reading this series during 2016 with the group 2016:A Dance to the Music of Time. This was a wonderful reading experience with the whole being greater than the individual parts. To write a series over the course of 24 years and have 300-400 characters and keep consistent and tie up all loose ends while keeping the reader entertained for almost 3000 pages is no mean achievement. In many of the reviews for the individual books I have read comments that people did not like the fact that the personality and life of the narrator, Nick Jenkins, was not more fleshed out. I am somewhat in disagreement with that. Although we did not learn a lot about his wife or kids they were not what the story was about. I think we learned more about Nick in what he chose to tell us and in his interactions with other characters than some of these other reviewers seem to think. I will miss him.
Want to read
May 23, 2016***
1st Movement
(★★★☆☆)
Book 1: A Question of Upbringing (★★★☆☆)
Book 2: A Buyer's Market (★★★☆☆)
Book 3: The Acceptance World (★★★☆☆)
*** 2nd Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 4 At Lady Molly's (★★★★☆)
Book 5 Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (★★★★☆)
Book 6 The Kindly Ones (☆☆☆☆☆)
*** 3rd Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 7 The Valley of Bones (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 8 The Soldier's Art (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 9 The Military Philosophers (☆☆☆☆☆)
*** 4th Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 10 Books Do Furnish a Room (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 11 Temporary Kings (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 12 Hearing Secret Harmonies (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 1: A Question of Upbringing (★★★☆☆)
Book 2: A Buyer's Market (★★★☆☆)
Book 3: The Acceptance World (★★★☆☆)
*** 2nd Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 4 At Lady Molly's (★★★★☆)
Book 5 Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (★★★★☆)
Book 6 The Kindly Ones (☆☆☆☆☆)
*** 3rd Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 7 The Valley of Bones (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 8 The Soldier's Art (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 9 The Military Philosophers (☆☆☆☆☆)
*** 4th Movement (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 10 Books Do Furnish a Room (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 11 Temporary Kings (☆☆☆☆☆)
Book 12 Hearing Secret Harmonies (☆☆☆☆☆)
November 27, 2012
A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell (1951-1975) #43
November 27, 2012
How do you review someone’s life work in a few paragraphs? At 12 books totaling 2948 pages (and several book read in between), the task, especially trying to summarize, seems impossible.
So I guess all I will say is that to keep me reading and interested in a book so long seems no small feat. To span so many years in writing and keep the story cohesive seems like an uncommon accomplishment. To write a good story to boot; one that kept me up way past my bedtime reading the last 100 pages because the story was so damn engrossing seems like a minor miracle.
This story covered so many aspects of life and had so many subplots it was crazy. The fact that almost every loose end in the book was resolved (some taking all 12 book to do so) proves to me literary genius. This (these) book(s) well deserved to be on the list, and not just for the gimmick of being the one of the (if not the) longest works of literature ever written. Whole college courses could be dedicated to the study of this work.
9
November 27, 2012
How do you review someone’s life work in a few paragraphs? At 12 books totaling 2948 pages (and several book read in between), the task, especially trying to summarize, seems impossible.
So I guess all I will say is that to keep me reading and interested in a book so long seems no small feat. To span so many years in writing and keep the story cohesive seems like an uncommon accomplishment. To write a good story to boot; one that kept me up way past my bedtime reading the last 100 pages because the story was so damn engrossing seems like a minor miracle.
This story covered so many aspects of life and had so many subplots it was crazy. The fact that almost every loose end in the book was resolved (some taking all 12 book to do so) proves to me literary genius. This (these) book(s) well deserved to be on the list, and not just for the gimmick of being the one of the (if not the) longest works of literature ever written. Whole college courses could be dedicated to the study of this work.
9
April 25, 2011
I'm changing my position on abandoning books, even fairly good (but not great) ones, even after 3,000 pages. No more staying in something for too long trying to make it work despite ambivalence, waffling, not enough in common. Life is potentially short. There are too many other good books out there that want the same things that I want.
