Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time--the dance is over.

Sad to say, but I've finished Anthony Powell's magnificent work--A Dance to the Music of Time.  The music has stopped, the lights are dimming, the musicians are slowly putting away their instruments, and the place is slowly emptying out.  But, soon the lights will come back on and the musicians will return and, once again, dancers will gather on the floor for the ritual goings and comings, arrivals and departures, losings and findings.

As I have mentioned before, this is a four volume work.  Each volume contains three novels, approximately 250 pages in length.  The first two volumes cover the period between WWI and WWII.  The third volume covers WWII and the four is of the post-war period, up until the 80s perhaps.  Powell is not very good at providing dates.

I have seen several different names applied to the volumes: one is Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.  I had found a well-used copy of  Spring and purchased that on the strength of the BBC adaption of the work.  I finished the first novel and decided to get the complete set. I found a new set, in which the volumes were labelled 1st Movement, 2nd Movement, 3rd Movement, and 4th Movement.  This new labeling scheme seems more appropriate considering the musical nature of the title.

A Dance to the Music of Time is a first person narrative, the voice that of Nicholas Jenkins, Nick to friends and relatives.  The work is not solely about Nick, but about Nick and his friends, relatives, and acquaintances.   In the first novel, Nick is in his last year of school and we meet him and those about him, mostly his schoolmates as they look forward to moving on to the University the following year.

As in the real world, Nick loses track of some of his friends but maintains contact with others.  He also meets and makes new friends and friends of friends and relatives, both his and those of his friends.  We also meet some of his teachers.  This is the format of the work: Nick meets people, loses some, gains others, and then, some who have gone, suddenly return in unexpected ways, and places.  Some change, some seemingly do not as Nick goes through the university and then into the world to establish his career as a writer, and in the various occupations to support himself.  This continues through his military commitment as WWII breaks out, where he meets old friends and relatives in the military.

After having read the work, my impression is that Nick is a rather ordinary person who knows some original and unusual people, the strangest of whom is Kenneth Widmerpool.  No matter what Nick does and where he goes, Widmerpool always manages to appear in some way.  Widmerpool is one of the most fascinating characters I have ever encountered in English fiction.  There may be others whom I haven't met, but for now, Kenneth Widmerpool stands alone.

I may be doing Nick Jenkins a disservice, but when I do the next reading, I will spend more time observing Nick to see what I missed.   But, it just may be that Powell deliberately keeps Nick at a low level because he wanted the focus to be on those around Nick.  If Nick were too striking a character, readers may be distracted and miss Powell's theme of the recurring or cyclic nature of life, or perhaps a spiral would be more apt than a cycle.  For while various characters appear, disappear, and return in Nick's life, they have changed and while their interactions may resemble past interactions in many ways, they are never the same.  

This is about all I can say at the present, for there's too much here for me to make more sense of it and this, at best, can't be more than a superficial commentary.   Perhaps after a second reading, I may be able to be more intelligible and coherent.  For now, let's end this with the penultimate paragraph of the final novel.

Powell concludes with a quotation from Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.  Although it isn't initially apparent, it is appropriate because Nick has been writing a book about Burton and his works and because there's a shift in tone at the end of the paragraph.  At first, the quotation consists of a series of lists, but then it changes into something quite different.  The quotation is all in paragraph form, but when I think there's a change in tone, I change the format:

"Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees.  .  .trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays .  .  . 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,
tomorrow of some great men deposed,
and then again of some fresh honours conferred;

one is let loose, another imprisoned,

one purchaseth, another breaketh;

he thrives, his neighbor turns bankrupt;

now plenty, then again dearth and famine;

one runs, another rides,

wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c."

-- Robert Burton --
from Anatomy of Melancholy


Does this sound familiar to you?

Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time: Vol 1, Spring

Anthony Powell
A Dance to the Music of Time
Vol. 1,  Spring
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World


One of the most common adjectives applied to this work is "monumental."   It's also been used to describe other works, but this is one of the few times when it is applicable and fitting.  A Dance to the Music of Time is now published as a set of four novels:  Vol. 1 or Spring, Vol. 2 or Summer, Vol. 3 or Autumn, and Vol. 4 or Winter. Each volume consists of three novels, for example the three listed make up Vol. 1.  In all there are twelve novels, one for each month of the year.

When I get around to rereading the set,  I shall begin on the first day of Spring of whatever year that happens to be and then cover one novel a month.  Perhaps then I shall do a more in-depth look at the work.  For now, the best I can do is a brief overview of each of the volumes.

Rather than stumble about trying to describe the overall theme of the work, I'll let Powell do it.  Jenkins musing is brought about when he gazes at Poussin's painting, A Dance to the Music of Time.
(click on the painting for a larger image)


                                                           


     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: on 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.
 

The first novel begins shortly after the end of WWI,  with four young boys:  Nick Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool, Charles Stringham, and Peter Templer.  They are finishing schooling, preparatory to entering the university.   At the university, Nick Jenkins, the POV character, meets other students and faculty members who will play a role in his future.  At the same time, his close association with the other three begins to weaken.

The second and third novels provide a picture of university life and the decade after leaving the university as they attempt to establish themselves in the larger world: to find their own places in the social world as well as developing their careers, in the world of the arts, business, and government.  The world they live in is the world of the English middle class. The third novel ends with the four characters in their early thirties and in the early 1930's as well.

Jenkins encounters at varying stages the other three young men as they struggle to establish themselves, as well as some of the faculty from the university.  The various encounters he has with those from his past also bring forward others who will play a role in his future.   He is frequently surprised to find that his earlier judgements of people prove wrong or incomplete as he sees them succeeding in their ventures or slowly disintegrating as the struggle for existence takes its toll on them.

This is a complex work and will require time to fully appreciate it.  It's not a work to be picked up now and then for 15 or 20 minutes at a time.  Perhaps one novel a month might be the wisest schedule.