Mention Regarding Books A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12)
Title | : | A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12) |
Author | : | Anthony Powell |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 793 pages |
Published | : | May 31st 1995 by University of Chicago Press (first published 1975) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Classics. European Literature. British Literature |
Anthony Powell
Paperback | Pages: 793 pages Rating: 4.22 | 1261 Users | 87 Reviews
Explanation Concering Books A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12)
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. In this climactic volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, Nick Jenkins describes a world of ambition, intrigue, and dissolution. England has won the war, but now the losses, physical and moral, must be counted. Pamela Widmerpool sets a snare for the young writer Trapnel, while her husband suffers private agony and public humiliation. Set against a background of politics, business, high society, and the counterculture in England and Europe, this magnificent work of art sounds an unforgettable requiem for an age. Includes these novels: Books Do Furnish a Room Temporary Kings Hearing Secret HarmoniesDefine Books To A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12)
Original Title: | A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement |
ISBN: | 0226677184 (ISBN13: 9780226677187) |
Edition Language: | English |
Series: | A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12 |
Characters: | Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool |
Rating Regarding Books A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12)
Ratings: 4.22 From 1261 Users | 87 ReviewsWrite-Up Regarding Books A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time #10-12)
"People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because the novel's invented, it is true" (Hearing Secret Harmonies 84).The above sums up how I feel in finally finishing the 2500+ pages that are A Dance to the Music of Time, a herculean effort that conveys the psyche of the English post-WWI all the way through 1971. The lives of these characters are more true to me than the historical accounts of impersonal figureheads in nonfiction. And who's to say anyAfter a hundreds of pages dealing just with World War II, Anthony Powell brings us through the postwar decades with the last three novels of "A Dance to the Music of Time", which tracks Nicholas Jenkins and his social circle across an enormous breadth of 20th-century Britain.BOOKS DO FURNISH A ROOM, the tenth novel, opens in the winter of 1945/46 as Britain settles back into peacetime, though not without annoying rationing and shortages. Jenkins has come to his old university for research
A fabulous ending to this quartet. Perhaps would be useful to have a list of characters as they are so vast and many, by the end it takes a great deal of effort to recall some of the earlier more obscure characters.
The final set of three, from Powell's overall twelve.Books Do Furnish a Room -- 5/5I don't know if it was simply because the 'war books' are over and done, or because it really was a strong read -- but this has been one of my favorite of the series. Yet, it took me more than twice my normal time to get through with it. I don't know why. I guess I had to ease back into Powell's rhythm. Temporary Kings -- 5/5The Dance is drawing to a close, and only the stragglers are left behind....well, and the
I have now finished this linked series of novels - which feels more like a single long novel to me. In spite of its length, I read it in a comparatively short period of time, since it was one of those books that I always looked forward to getting back into. The ficititious narrator, Nick Jenkins, is highly reticent about himself, and about his closest connections - his wife Isobel and his children are very shadowy figures indeed. On the other hand, Jenkins is a razor-sharp observer of the doings
The First Movement is about Class, the Second is about Love, the Third is about Duty. Now we're at the end, so what is the Fourth Movement going to be about except Death?I have read the series several times, and I'm still not completely sure about the Fourth Movement. It isn't as much fun as the others, at least not at a surface level. As Buck pointed out in a comment to my review of the Second Movement, it has a tendency to meander around, and the aperçus are sometimes not as sharp as they were
Not as much fun as the other three volumes in the collection, and the last book Hearing Secret Harmonies was a bit too wacky for me. Still, a great series altogether, and I might see if I can find some other works by Powell.When the TBR goes down a bit...
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