April 20, 2025
‘I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged, in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and suchlike, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c.
Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of Princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. Today we hear of new Lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned, one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c.’
__ Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, quoted by Anthony Powell in A Dance to the Music of Time (12, Hearing Secret Memories)
Nicholas Jenkins, the narrator of ‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ whose life’s best work was his biography of Robert Burton, winds up the entire 12-volume series with the quote above. It pretty much summarises all the events that take place in the series, including a cataclysmic world war.
‘Dance’ covers a time-span of over forty years, roughly parallel to Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time.’ The entire series of novels and novellas comprising Balzac's ‘Human Comedy’ covers a period of some 33 years, from 1815 to about 1848. It took Proust some thirteen years to write his opus, despite his reclusiveness, and both Balzac and Powell some thirty years each, to complete theirs. In his ‘In Search of Lost Time,’ Proust has a cast list of some 2000 persons, although only a handful leave a strong impression in your memory. Balzac’s ‘Human Comedy,’ in its 91 volumes, has an unlisted number of characters. For all that it sounds so formidable, the same people are the driving force behind all of them. Anthony Powell introduces an amazing 300 persons, most of whom are recurring players. For all three, these magnificent romans fleuves were each the one great work that immortalised them.
The statistics I have mentioned are in the public domain and give an idea of the scope and energy that went into these classics. Ever since their publication, they have remained popular despite initial hostile reactions from some critics. All three writers had very different aims in writing, but Proust and Powell are often compared together, partly because their novels are thinly disguised romans-à-clef, and also because their novels range over memories and people from their childhood, detailing the social events at which the main events of the narrative are fixed or converge.
‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ is full of people who have a mischievous or perverted streak in their make-up, all related by birth or connected by marriage to Jenkins, and all known to each other from their school days, thus forming the base for a social satire of conservative and left-wing dilettanti mostly drawn from the upper classes and a closed circle of friends from school days. As a reasonably successful writer in the book, employed in a publishing firm, Jenkins has a somewhat larger number of acquaintances among politicians, writers, artists and musicians who introduce him to other, quirkier Bohemians. Others, more casual still, are from the Army or from work, making an enormous number of persons to keep track of. Powell and Jenkins have great fun describing the doings of their characters over forty years, their affairs and misadventures, their failures in life as well as their rehabilitation after alcoholism or other causes, frequently their great successes as politicians, authors, sculptors or musicians, their frustrations, their marriages and, gradually, their deaths.
‘Dance’ does not, emphatically, have a linear plot running straight through. A chapter here, a couple of long paragraphs there, might tell you a story about one of the 300 people; pass lightly over it, and it comes back to bite you later, when the dance comes slowly to a stop and the music winds down. Take it too seriously, and nothing comes of it. ‘Dance’ is so much about people that a single plot seems superfluous. While it doesn't pretend to examine the minds and motives of the men and women who run through its pages, its descriptions of their behaviour will forever linger in your memory.
Each of the 300 characters gets their own story, and each story is more absorbing than the next, when you are actually into it. Perhaps the probing insights into the depth of a person’s nature is absent, thanks to the lack of a strict plot line. This makes for tremendous frustration when one is well into the second volume; many readers have abandoned the book at this point, as more and more new names and personalities are offloaded like a truck dumping a ton of coal, and the older names greet the new ones with familiar ease.
To take just one example of the kind of story you find in ‘Dance,’ of a relatively minor character: a childhood schoolmate, Charles Stringham, who showed brilliant promise in academics and boyhood deviltry, ends up an alcoholic after his wife leaves him, but is nursed back to something like sobriety by his mother's paid companion. He enlists as a common soldier in the war, despite his university background, is posted to the same unit as Jenkins, who is horrified at seeing him wait at table in the officers’ mess. Later he is posted to the Far East despite protests from Jenkins, taken prisoner by the Japanese and subjected to unspeakable tortures before he is killed. Stringham’s life runs over at least seven volumes, and his life impinges on the lives and decisions of a half-dozen other people, much more prominent than himself in the narrative.
