Reading the 20th Century discussion

This twelve-volume sequence A Dance to the Music of Time traces a colourful group of English acquaintances from 1914 to 1971. The slowly developing narrative centres around life's poignant encounters between friends and lovers who later drift apart and yet keep reencountering each other over numerous unfolding decades as they move through the vicissitudes of marriage, work, aging, and ultimately death.

Until the last three volumes, the standard excitements of old-fashioned plots (What will happen next? Will x marry y? Will y murder z?) seem far less important than time's slow reshuffling of friends, acquaintances, and lovers in intricate human arabesques."

Time and Anthony Powell: A Critical Study by Robert L. Selig

http://www.anthonypowell.org/home.php...

The twelve books are available individually or as four volumes.

Spring
A Question of Upbringing – (1951)
A Buyer's Market – (1952)
The Acceptance World – (1955)

Summer
At Lady Molly's – (1957)
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant – (1960)
The Kindly Ones – (1962)

Autumn
The Valley of Bones – (1964)
The Soldier's Art – (1966)
The Military Philosophers – (1968)

Winter
Books Do Furnish a Room – (1971)
Temporary Kings – (1973)
Hearing Secret Harmonies – (1975)

(dates are first UK publication dates)

I heartily recommend anyone who hasn't read these books make time for them some time in their life. It's utterly fantastic and gets better and better as the characters become more familiar.

Imagine, if you will, the best of Evelyn Waugh when he's dealing with a large number of disparate characters (e.g. Sword of Honour and Brideshead Revisited), then imagine following some of your favourite characters from those books throughout their lives, add in the kind of twists and turns you'd find in superior soap operas, then sprinkle liberally with the humour of someone as gifted as P.G. Wodehouse, and all written in an accessible, beautiful and lucid style.

Yes, that good. Really.

Here's a perfect summation from the New York Times as part of an obituary for Anthony Powell and in reference to A Dance To The Music Of Time...

What makes it a masterpiece is its narrative patience, which is of a kind that we will no longer see. Its characters derive new identities over time, thanks to its breadth, and while you are reading it, time becomes Powell's accomplice, and the sound of breathing you hear as you turn the pages is the music of time passing in its most pleasurable way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/31/opi...

Reading the series in 2014 was a fabulous experience. Anthony Powell is a master. Although the books can be read and enjoyed individually, and on their own terms, the real pleasure is in reading all twelve books, and enjoying a narrative that takes place over a seventy year time span. Calling his series ''A Dance" is a perfect metaphor, as Anthony Powell is akin to a choreographer, who intricately keeps track of over four hundred characters across more than a million words. It's a stunning achievement, and throughout, his beautiful writing is as much of a joy as the ingenious plot and his ambitious, and completely successful, cultural and social history of England throughout the twentieth century.

The star of the series is Kenneth Widmerpool, one of the most memorable characters I have ever encountered in a book. Widmerpool is a contemporary of narrator Nick Jenkins and, despite not being friends, he crops up somewhere in every volume. Whilst narrator Nick, along with many of the characters, represent musicians, poets, novelists, painters etc., Widmerpool is the opposite, a ruthlessly ambitious person but a deeply flawed human being. I wonder to what extent he might represent the triumph of commerce and bureaucracy, over more aesthetic considerations, that appears to be one of the main aspects of twentieth century history.

“A Dance to the Music of Time” is a masterpiece - and one of the best literary experiences I have ever enjoyed. Profound, funny, dramatic, and remarkably accessible and easy to read. I cannot praise it highly enough.

Coming up on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 9 am on Sunday 5 Nov 2017 and what promises to be an essential listen...


Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time

Born in 1905 among a new and brilliant generation of writers, Anthony Powell was the literary genius who gave us A Dance to the Music of Time, an undisputed classic of English literature. Anthony Powell wrote his spectacular 12 volume sequence over a 25 year period. This comic masterpiece teems with idiosyncratic characters, capturing 20th century Britain through war and peace.

In this portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's greatest biographers, Hilary Spurling draws on Powell's letters and journals, and the memories of those who knew him.

Investigating the friends, relations, lovers, acquaintances, fools and geniuses who surrounded him, she reveals the comical and tragic events that inspired one of the greatest fictions of the age.

Written by Hilary Spurling
Abridged by Sara Davies
Read by Hattie Morahan
Directed by Lizzie Davies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09db3kr

If you keep going, Nigey, I suspect that this group will read only Anthony Powell novels in 2018. ;-)
Enticing!

Most in the group would thank me for it Haaze :-)

I read all 12 novels between May 2014 and July 2014, in about 10 weeks, with other stuff interspersed, so very doable in a matter of a few months.

