At long last, the final volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. Like its predecessor, I don't think it comes up to standards of the best books in the series, but it's not necessarily easy to pin down why. Certainly, on a sentence-by-sentence level, or even paragraph-by-paragraph, Powell is as good as ever here.
Oddly enough, I think part of the problem is the relatively well-defined plot. I think that most of the books in the cycle have some sort of underlying structure, as I've mentioned in the occasional blog post. But these last two novels may as well be subtitled "The Decline and Fall of Widmerpool." And I think that the overtness is unfortunate -- Powell works well when everything is understated, I think.
Having said that, the final chapter was fantastic. Everything that I've liked about the whole cycle, with a nice tie tack to the first novel, A Question of Upbringing, bringing us full circle.
Showing posts with label Dance to the Music of Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dance to the Music of Time. Show all posts
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Temporary Kings
Temporary Kings is the eleventh book of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time cycle. More elegiacal than what has come before, it's clear that the series is drawing to a close. That's probably a good thing; as much as I enjoyed this novel, it's a pretty clear fall-off from, say, the WWII volumes, or even the immediately preceding novel, Books Do Furnish a Room.
Widmerpool's turning out to be a Stalinist spy of some sort felt like a plot twist out of a different sort of novel altogether, and the spectacular blow-up at the end of the novel felt like an inelegant departure from the normally restrained tone of the other novels.
On the other hand, some good new characters are introduced, and I liked the way the book weaves the past into the present so effortlessly. Nick hears an old man singing "Funiculi, Funicula," and that takes him into a reminiscence of when he was younger in Italy for a short while, then he's back to the present, and then there might be a short bit about one of the characters we saw in a previous volume, and so on. All this, of course, adds to the elegiacal tone I mentioned above.
Widmerpool's turning out to be a Stalinist spy of some sort felt like a plot twist out of a different sort of novel altogether, and the spectacular blow-up at the end of the novel felt like an inelegant departure from the normally restrained tone of the other novels.
On the other hand, some good new characters are introduced, and I liked the way the book weaves the past into the present so effortlessly. Nick hears an old man singing "Funiculi, Funicula," and that takes him into a reminiscence of when he was younger in Italy for a short while, then he's back to the present, and then there might be a short bit about one of the characters we saw in a previous volume, and so on. All this, of course, adds to the elegiacal tone I mentioned above.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Books do Furnish a Room
Coming in to the final stretch of A Dance to the Music of Time, this is volume 10. In the immediate post-war years, Nick Jenkins's acquaintances Quiggen and Craggs try to publish a literary journal.
As always with this series, I liked book 10, even though there's so much of the sort of thing that normally annoys me. The plot, such as it is, is negligible. We still never see Nick's wife Ysabel, even though the novel starts with her brother's death and she has a baby 2/3 of the way through. In fact, we get very little of the interior Nick, even when his son is born.
And yet... The characters that are present are so sharply drawn, and the prose is such a pleasure to hear, that I'm loving the series. Speaking of hearing the prose, I have to give props to Simon Vance, who does a great job of bringing these characters to life.
It's been a great ride so far, and I'm looking forward to the next two books. (Audible packages them 3 together, so I'll be listening to them soon).
As always with this series, I liked book 10, even though there's so much of the sort of thing that normally annoys me. The plot, such as it is, is negligible. We still never see Nick's wife Ysabel, even though the novel starts with her brother's death and she has a baby 2/3 of the way through. In fact, we get very little of the interior Nick, even when his son is born.
And yet... The characters that are present are so sharply drawn, and the prose is such a pleasure to hear, that I'm loving the series. Speaking of hearing the prose, I have to give props to Simon Vance, who does a great job of bringing these characters to life.
It's been a great ride so far, and I'm looking forward to the next two books. (Audible packages them 3 together, so I'll be listening to them soon).