Only two names recur throughout: that of Jenkins himself, who as observer and occasional participant in the incidents described, has necessarily to be present. Jenkins has almost no personality himself: he is the bit of smoked glass through which we are able to look at the sun during an eclipse. He might tell you that he got married to Isobel Tolland, but we don't often see Isobel, though we are told of her several pregnancies, a rare bit of private life he lets slip. We certainly don't know if they were happy together, or kept changing partners, as everyone else seems to be doing. At one point, he does say that he was taking a son for admission to school, but the name of the boy, his brothers and sisters, are missing. Matters of public knowledge he does mention, the work he did at one period, writing film-scripts, and so on. He admits that his novels, the names of which are never stated (except for the ‘Life of Burton’), have been published, but it is left to others to praise them.
If Jenkins is a nonentity, then the man everybody loves to hate, Kenneth Widmerpool, the other person whose name appears in all twelve volumes, certainly is not. Anthony Powell himself has said somewhere that he meant Widmerpool to be a running joke, but then, Widmerpool gradually rose up and took over the entire series in a manner typical of him. Somewhere along the line, Powell lost control of his clown.
Widmerpool starts out in life at the same school with Jenkins and his two friends, Charles Stringham and Peter Templer. As a boy, he is the stock figure of fun, mediocre in both studies and games. Widmerpool’s response is to apply himself with grim determination to both, and although neither his marks nor his prowess in sport improve, he has learned to recognise his tormentors and harbours life-long grudges which, over a period of forty years, he slowly pays off. In the process, he turns himself into a loathsome but formidable being, unstoppable in his rise to the top, first in the ranks of the bureaucracy and the military, then in business, and then as a left-of-centre Member of Parliament, and finally as a life peer – Lord Widmerpool. He is responsible for acts of great cruelty, entirely within legal boundaries, towards those he perceives as his ill-wishers, but neither is he particularly helpful to those who have never harmed him. While he wants to marry, it is with an eye to the ladder of social ambition, to a class superior to his own, to further his own upward climb. His search ends with his marriage to Pamela Flitton, the niece of none other than our old friend, Charles Stringham. Pamela leads Widmerpool an unhappy dance while she is alive. With her death, coupled with a political scandal that implies collaboration with Burgess and Maclean, Widmerpool leaves for the United States, where he undergoes another metamorphosis, one that will eventually cost him his life.
Critics have reached the unanimous conclusion that Widmerpool is the most interesting negative character in all of Western literature. Businessmen and politicians have claimed the right to be identified as his real-life model, while actors can only dream of ever getting to play Widmerpool - the central role, if you will - of a movie or television serial. Powell himself was careful not to identify anyone as the model for Widmerpool.
The reasons why, despite its formidable length, ‘Dance’ repays the effort and time you take over it are many. The first thing that stands out about it is the interest it takes in people, regardless of how big or small is the part that is finally assigned to them. Their impact may appear to be trivial, especially to a child’s eyes, but sometimes these very characters play a resounding part, even after their death.
There is, in ‘Dance,’ a kind of sly humour, never a laugh-out loud kind, as in Wodehouse, more tongue-in-cheek, deadpan, but always lurking in the shadows. Wartime seems to bring out the best of bawdy stories, jibes at pompous commanding officers, nicknames that are awful, but apt. For all that, Jenkins (or Powell) never forgets the serious nature of the situation of the moment. One of the more horrifying incidents is during the Blitz, when a bomb hits the restaurant where a party of Jenkins's friends are dining, two of whom are among those killed. War brings other tragedies in its wake: the news of a faithless wife has driven more than one soldier in the front lines to drink, murder or suicide. Although he does not go into details about the war, these are the tragedies, the deaths, and the shock of the war, as well as its aftermath and effects on the wealthy families Jenkins grew up with.
If you enjoy your books with a dash of spice, this might be what you are looking for, as men and women change husbands, wives, partners and lovers with amazing ease and rapidity. There is, moreover, a certain openness about homosexuality, given the time it was written. However, there are no salacious descriptions, although one observes that there is more discretion in the earlier portions than after the war.
