A Buyer's Market (1960)

I did enjoy this 2nd book of "A Dance to the Music of Time" more than the first one (A Quesion of Upbringing) so I'm glad I persevered and I will read more of this series. It definitely needs to be read in order so don't start with this one!

Anthony Powell's dry humor took me a while to warm up to... I sometimes feel that he is writing to show off his vocabulary: "Whatever solution was, in fact, found to terminate the complexities of that moment, Mr. Deacon's immediate expulsion from the house at the command of Mrs. Andriadis was not one of them; because, when I looked back - after proceeding nearly a hundred yards up the road -- there was still no sign of his egress, violent or otherwise, from the house." However, that said, I didn't find the prose difficult to read, just dry in places.

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The second (of twelve)of the books following the life and career of Nick Jenkins. The most memorable event here is the incident in which Widmerpool gets a full container of sugar poured over his head. Apart from that the 'dance' describes a party,a country weekend,an wedding and the funeral of one of the main characters,all in great detail. Anthony Powell writes with great skill and indeed his writing is unlike any other. If you are looking for a quick paced novel with lots of action,do not attempt this series as you will be sadly disappointed as very little happens at all.If however beautiful writing style and witty dialogue is your thing,then do try them. ( )

Enjoyable but far from packed with incident. ( )

Rereading a Dance to the music of time very slowly - appropriate for such an orotund work. Clearly intended to be pivotal and transitional to fit in with the unformed stage of life of the narrator - it picks up some threads and twirls them around, leaving space for them to grow into patterns at a later stage

The second book in the "Music of Time" series find Nick Jenkins working in London, but the action concentrates on his leisure time. A very long sequence sees him attending a series of functions on the same evening: firstly dinner at the Walpole-Wilson's, at which the ubiquitous Widmerpool turns up, as well as Barbara Goring with whom both he and Nick are in love; then on to a ball at the Huntercombes', at which occurs the incident with the sugar; afterwards Widmerpool and the narrator encounter firstly Mr. Deacon (an acquantaince of Nick's parents) and the urchin-like Gypsy Jones, and then Charles Stringham; finally Stringham takes all of them to a rather more bohemian affair given by Milly Andriadis. The interactions of these and other characters are starting to form the pattern of recurrences which is one of the sequence's themes, and include Nick's discovery of why Mr. Deacon spent some years abroad and Widmerpool's uncharacteristic behaviour in helping Gypsy to have what is clearly an illegal abortion. Basically, if you liked "A Question of Upbringing" you should definitely progress to this one next. ( )