It's curious to consider that when Anthony Powell wrote Hearing Secret Harmonies the final novel in the twelve-novel series “A Dance to the Music of Time”, and despite the series starting in the early twentieth century, that it was almost contemporaneous, being published in 1975, and taking place in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and makes references to hippies, the permissive society, Vietnam, and Enoch Powell.

I'm now going to have to make time for Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling

The definitive portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's foremost biographers

Acclaimed literary biographer Hilary Spurling turns her attention to Anthony Powell, an iconic figure of English letters. Equally notorious for his literary achievements and his lacerating wit, Powell famously authored the twelve-volume, twenty-five year magnum opus, A Dance to the Music of Time. This enduringly fascinating portrait of mid-20th-century Britain has never been out of print, inspiring TV and radio adaptations and elevating the author to The Times' list of fifty greatest British writers since 1945.

Master novelist, well-connected socialite and keen-eyed social observer, Powell comes into focus as never before in this authoritative biography from one of our generation's greatest biographers.

By the by, a fellow Powell 'Dance' devotee also recommended....


Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion, Vol. I & the subsequent volumes.

Has anyone else read these books?

ALMS FOR OBLIVION is a series of ten novels, all telling separate stories but at the same time linked together by the characters they have in common: soldiers and dons, men of business, politicians and writers. Full of hearty rancour, they form a scathing chronicle of the upper echelons of postwar English society, and this omnibus edition contains the first four volumes of the celebrated series: FIELDING GRAY, FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES, THE SABRE SQUADRON and THE RICH PAY LATE.

Nigeyb wrote: "By the by, a fellow Powell 'Dance' devotee also recommended....


Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion, Vol. I & the subsequent volumes.

Has anyone else read these books?
..."

I've read them - and even own them, up there on my bookshelf. I think I've even got most of the following series, The First-Born of Egypt, and several stand alones. I haven't read them for ages, though!

Thanks Rosina. To what extent would you recommend them?

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Rosina. To what extent would you recommend them?"

I can say that I haven't tried to re-read them - although I'm up for it if anyone else is. I must have enjoyed them in the first place, or I wouldn't have bought them all. I do remember them as being quite dark in places, and a bit raunchy, but with some interesting characters and story lines.

So I would recommend that someone who doesn't mind a smidgeon of smut should try them.

Just looked up Alms for Oblivion on Amazon and can see many have some very Carry On Seventies covers, so I would certainly expect a 'smidgeon of smut'!

I have never quite read through all the Anthony Powell novels, but if anyone is up for the challenge, I will have another go. Not that I didn't like the ones I read at all, I think I just end up with too many books on the go at once. I do need to just read them all the way through I think.

I think it would help to have a more organized approach to Powell - at least as an initial gateway - within a reading group.

Good idea, Haaze. Certainly, we could read the first together as a buddy read, or something, and then see where we go. The problem is, I seem to be considering buddy reads for every author we talk about!

Rosina wrote: "I've read Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion, Vol. I - and even own them, up there on my bookshelf. I think I've even got most of the following series, The First-Born of Egypt, and several stand alones. I haven't read them for ages, though!"

Rosina wrote: "I must have enjoyed them in the first place, or I wouldn't have bought them all. I do remember them as being quite dark in places, and a bit raunchy, but with some interesting characters and story lines.

So I would recommend that someone who doesn't mind a smidgeon of smut should try them. "

Thanks Rosina. I'm sure I could manage a smidgeon of smut and even a bit of raunch. I'll give one a try and report back - though not sure how or when.

EDIT:

We've now got a dedicated Simon Raven thread here....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Susan wrote: "Certainly, we could read the first together as a buddy read, or something, and then see where we go. The problem is, I seem to be considering buddy reads for every author we talk about! "

One minor point, the first book is a bit of a slow start. The series really picks up momentum as it goes along. The war trilogy is just wonderful. I hope you get round to it at some point, but be warned they are very addictive and, by the end, I just had to press on to the end such was my enjoyment and intrigue.

Susan wrote: "Good idea, Haaze. Certainly, we could read the first together as a buddy read, or something, and then see where we go. The problem is, I seem to be considering buddy reads for every author we talk ..."

I've noticed! Ha ha ha!

We WILL read all these books, Haaze - or try, at least ;)

*applauds*

I haven't read this series as yet, but have fond memories of the 1990s TV series starring the wonderful Simon Russell Beale as Widmerpool.

I keep reading the first few, then stopping. I want to read the new biography, but want to read the series first.

Susan wrote: "I keep reading the first few, then stopping. I want to read the new biography, but want to read the series first."

I have the same sense of order for some reason - novels before biography! It gets very tricky when the author is prolific in terms of their works.

There is always the danger of spoilers too, Haaze. Better that the novels are read first. If you want to try the first in the Spring novels let me know and I will read along.

Susan wrote: "There is always the danger of spoilers too, Haaze. Better that the novels are read first."