It seems appropriate to end this review with another quotation from the first book of ‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ which is actually an explanation of the title:
“These classical projections, and something from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin's scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure, stepping slowly, methodically sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.”
____ Anthony Powell, ‘Dance to the Music of Time,’
(1, A Question of Upbringing)
In case you find it difficult to keep up with the 300 individuals, their lives, and their ties to Nicholas Jenkins or with each other, I found the following sites and books extremely useful:
1) The Anthony Powell Society; this has Barry Moule’s incomparable Index, as well as a brief summary of each chapter.
2) ‘Invitation to the Dance,’ by Hilary Spurling, invaluable for the complete lists of characters in the book, their identities, what they do and when, and in which volume. Besides this it also has an index of the places, restaurants, private homes, museums and pubs in ‘Dance,’ as well as of the books and works of art, both actual and fictional, mentioned in it. The additional hook is that she wrote this, as well as her own biography of Powell, during his lifetime and had the advantage of consulting him about the entries in ‘Invitation.’ It may not be too much to say they collaborated on it. ‘Invitation to the Dance’ by Hilary Spurling is available for loan on the Internet Archive.
Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of Princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. Today we hear of new Lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned, one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c.’
__ Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, quoted by Anthony Powell in A Dance to the Music of Time (12, Hearing Secret Memories)
Nicholas Jenkins, the narrator of ‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ whose life’s best work was his biography of Robert Burton, winds up the entire 12-volume series with the quote above. It pretty much summarises all the events that take place in the series, including a cataclysmic world war.
‘Dance’ covers a time-span of over forty years, roughly parallel to Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time.’ The entire series of novels and novellas comprising Balzac's ‘Human Comedy’ covers a period of some 33 years, from 1815 to about 1848. It took Proust some thirteen years to write his opus, despite his reclusiveness, and both Balzac and Powell some thirty years each, to complete theirs. In his ‘In Search of Lost Time,’ Proust has a cast list of some 2000 persons, although only a handful leave a strong impression in your memory. Balzac’s ‘Human Comedy,’ in its 91 volumes, has an unlisted number of characters. For all that it sounds so formidable, the same people are the driving force behind all of them. Anthony Powell introduces an amazing 300 persons, most of whom are recurring players. For all three, these magnificent romans fleuves were each the one great work that immortalised them.
The statistics I have mentioned are in the public domain and give an idea of the scope and energy that went into these classics. Ever since their publication, they have remained popular despite initial hostile reactions from some critics. All three writers had very different aims in writing, but Proust and Powell are often compared together, partly because their novels are thinly disguised romans-à-clef, and also because their novels range over memories and people from their childhood, detailing the social events at which the main events of the narrative are fixed or converge.
‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ is full of people who have a mischievous or perverted streak in their make-up, all related by birth or connected by marriage to Jenkins, and all known to each other from their school days, thus forming the base for a social satire of conservative and left-wing dilettanti mostly drawn from the upper classes and a closed circle of friends from school days. As a reasonably successful writer in the book, employed in a publishing firm, Jenkins has a somewhat larger number of acquaintances among politicians, writers, artists and musicians who introduce him to other, quirkier Bohemians. Others, more casual still, are from the Army or from work, making an enormous number of persons to keep track of. Powell and Jenkins have great fun describing the doings of their characters over forty years, their affairs and misadventures, their failures in life as well as their rehabilitation after alcoholism or other causes, frequently their great successes as politicians, authors, sculptors or musicians, their frustrations, their marriages and, gradually, their deaths.
‘Dance’ does not, emphatically, have a linear plot running straight through. A chapter here, a couple of long paragraphs there, might tell you a story about one of the 300 people; pass lightly over it, and it comes back to bite you later, when the dance comes slowly to a stop and the music winds down. Take it too seriously, and nothing comes of it. ‘Dance’ is so much about people that a single plot seems superfluous. While it doesn't pretend to examine the minds and motives of the men and women who run through its pages, its descriptions of their behaviour will forever linger in your memory.