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Soldier's Art, The Military Philosophers
The Soldier's Art and The Military Philosophers are books 8 and 9 of Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. Together with book 7, The Valley of Bones, they make up the third movement. For the first two movements, I felt like the movement division was pretty arbitrary, but here it makes sense. Books 7-9 feel like something of a whole, with a largely new cast of characters, and with the previous characters barely showing up. (Kenneth Widmerpool is the big exception here).
The writing is great, as always, but the limitations of Jenkins as narrator are more apparent. For whatever reason, Powell has chosen to make Jenkins an observer who is rarely (or never) introspective. In these three books, something like half the cast of the previous novels gets written out in air raid attacks or are otherwise casualties of war. But Jenkins never reacts to these events, and it feels like there's a big emotional hole in the novels. I've remarked on this problem before, as well -- Nick sees Isobel, his wife, but tells us nothing about the visit; Nick becomes a father, but only in a throw-away aside. It's almost as if Powell would have been better served by a third person narrator.
On the other hand, I felt like the characters and events are more incisively written than ever. Jenkins's army companions are very distinctive, and get away from the round of bohemians and upper-class dinner parties that made up the first 6 novels in the cycle.
The writing is great, as always, but the limitations of Jenkins as narrator are more apparent. For whatever reason, Powell has chosen to make Jenkins an observer who is rarely (or never) introspective. In these three books, something like half the cast of the previous novels gets written out in air raid attacks or are otherwise casualties of war. But Jenkins never reacts to these events, and it feels like there's a big emotional hole in the novels. I've remarked on this problem before, as well -- Nick sees Isobel, his wife, but tells us nothing about the visit; Nick becomes a father, but only in a throw-away aside. It's almost as if Powell would have been better served by a third person narrator.
On the other hand, I felt like the characters and events are more incisively written than ever. Jenkins's army companions are very distinctive, and get away from the round of bohemians and upper-class dinner parties that made up the first 6 novels in the cycle.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Valley of the Bones
The Valley of the Bones is book 7 of A Dance to the Music of Time. Pretty much everything I've said about the previous ones is still true. Gorgeous writing, meandering plot, and all. This novel chronicles the beginning of WWII. Jenkins is assigned to an army unit, but doesn't see any fighting. Unlike previous novels, this one has almost an entirely new cast of characters. There's one extended scene where Nick goes on leave and meets with family and friends, but that's it.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Kindly Ones
The Kindly Ones, sixth installment of The Dance to the Music of Times takes its name from the polite name the Greeks gave to the Furies. Although not strictly accurately, they here represent War, and Powell book-ends the novel with the beginnings of WWI and WWII.
We start with Nick Jenkins as a boy, during the time immediately before the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand. War permeates the atmosphere of this section, even if it's not much openly discussed. Powell has General Conyers visit, Nick's Uncle Giles (a former soldier) makes an appearance, and so on. At the beginning of the novel, there's a humorous bit where Albert the butler is closing up the house in case "they" make a raid, but it turns out that "they" in this case are the suffragettes. This section ends with the assassination of the Arch-Duke, and Nick gives us a list of acquaintances who will die during the War.
We then jump forward to just before WWII, where the next two sections take place. War is again in the atmosphere, and again, not necessarily directly. The interesting thing about these books has always been how Powell gives us a view of every-day life in which people aren't always particularly affected by the great goings-on in the world around them. However, we can see the build-up in side references to Magnus Donner's planning to make a fortune off armaments, as well as constant references to Munich.
In the last section, war has actually broken out. I think that the first section works as a sort of "past as prologue." Just as Nick ended the first part with a list of those who would get hurt by WWI, I think we're supposed to imagine a list like that coming for WWII, which will actually be covered in later volumes. To relieve the general grimness, Widmerpool is here at his most humorous, a touch I certainly appreciated.
We start with Nick Jenkins as a boy, during the time immediately before the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand. War permeates the atmosphere of this section, even if it's not much openly discussed. Powell has General Conyers visit, Nick's Uncle Giles (a former soldier) makes an appearance, and so on. At the beginning of the novel, there's a humorous bit where Albert the butler is closing up the house in case "they" make a raid, but it turns out that "they" in this case are the suffragettes. This section ends with the assassination of the Arch-Duke, and Nick gives us a list of acquaintances who will die during the War.