In regards to biographies it seems like some people create a biography around all the possible plots existing in the author's works. I think the latest George Eliot biography is of that kind (The Transferred Life of George Eliot). Surely one can write a biography without repeating the plots of all the author's works?



Susan wrote: "If you want to try the first in the Spring novels let me know and I will read along."

Tempting, tempting..... there is danger in having reading companions with twelve volumes looming ahead of us!

Perhaps it can be a New Year project, Haaze :)

True - new beginnings and new days! Besides, the darkness and the winter rains facilitate my reading habits! :)

Coincidently, I just read this by Antonia Fraser in the New Statesman on her favourite books of 2017....


Hilary Spurling’s Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time (Hamish Hamilton) is a remarkable match between subject and biographer. (Spurling knew Powell over many years, an advantage she uses with admirable delicacy.) The result is an exciting story, from its unhappy beginnings to its triumphant ending with Powell as a leading 20th-century novelist. You can’t read this without your fingers itching to get at his Dance novels, whether for the first or the 15th time.

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig (Pushkin Press), which I had never read despite a long and ardent admiration of Zweig, includes Burning Secret, about a boy and childish passion, which wrings the heart.

Nigeyb description of Anthony Powell’s work A Dance With The Music of Time made my mind. I’ll will read the sequence (twelve books), starting january, 2018. The storyline sounds great. At least one book each month. Seems acceptable with my reading schedule. If the group decides to read it (as a buddy read or whatever) I’ll adjust and participate.

I've finally got my mitts on Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling.

I'm only 66 pages in (of 509) but, so far, I am savouring every page. Superb stuff....

The definitive portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's foremost biographers

Acclaimed literary biographer Hilary Spurling turns her attention to Anthony Powell, an iconic figure of English letters. Equally notorious for his literary achievements and his lacerating wit, Powell famously authored the twelve-volume, twenty-five year magnum opus, A Dance to the Music of Time. This enduringly fascinating portrait of mid-20th-century Britain has never been out of print, inspiring TV and radio adaptations and elevating the author to The Times' list of fifty greatest British writers since 1945.

Master novelist, well-connected socialite and keen-eyed social observer, Powell comes into focus as never before in this authoritative biography from one of our generation's greatest biographers.

I want to read all of the Anthony Powell novels before reading this, Nigeyb (I keep stalling!).

You don't need any prior Powell knowledge to read the biography Susan - which is superb so far. Indeed it could be a good way to inspire yourself to start reading his fiction. I want to read the non-Dance novels now.

Good point, Nigeyb. It lurks on my kindle and so might be a good reading start to the new year...

I am sure you'd enjoy it Susan.


I've just reached the part where Anthony Powell has got his first job at Duckworths, having left Oxford (which he did not enjoy much), and is living in Shepherd Market a dingy part of London, populated by prostitutes, pickpockets etc. near Covent Garden

Anthony Powell's choice was inspired by The Green Hat by Michael Arlen - a literary sensation when it was published in 1924.

Anyway, that is a long winded way of asking if you have read The Green Hat by Michael Arlen, and if so to what extent you'd recommend it.

The Green Hat perfectly reflects the atmosphere of the 1920s—the post-war fashion for verbal smartness, youthful cynicism, and the spirit of rebellion of the "bright young things" of Mayfair. Iris Storm, femme fatale, races around London and Europe in her yellow Hispano-Suiza surrounded by romantic intrigue, but beneath the glamour she is destined to be a tragic heroine. A perfect synecdoche, in fact: as the hat is to the woman, so the words of the title are to an entire literary style. The success of the novel when it was first published in 1924 led to its adaptation for the screen, with Greta Garbo starring as Iris Storm.

I've started it. Quite a while ago. Not sure where it is right now.

The Green Hat is one of those novels which is SO often talked about in books about that era, but I have never read it. It isn't available on kindle, so I probably do what I did just now - look it up and then see it is only available in paperback and not order it...

I have read Hell! Said the Duchess: A Bedtime Story by him, which I undoubtedly downloaded on kindle after looking up The Green Hat :) That is set in the 1930's and has a lot about the communists and Mosley's fascists, as I recall.

Thanks Susan. It's curious that it's not available on Kindle given there are other Kindle books available by Michael Arlen. My library has a copy of The Green Hat by Michael Arlen, so perhaps I'll give it a go.

As you say...

Susan wrote: "The Green Hat is one of those novels which is SO often talked about in books about that era"

And thanks Jan.....

Jan C wrote: "I've started it. Quite a while ago. Not sure where it is right now."

I noticed you started it back in 2011 but, if your update is accurate, only got to page 11.

Val gave it 4/5 and states in her review...

The plot involves doomed romance and melodrama, but is so flamboyant, stylised and witty that any sense of tragedy is lost. This should be a bad thing, but it suits the characters and the times, making it a very enjoyable book and not as slight a social commentary as it might appear.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

That's the trouble with a good biography - you come away with an enormous reading list of interesting sounding books.