Each of the 300 characters gets their own story, and each story is more absorbing than the next, when you are actually into it. Perhaps the probing insights into the depth of a person’s nature is absent, thanks to the lack of a strict plot line. This makes for tremendous frustration when one is well into the second volume; many readers have abandoned the book at this point, as more and more new names and personalities are offloaded like a truck dumping a ton of coal, and the older names greet the new ones with familiar ease.
To take just one example of the kind of story you find in ‘Dance,’ of a relatively minor character: a childhood schoolmate, Charles Stringham, who showed brilliant promise in academics and boyhood deviltry, ends up an alcoholic after his wife leaves him, but is nursed back to something like sobriety by his mother's paid companion. He enlists as a common soldier in the war, despite his university background, is posted to the same unit as Jenkins, who is horrified at seeing him wait at table in the officers’ mess. Later he is posted to the Far East despite protests from Jenkins, taken prisoner by the Japanese and subjected to unspeakable tortures before he is killed. Stringham’s life runs over at least seven volumes, and his life impinges on the lives and decisions of a half-dozen other people, much more prominent than himself in the narrative.
Only two names recur throughout: that of Jenkins himself, who as observer and occasional participant in the incidents described, has necessarily to be present. Jenkins has almost no personality himself: he is the bit of smoked glass through which we are able to look at the sun during an eclipse. He might tell you that he got married to Isobel Tolland, but we don't often see Isobel, though we are told of her several pregnancies, a rare bit of private life he lets slip. We certainly don't know if they were happy together, or kept changing partners, as everyone else seems to be doing. At one point, he does say that he was taking a son for admission to school, but the name of the boy, his brothers and sisters, are missing. Matters of public knowledge he does mention, the work he did at one period, writing film-scripts, and so on. He admits that his novels, the names of which are never stated (except for the ‘Life of Burton’), have been published, but it is left to others to praise them.
If Jenkins is a nonentity, then the man everybody loves to hate, Kenneth Widmerpool, the other person whose name appears in all twelve volumes, certainly is not. Anthony Powell himself has said somewhere that he meant Widmerpool to be a running joke, but then, Widmerpool gradually rose up and took over the entire series in a manner typical of him. Somewhere along the line, Powell lost control of his clown.
Widmerpool starts out in life at the same school with Jenkins and his two friends, Charles Stringham and Peter Templer. As a boy, he is the stock figure of fun, mediocre in both studies and games. Widmerpool’s response is to apply himself with grim determination to both, and although neither his marks nor his prowess in sport improve, he has learned to recognise his tormentors and harbours life-long grudges which, over a period of forty years, he slowly pays off. In the process, he turns himself into a loathsome but formidable being, unstoppable in his rise to the top, first in the ranks of the bureaucracy and the military, then in business, and then as a left-of-centre Member of Parliament, and finally as a life peer – Lord Widmerpool. He is responsible for acts of great cruelty, entirely within legal boundaries, towards those he perceives as his ill-wishers, but neither is he particularly helpful to those who have never harmed him. While he wants to marry, it is with an eye to the ladder of social ambition, to a class superior to his own, to further his own upward climb. His search ends with his marriage to Pamela Flitton, the niece of none other than our old friend, Charles Stringham. Pamela leads Widmerpool an unhappy dance while she is alive. With her death, coupled with a political scandal that implies collaboration with Burgess and Maclean, Widmerpool leaves for the United States, where he undergoes another metamorphosis, one that will eventually cost him his life.
Critics have reached the unanimous conclusion that Widmerpool is the most interesting negative character in all of Western literature. Businessmen and politicians have claimed the right to be identified as his real-life model, while actors can only dream of ever getting to play Widmerpool - the central role, if you will - of a movie or television serial. Powell himself was careful not to identify anyone as the model for Widmerpool.