We then jump forward to just before WWII, where the next two sections take place. War is again in the atmosphere, and again, not necessarily directly. The interesting thing about these books has always been how Powell gives us a view of every-day life in which people aren't always particularly affected by the great goings-on in the world around them. However, we can see the build-up in side references to Magnus Donner's planning to make a fortune off armaments, as well as constant references to Munich.
In the last section, war has actually broken out. I think that the first section works as a sort of "past as prologue." Just as Nick ended the first part with a list of those who would get hurt by WWI, I think we're supposed to imagine a list like that coming for WWII, which will actually be covered in later volumes. To relieve the general grimness, Widmerpool is here at his most humorous, a touch I certainly appreciated.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Agents of Light and Darkness, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant
Not much to say about Agents of Light and Darkness. It was short but fun; Green is good at juggling a humorous tone with some darker undertones.
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant is the fifth book in A Dance to the Music of Time. Although you can read the whole work as one massive volume, this novel shows that Powell paid close attention to the structure of each individual book. The novel opens with Jenkins reminiscing about the titular restaurant, reflecting that there's now a crater where the restaurant used to be. The crater is the result of bomb dropped during the Blitz, and is a sign that events leading up to WWII are going to become more prominent now. Indeed, this is the first novel where the outside world really intrudes, however lightly. One character goes off to help out in the Spanish Civil War, there's more talk about the Nazis, and so on.
Casanova's also underpins the structure by book-ending the novel. We're introduced to a couple of major figures in this novel at a meal there near the beginning, and there's a reflection back to that meal near the end. In addition, the restaurant serves as a bit of pivot point between past and present. We have Jenkins's current present, in which the restaurant is now a crater. We have the "present" that most of the novel is set in. But we also have a past before that, in which Deacon (who passed in away in vol. 2, if I recall correctly) shares a meal with Jenkins and others at the restaurant.
There are also a few pairings which undergird the structure of the novel. Most obvious are the two musicians, Morland and McClintock. But we also have two miscarriages at the start of the novel, linking Morland's and Jenkins's marriages. McQuiggen and Members are still paired, as in previous volumes.
The one complaint I have is that there's a huge hole in the novel where Isabelle should be. Powell tries to get around this by having Nick tell us that no-one can write objectively about his own marriage, but that feels sloppy to me. Nobody can really write objectively about any marriage (as Nick also tells us), but other peoples' marriages fill the pages of these books.
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant is the fifth book in A Dance to the Music of Time. Although you can read the whole work as one massive volume, this novel shows that Powell paid close attention to the structure of each individual book. The novel opens with Jenkins reminiscing about the titular restaurant, reflecting that there's now a crater where the restaurant used to be. The crater is the result of bomb dropped during the Blitz, and is a sign that events leading up to WWII are going to become more prominent now. Indeed, this is the first novel where the outside world really intrudes, however lightly. One character goes off to help out in the Spanish Civil War, there's more talk about the Nazis, and so on.
Casanova's also underpins the structure by book-ending the novel. We're introduced to a couple of major figures in this novel at a meal there near the beginning, and there's a reflection back to that meal near the end. In addition, the restaurant serves as a bit of pivot point between past and present. We have Jenkins's current present, in which the restaurant is now a crater. We have the "present" that most of the novel is set in. But we also have a past before that, in which Deacon (who passed in away in vol. 2, if I recall correctly) shares a meal with Jenkins and others at the restaurant.
There are also a few pairings which undergird the structure of the novel. Most obvious are the two musicians, Morland and McClintock. But we also have two miscarriages at the start of the novel, linking Morland's and Jenkins's marriages. McQuiggen and Members are still paired, as in previous volumes.