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Susan. It's curious that it's not available on Kindle given there are other Kindle books available by Michael Arlen. My library has a copy of The Green Hat by [author:Michael ..."

A good non fiction book, biography or otherwise, should add to your reading list, or is not really doing its job, in my opinion :)

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Susan. It's curious that it's not available on Kindle given there are other Kindle books available by Michael Arlen. My library has a copy of The Green Hat by [author:Michael ..."

Close, but not quite accurate. I made it all the way to page 24 before throwing it on the shelf.

Jan C wrote: "I made it all the way to page 24 (of The Green Hat by Michael Arlen) before throwing it on the shelf"

Thanks Jan - is that because you disliked it? Or just weren't in the mood for it? Or another book was more attractive?

Nigeyb wrote: "Jan C wrote: "I made it all the way to page 24 (of The Green Hat by Michael Arlen) before throwing it on the shelf"

Thanks Jan - is that because you disliked it? Or ..."

I think it put me to sleep a couple of times. Not that it was boring. It just seemed a little strange, I think. I'll try picking it up again in the new year.

Thanks Jan - please report back if and when you get to it

Nigeyb wrote: "I've finally got my mitts on Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling.

I'm only 66 pages in (of 509) but, so far, I am savouring every page...."

Update: still loving Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling. I'm making slow progress due to all the seasonal distractions but I am now on page 148 and it just gets better and better.


Nigeyb wrote: "I read all 12 A Dance to the Music of Time novels between May 2014 and July 2014, in about 10 weeks, and it's a masterpiece - one of the best literary experiences I have ever enjoyed"

I am now keen to read all the non-Dance books by Anthony Powell.

Gratifying to discover that Tony was never remotely fooled by the Nazis, unlike the credulous Mitfords and his old pal John Heygate who urged him to attend Nazi rallies in Germany.

What's Become of Waring (1939) sounds wonderful


In What's Become of Waring Anthony Powell directs his wit at the world of publishing. The firm of Judkins and Judkins is uncomfortably dependent on the literary output of the mysterious travel-writer, T.T. Waring. After all, as Hugh Judkins puts it, with all the pomposity of a second-rate mind: 'T.T. Waring is symptomatic of something that is taking place in England today.'

The news of Waring's death comes to the partners, therefore, as a heavy blow, rapidly softened by the happy thought of a biography. The search for a suitable biographer entails a parade of not very well-known authors to delight the reader, but the investigations into 'T.T's' life unearth facts which look like tearing the respectable firm asunder.



What's Become of Waring by Anthony Powell

Looks brilliant, Nigeyb, and on kindle for reasonable price... The New Year is not even here and my TBR list is growing!

I'm glad you agree Susan.


It's really interesting to read about who the characters are actually based upon in Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling.

By the by, I have that exact Penguin edition of What's Become of Waring (1939), except mine cost 2/6 not 4/6, so a couple of shillings cheaper.

Definitely want to read more Anthony Powell, Nigeyb. I think you should add What's Become of Waring to our Buddy Read list - what do you think?

Nigeyb wrote: "By the by, I have that exact Penguin edition of What's Become of Waring (1939), except mine cost 2/6 not 4/6, so a couple of shillings cheaper."

That's inflation.... I remember buying Enid Blyton books for about 25p,

I'm still really enjoying Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling.


Part of my pleasure is, having read and absolutely adored A Dance to the Music of Time, the 12 volume series that traces a colourful group of English acquaintances from 1914 to 1971, I am getting to find out how Anthony Powell wrote it, who he collaborated with, which autobiographical details he included, who he based some of the characters on etc.

Anthony Powell's contact list was a thing of wonder and awe, he seemed to have the happy knack of getting on well with a wide range of fascinating people. His list of friends is a who's who (in the UK) of the Twentieth Century.

I've now finished....



Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling.

If you’ve read A Dance to the Music of Time you’ll devour this splendid biography however it's impossible to read without experiencing a strong desire to revisit it. If you haven't yet read them, it's hard to imagine you would be able to resist the urge to read all twelve of the A Dance to the Music of Time books at your earliest available opportunity.

Click here to read my review

4/5

Nigeyb said (some time ago): "that is a long winded way of asking if you have read The Green Hat by Michael Arlen, and if so to what extent you'd recommend it."

I have a copy sitting on my shelf, but haven't yet read it. I did, however, recently read These Charming People which is probably very similar in content and style. Review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

These two have been reprinted as Capuchin Classics paperbacks (an attractive-looking series), but Arlen's other books probably belong in the "forgotten" section. They are long out of print (at least as physical books), though I have acquired a couple of them in ancient paperback editions. Easy reading, quite fun, and very much of their time, I suspect - but hardly essential.