The reasons why, despite its formidable length, ‘Dance’ repays the effort and time you take over it are many. The first thing that stands out about it is the interest it takes in people, regardless of how big or small is the part that is finally assigned to them. Their impact may appear to be trivial, especially to a child’s eyes, but sometimes these very characters play a resounding part, even after their death.
There is, in ‘Dance,’ a kind of sly humour, never a laugh-out loud kind, as in Wodehouse, more tongue-in-cheek, deadpan, but always lurking in the shadows. Wartime seems to bring out the best of bawdy stories, jibes at pompous commanding officers, nicknames that are awful, but apt. For all that, Jenkins (or Powell) never forgets the serious nature of the situation of the moment. One of the more horrifying incidents is during the Blitz, when a bomb hits the restaurant where a party of Jenkins's friends are dining, two of whom are among those killed. War brings other tragedies in its wake: the news of a faithless wife has driven more than one soldier in the front lines to drink, murder or suicide. Although he does not go into details about the war, these are the tragedies, the deaths, and the shock of the war, as well as its aftermath and effects on the wealthy families Jenkins grew up with.
If you enjoy your books with a dash of spice, this might be what you are looking for, as men and women change husbands, wives, partners and lovers with amazing ease and rapidity. There is, moreover, a certain openness about homosexuality, given the time it was written. However, there are no salacious descriptions, although one observes that there is more discretion in the earlier portions than after the war.
It seems appropriate to end this review with another quotation from the first book of ‘A Dance to the Music of Time,’ which is actually an explanation of the title:
“These classical projections, and something from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin's scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure, stepping slowly, methodically sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.”
____ Anthony Powell, ‘Dance to the Music of Time,’
(1, A Question of Upbringing)
In case you find it difficult to keep up with the 300 individuals, their lives, and their ties to Nicholas Jenkins or with each other, I found the following sites and books extremely useful:
1) The Anthony Powell Society; this has Barry Moule’s incomparable Index, as well as a brief summary of each chapter.
2) ‘Invitation to the Dance,’ by Hilary Spurling, invaluable for the complete lists of characters in the book, their identities, what they do and when, and in which volume. Besides this it also has an index of the places, restaurants, private homes, museums and pubs in ‘Dance,’ as well as of the books and works of art, both actual and fictional, mentioned in it. The additional hook is that she wrote this, as well as her own biography of Powell, during his lifetime and had the advantage of consulting him about the entries in ‘Invitation.’ It may not be too much to say they collaborated on it. ‘Invitation to the Dance’ by Hilary Spurling is available for loan on the Internet Archive.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 22, 2012
I read these in their incarnation as twelve separate volumes, but they really constitute one epic novel. (I'm glad Goodreads has an option to enter it once, because the individual books vary in quality and I'd have a hard time rating them individually.)
The rating I gave here is actually kind of high given the limitations of the work. Powell conveys exposition almost exclusively through conversations among the characters. This becomes somewhat tiresome over the course of twelve volumes. Also, the characters miraculously keep colliding over the course of their lives, which also would be tedious if the reader is feeling ungenerous. Also, as an analysis of British upper class living during this time period, I kept comparing it unfavorably in my mind with Brideshead Revisited, which is kind of unfair.
Nevetheless, I gave it four stars because it was undeniably entertaining and engrossing. While I was reading them I was obsessed with them. And because I've never come across a character anywhere else that was quite like Widemerpool.
The rating I gave here is actually kind of high given the limitations of the work. Powell conveys exposition almost exclusively through conversations among the characters. This becomes somewhat tiresome over the course of twelve volumes. Also, the characters miraculously keep colliding over the course of their lives, which also would be tedious if the reader is feeling ungenerous. Also, as an analysis of British upper class living during this time period, I kept comparing it unfavorably in my mind with Brideshead Revisited, which is kind of unfair.
Nevetheless, I gave it four stars because it was undeniably entertaining and engrossing. While I was reading them I was obsessed with them. And because I've never come across a character anywhere else that was quite like Widemerpool.