The one complaint I have is that there's a huge hole in the novel where Isabelle should be. Powell tries to get around this by having Nick tell us that no-one can write objectively about his own marriage, but that feels sloppy to me. Nobody can really write objectively about any marriage (as Nick also tells us), but other peoples' marriages fill the pages of these books.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Three Men in a Boat, At Lady Molly's
Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat is one of the classics of British humor. So it was odd to me how much the humor resembled Mark Twain's. Twain once wrote an essay about American humor vs British humor, in which he says that British humor is about the witty line, while American humor tends to be more about the anecdote, where there aren't really any funny lines, per se, but the whole story just sort of adds up to being funny. Not only that, but a summary makes the story not even seem funny at all (he then goes on to use "The Jumping Frog" as an example) Three Men in a Boat is very much in that vein of humor. It's very funny, but you have to take several paragraphs at a time.
I can't imagine a humorist more different to Wodehouse, for that matter. Wodehouse is all about the funny line and the tight plot. Jerome wanders all over the place -- one could easily take any 5 pages from the book and not know whether they're from the beginning, the middle, or the end. But, for all that, it's a very funny book, and I'm glad I got around the reading it.
I'm almost done with At Lady Molly's, the fourth book in A Dance to the Music of Time. Jenkins gets engaged, and, characteristically doesn't write about it at all (literally -- he meets his fiancee-to-be, then picks up again months later when they're already engaged). In general, he's much more interested in telling us about what happens to others than to himself. (I am, of course, aware that Jenkins =/= Powell). The series is an odd one for me. It's pretty much exactly the sort of fiction I tend to avoid; nothing happens, and the little that does happen occurs off-screen. The series is essentially an endless round of dinner-party conversations. And yet... Powell is an incredibly gifted writer. It's a pleasure to read (or listen to) his sentences. His characters are great, and even the conversations are enjoyable to read.
I can't imagine a humorist more different to Wodehouse, for that matter. Wodehouse is all about the funny line and the tight plot. Jerome wanders all over the place -- one could easily take any 5 pages from the book and not know whether they're from the beginning, the middle, or the end. But, for all that, it's a very funny book, and I'm glad I got around the reading it.
I'm almost done with At Lady Molly's, the fourth book in A Dance to the Music of Time. Jenkins gets engaged, and, characteristically doesn't write about it at all (literally -- he meets his fiancee-to-be, then picks up again months later when they're already engaged). In general, he's much more interested in telling us about what happens to others than to himself. (I am, of course, aware that Jenkins =/= Powell). The series is an odd one for me. It's pretty much exactly the sort of fiction I tend to avoid; nothing happens, and the little that does happen occurs off-screen. The series is essentially an endless round of dinner-party conversations. And yet... Powell is an incredibly gifted writer. It's a pleasure to read (or listen to) his sentences. His characters are great, and even the conversations are enjoyable to read.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Acceptance World, War and Peace yet again
I read The Acceptance World, the third volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. There probably isn't much I can say about it that I didn't talk about before. The writing is beautiful, not much happens, Jenkins slips around in time, yadda yadda. Jenkins has an affair with Jean DuPorte, but it doesn't carry much emotional weight. Jenkins himself is pretty detached; one senses that he rarely gets emotionally involved with the people around him.
I think that his detachment paradoxically gives more of a punch to the spots where characters are in trouble. When we see Stringham as a wreck, for example, it's a real shock, and Jenkins's cool reporting of the episode makes it seem worse. I've seen people call this a comedy (Evelyn Waugh said that Powell is almost as funny as Wodehouse), and I can't agree. There are very funny parts, but also some very painful parts, as well as a lot of parts that are neither. Certainly I wouldn't recommend this to someone looking for another Wodehouse...
Closing in on the end of War and Peace. Pierre finds his redemption in suffering while a prisoner of the French. Reminds me of Raskolnikov or Dimitry Karamazov. Maybe just a Russian thing... The big problem for me, though, is that Pierre is so changeable through the novel. He's pro-Napoleon, then an ardent Mason, then he decides to assassinate Napoleon, and so on. I have trouble accepting that he's finally found the good road. I liked Andrei Bolkonsky's character arc much better. (I've come to think of them as the main characters, but there's no good reason for that -- certainly the various Rostovs are just as important, but it may be that I just can't connect with them in the same way. Though Natasha is a great character).
I think that his detachment paradoxically gives more of a punch to the spots where characters are in trouble. When we see Stringham as a wreck, for example, it's a real shock, and Jenkins's cool reporting of the episode makes it seem worse. I've seen people call this a comedy (Evelyn Waugh said that Powell is almost as funny as Wodehouse), and I can't agree. There are very funny parts, but also some very painful parts, as well as a lot of parts that are neither. Certainly I wouldn't recommend this to someone looking for another Wodehouse...
Closing in on the end of War and Peace. Pierre finds his redemption in suffering while a prisoner of the French. Reminds me of Raskolnikov or Dimitry Karamazov. Maybe just a Russian thing... The big problem for me, though, is that Pierre is so changeable through the novel. He's pro-Napoleon, then an ardent Mason, then he decides to assassinate Napoleon, and so on. I have trouble accepting that he's finally found the good road. I liked Andrei Bolkonsky's character arc much better. (I've come to think of them as the main characters, but there's no good reason for that -- certainly the various Rostovs are just as important, but it may be that I just can't connect with them in the same way. Though Natasha is a great character).
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Dirty White Boys, A Buyer's Market
Listened to Stephen Hunter's Dirty White Boys. Kept expecting it to get better, ended up listening to the second half at 2x speed and even so skipping bits. Meh. Hard to believe it's by the same guy who wrote Point of Impact. Even harder to believe that it was well-received, but it apparently was.
Now listening to A Buyer's Market, second part of his "Dance to the Music of Time." It's amazing how enthralling Powell makes this story where really nothing happens. (At least, not in the first quarter). Beautiful writing, and he slips nicely through time, as one thing reminds him of another.
Now listening to A Buyer's Market, second part of his "Dance to the Music of Time." It's amazing how enthralling Powell makes this story where really nothing happens. (At least, not in the first quarter). Beautiful writing, and he slips nicely through time, as one thing reminds him of another.
Monday, April 4, 2011
A Question of Upbringing
A Question of Upbringing is the first volume in Anthony Powell's massive 12-volume Dance to the Music of Time. The series as a whole has been on my "books to think about reading" list for a long time, but it seemed daunting to even begin. Amazon solved that problem for me by selling the volumes individually for the kindle and making the first a freebie.
So I dove in and was surprised at what the book wasn't, as much as by what it was. First off, it's not really a novel in the normal sense. There are four semi-connected sections, each of which takes up a few a days in the life of the narrator, Jenkins. Also, although the series covers a large span of time and a large cast of characters, it's not really panoramic; instead, each section could almost be an individual short story (it reminded me a little of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in this).
Powell's style is gorgeous; I think this is the best-written of all the kindle freebies so far. Different parts are funny or wistful or lyrical. You get the sense of a narrator looking back over a long time, sorting through his memories to find ones that present people at some moment that epitomizes them, or finding particular turning points that solidified his attitudes toward them. In each section, the characters jump out; even ones who are only introduced for a few pages feel vivid.
At this point, I guess I'm in for the long haul, looking forward to reading the next 11 volumes.
So I dove in and was surprised at what the book wasn't, as much as by what it was. First off, it's not really a novel in the normal sense. There are four semi-connected sections, each of which takes up a few a days in the life of the narrator, Jenkins. Also, although the series covers a large span of time and a large cast of characters, it's not really panoramic; instead, each section could almost be an individual short story (it reminded me a little of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in this).
Powell's style is gorgeous; I think this is the best-written of all the kindle freebies so far. Different parts are funny or wistful or lyrical. You get the sense of a narrator looking back over a long time, sorting through his memories to find ones that present people at some moment that epitomizes them, or finding particular turning points that solidified his attitudes toward them. In each section, the characters jump out; even ones who are only introduced for a few pages feel vivid.
At this point, I guess I'm in for the long haul, looking forward to reading the next 11 volumes.
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