September 30, 2010
I read this 12 volume set over a couple of years--my wife reading it at the same time--more than 20 years ago, but count it among my favorite reading experiences. Individual volumes vary some in quality, but I can't rate the entirety at less than wonderful. I'm envious of people who've yet to savor its delights.
January 2, 2015
Started volume 1 in December 2011 - finished volume 12 Dec 2014. A brilliant survey of British manners, art, literature, friendship, and changing morality spanning much of the 20th Century. Dozens of fascinating characters, especially Kenneth Widmerpool, one of the most loathsome characters in literature.
June 10, 2012
Well worth watching. I don't know that I would have read as they are romance-heavy but it told a great World War IIish story. The movies addressed the "Music of Time" on many different levels: the boys, romances, jobs, what each sought at different periods. . .
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 28, 2013
I listened to these books. Originally published as 12 novels, the audio books are arranged into 4 collections. Simon Vance is one of my favorite narrators. After 64 hours of audio, covering a story from just after WW1 to the early 1960s, I'm going to miss Nick Jenkins and associates.
March 13, 2016
I bought and read the set twice, having lost the first one somewhere in my life. I didn't like part 4 the first time, and I had the same experience this time. I didn't even got through the first book of the 4th movement. But the rest is brilliant!
July 1, 2012
I read these books many years ago, but they have stayed with me, and I'm planning a re-read.
December 31, 2013
Check out my video review here!
Read
September 10, 2015Got through the first book and started slogging through the second. Just decided it wasn't worth it.
July 13, 2017
okay story, covers several years, looks at charaters over time covering from before the War to the seventies.
December 3, 2020
Sadly, I have now finished this amazing series of 12 short (less than 300 pages each) novels, most recently and conveniently published in four paperbacks of three each. Although separate, they are best read in order as one unified work. As such, the tale consists of the narrator, Nicholas (Nick) Jenkins, an upper middle class Englishman, describing the arc of his life from youth to late middle age during the mid-twentieth century. The reader meets dozens of characters along the way, some only briefly, but many of whom return at various times, in different circumstances, and often with different partners. This intricate, kaleidoscopic "dance to the music of time" can be a little bewildering, but Powell's writing is so clear, and considerate of the reader's memory, that the weight of population is easily borne. One sees, really sees, the amazing changes of situation which can occur in the course of a lifetime and comes away wondering if anything can be relied upon.
Nick is a keen observer. He takes events and developments as they come, reporting in his (Powell's) brilliant, observant way, never taking personal offense and rarely making any strong judgments. Nick's comments are sharp, and together with sparkling conversation, serve to develop the characters and the story line. The failings and peculiarities of the characters are in many cases eccentric enough to be considered satirical, but for the most part Powell stops short of that. The result is a brilliant, entertaining survey of English life and manners of the period.
Throughout, Powell resolutely discloses little of Nick's personal life or his marriage and children. This keeps the focus squarely on the other participants in the dance, and I suppose is necessary for that reason. It's a bit of a shame though, because Nick's self-analysis would undoubtedly have been as interesting and penetrating as his observations on his friends and other relatives.
In summary, the work is long and sometimes involves more characters and relationships than might be strictly necessary, but the whole thing is so beautifully constructed and written that I, for one, was sorry to reach the end.
Nick is a keen observer. He takes events and developments as they come, reporting in his (Powell's) brilliant, observant way, never taking personal offense and rarely making any strong judgments. Nick's comments are sharp, and together with sparkling conversation, serve to develop the characters and the story line. The failings and peculiarities of the characters are in many cases eccentric enough to be considered satirical, but for the most part Powell stops short of that. The result is a brilliant, entertaining survey of English life and manners of the period.
Throughout, Powell resolutely discloses little of Nick's personal life or his marriage and children. This keeps the focus squarely on the other participants in the dance, and I suppose is necessary for that reason. It's a bit of a shame though, because Nick's self-analysis would undoubtedly have been as interesting and penetrating as his observations on his friends and other relatives.
In summary, the work is long and sometimes involves more characters and relationships than might be strictly necessary, but the whole thing is so beautifully constructed and written that I, for one, was sorry to reach the end.
October 27, 2020
British author Anthony Powell spent most of his life creating the 12-volume series "A Dance to the Music of Time". The story is semi-autobiographical with narrator Nicholas Jenkins standing in for Powell. But the story is not about Jenkins/Powell. Although he shares 50 years of his life - from the early 1920s to the early 1970s - he reveals very little about himself: We never even learn the names of his children. Instead, the story focuses on the people in the narrator's life during these decades.
We meet many characters. Some exit Nick's life forever; some exit and return in a later book; and some die. The lives of the characters often intertwine - sometimes via implausible coincidences (Nick often runs into friends on the streets of the enormous city of London and in small villages in the UK). The story is told mostly in chronological order, with each book consisting of 3-4 set pieces that provide insight into the characters and the time. The narrative seldom ventures outside of England - even when the Nicholas and his friends serve in World War II.
The novels tell a story of English society during each era. Because most of the characters are upper middle class, the story focuses on the lesser aristocrats and bohemians. History happens off-stage, reflected in the lives of the people in the story. We hear of the world outside through gossip and conversations at a plethora of dinners and cocktail parties.
In this richly layered work, Powell addresses themes of marriage, relationships, divorce; of the connectedness between people and events; and of the varying philosophies that people use to make sense of the world. But mostly, it is about the changes that time brings to individuals and to relationships.
Reading this series can be a challenge. Hundreds of characters are introduced, and the reader cannot always tell immediately which will be significant later. The most interesting character is Kenneth Widmerpool - other the narrator, the only one to appear in every book. Widmerpool is arrogant, ambitious, and decidedly unlikeable, but rises quickly in business, the military, and politics. Widmerpool exists also to introduce his wife - the beautiful femme fatale Pamela. Like a venomous creature, Pamela lures men to her; then attempts to destroy them.
Powell includes a lot of dialogue, but it is good dialogue because Nick surrounds himself with Clever people.
Each book stands alone; but this is much better read as a complete series. Keeping track of the characters is a challenge, but it is more meaningful when a character appears after an absence of many years.
If you have the time to dedicate to reading the 3000 pages of this series, the rewards are great.
We meet many characters. Some exit Nick's life forever; some exit and return in a later book; and some die. The lives of the characters often intertwine - sometimes via implausible coincidences (Nick often runs into friends on the streets of the enormous city of London and in small villages in the UK). The story is told mostly in chronological order, with each book consisting of 3-4 set pieces that provide insight into the characters and the time. The narrative seldom ventures outside of England - even when the Nicholas and his friends serve in World War II.
The novels tell a story of English society during each era. Because most of the characters are upper middle class, the story focuses on the lesser aristocrats and bohemians. History happens off-stage, reflected in the lives of the people in the story. We hear of the world outside through gossip and conversations at a plethora of dinners and cocktail parties.
In this richly layered work, Powell addresses themes of marriage, relationships, divorce; of the connectedness between people and events; and of the varying philosophies that people use to make sense of the world. But mostly, it is about the changes that time brings to individuals and to relationships.
Reading this series can be a challenge. Hundreds of characters are introduced, and the reader cannot always tell immediately which will be significant later. The most interesting character is Kenneth Widmerpool - other the narrator, the only one to appear in every book. Widmerpool is arrogant, ambitious, and decidedly unlikeable, but rises quickly in business, the military, and politics. Widmerpool exists also to introduce his wife - the beautiful femme fatale Pamela. Like a venomous creature, Pamela lures men to her; then attempts to destroy them.
Powell includes a lot of dialogue, but it is good dialogue because Nick surrounds himself with Clever people.
Each book stands alone; but this is much better read as a complete series. Keeping track of the characters is a challenge, but it is more meaningful when a character appears after an absence of many years.
If you have the time to dedicate to reading the 3000 pages of this series, the rewards are great.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews