A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement, Winter

"By many deeds of shame / We learn that love grows cold", as the hymn writer put it.

I don't entirely know what happened here, but it's a crying shame. Anthony Powell commenced his mammoth 12-book series in 1950, uncertain at the time exactly how many volumes it would run, but determined to capture society's change and the ravages of Time. The first three volumes are youthful works, not always great literature but consistently engaging. Titles four through nine increase in power as our protagonists go from young well-heeled flappers in their 20s to middle-aged survivors of an horrific War. Here, we're on the other side and, as the author nears seventy, he seems unsure of his intentions.

Is it that Powell killed off or retired so many of show more our beloved characters that his new ones would always seem inferior by comparison? That the decision to give over much of books ten and eleven to the post-war literary world renders them even more niche, even more historically antiquated than the volumes set in uproarious pre-war England? That the author almost entirely dispenses with historical details, meaning that we no longer "feel" like we are in any particular time period? Perhaps we are at fault for being mundane: where once the deliberate emptiness of our protagonist Nick and his wife Isobel was a charming quirk of the series, allowing us to see the other characters through neutral eyes, we are now frustrated by the occasional mention to their child or children (we're never sure even how many they have, let alone what their names are) and the obscure explanation of why we should care about Isobel's (literally and figuratively) entitled family. Perhaps the beautifully-composed gargoyle named Widmerpool so overwhelms the volumes that Powell's confounding decision to leave him mostly in shadow even as he commits extraordinary acts leaves us grasping at the edges of something resembling a plot. (The lack of plot wouldn't be a problem if it were deliberate, but the lack of historical ambience makes me think we are supposed to be focused on the narrative.) Perhaps twelve novels is just too long for a book where most characters are revealed to be symbols rather than people. The return of a much-loved figure from the past is lessened when we realise that they stand for one of Powell's bugbears, be it sexualised women or people who are - in the author's eyes - excessively political (whether left- or right-wing).

Reluctant as I am to ever suggest that an aging author might be past their peak, I might instead posit that the structure of the sequence ultimately became its own worst enemy. The narrative voice compelling but always temporally unfixed - was Jenkins telling this narrative as we went along, or was this entirely retrospective? The answer seemed to be "whichever Powell needed in the moment", leaving us with a much less-engaging tone than that of Proust, whose great work is often compared to this one, and where we are constantly enjoying the battle between the older narrator's knowledge and his younger self's naivete. Additionally, in terms of structural flaws, the eternal recurrences of certain characters has robbed them of their power. If Nick had met Le Bas or Mrs Erdleigh merely once after their initial experience, or perhaps twice, we would have felt great power. Instead, the author seems to indicate - if unintentionally - that his world is one of ever decreasing circles, and reappearances become cause for a mere raised eyebrow rather than dropping one's lorgnette and spilling the Ovaltine.

The ten-year gap between each of the books in this volume does little to help, either. One might have assumed Powell was working towards a reflection on age but instead he seems almost put out by the passage of time. Characters who must be ancient are forced to survive until late in the piece because he needs them for his denouement, and the final volume leaves us with no grand reflections on age except perhaps an increased willingness on Nick Jenkins' part to pass judgment on young people he perceives as overly sexualised. (Or, perhaps more accurately, young people, especially women, who show it in their bearing and dress; after all, he can hardly complain about the mere act.) Perhaps the only positive thing that emerges from these volumes - and it may be the only time anyone can call her "positive" - is the character of Pamela Flitton, who demands the reader's attention at every turn, and whose dark psychology creates the perfect opponent to Widermpool's sickly, self-absorbed nature.

And no reviewer could be honest if they not dismiss the final volume, Hearing Secret Harmonies, almost entirely. Let's abandon any pretence at the existing characters and storyline, and instead allow the elderly writer to discourse at length about cult leaders and hippies and other things young people apparently do. Oh, sure, there's some further expansion on the character of X. Trapnel, the beatnik author who was an hilarious caricature in Books Do Furnish a Room but who - as Powell mega-fan Barbara Pym believed - came to unreasonably overwhelm the later novels in the series. What was Powell doing with the final volume? Why did he think this was a fitting way to end a landmark series that had run for three decades of his life? Hilary Spurling's biography of Powell tactfully avoids the question, so perhaps I will never know.

The biggest disappointment for me, however, is that Powell toys in these volumes with a narrative technique that one feels could have been the defining feature of these books - perhaps even made the series into great literature, rather than an effete and highbrow read for those of us who enjoy such things, - namely the question of second- and third-hand narrative. It does appear on occasion in the early volumes, but most of the time Nick is present at major occurrences even when it seems completely illogical. Take Books Do Furnish a Room in which he witnesses most every major incident in the love triangle of Widmerpool-Pamela-Trapnel, no matter how unlikely. By the middle book, Temporary Kings, Powell introduces a concept of other characters telling Nick what they witnessed, sometimes even multiple characters often different views, or reporting stories they heard from someone else. He takes up this mantle in a more determined manner in Hearing Secret Harmonies. Widmerpool, aka the Frog Footman, has had an astonishing decade since the previous book, and takes place in a subsequent series of remarkable events, yet he himself is kept either "offscreen" or across a crowded room for the bulk of the volume. Instead, his rise, fall, re-rise, and re-fall are chronicled to us primarily by a series of messengers. It's an interesting technique, to be sure, but it feels underutilised - perhaps even clumsy - in the hands of an author past his prime, and rather disappointing in its belated introduction to the cycle.

I am reminded again of a sagacious New York Times review from 1973 which notes that, despite the series still being enjoyable for longtime fans, "one goes on reading the Dance, feeling rather like a guest enjoying himself at a party after the band has left and the hosts have gone".

Well, quite. show less

It took me all of 2019, but I finally finished A Dance... It was incredible. Though this fourth and final volume was my least favorite (by comparison with the previous three), it was still so phenomenal and well written. In the three books making up the Fourth Movement, we see the bizarre horror show that is the Widmerpools' marriage, leave England for a literary conference in Venice, and witness the late sixties through the introduction of a sinister hippy/Manson-like cult (a countercultural continuation of the pre-WWI occult group first mentioned in, I think, book 2, whose characters have cropped up now and then throughout the series).

I think I read this series at about the right time in my life--about to be 40. I have a different show more perspective on things that seemed important or pressing when I was very young. I recognize that my life is about half over. I'm not so near my end that the sense of mortality suffusing this final volume feels upsetting or imminent (yet).

Probably the most moving and successful meditation on a life in long slow-motion that I can conceive of. show less

I approached the fourth movement of A Dance to the Music of Time with mixed emotions. Having thoroughly enjoyed the first three volumes (rating each 4-5 stars), I was ready for more of the same. But I was also a bit sad to be coming to the end of the series, knowing I would have to leave Nick Jenkins and many, many other interesting characters behind. And things started off pretty well. The first novella, Books do Furnish a Room, was set in the post-war period, with Nick entering his forties. On a return visit to his university, he realizes:
The probability was that even without cosmic upheaval some kind of reshuffle has to take place halfway through life, a proposition borne out by the autobiographies arriving thick and fast -- three or show more four at a time at regular intervals -- for my review in one of the weeklies. ... their narrative supporting, on the whole, evidence already noticeably piling up, that friends, if required at all in the manner of the past, must largely be reassembled at about this milestone. The changeover might improve consistency, even quality, but certainly lost in intimacy; anyway that peculiar kind of intimacy that is consoling when you are young, though probably too vulnerable to withstand the ever increasing self-regard of later years. (p. 3)

Reading these opening pages prompted reflection on the past decade of my life, having just left my forties this year. I found I could relate to Nick in a different way than before. Books do Furnish a Room brought new characters into the dance, along with familiar faces like Kenneth Widmerpool, who was introduced in the very first novella and has reappeared in unusual situations, usually when you would least expect it.

Unfortunately, Anthony Powell wrote two more novellas after Books do Furnish a Room. I found them a slog. Reading Temporary Kings and Hearing Secret Harmonies was a lot like watching a favorite television series that has gone past its prime. The dance metaphor failed to work as well, mostly because so many important characters were lost in the war. Powell brought in new characters Nick supposedly knew twenty years before, but being unknown to the reader these encounters lacked spark. In addition, Powell's writing was strongest in the earlier books, which covered the 1920s through 1940s. In Hearing Secret Harmonies, published in 1975 and set in the 1960s, Powell comes across as a crotchety old man who couldn't understand what those crazy hippie kids were up to. The plot became outlandish, I lost interest, and the last book became a forced march to the finish.

However, when I step back and think about the twelve novellas in their entirety, this is an amazing body of work depicting a specific slice of England in an enormously readable and enjoyable way. show less

I burnt my fingers. Typing is hard. So is thinking. These deserve a bit better than what they're going to get, but at least Adam Roberts has already made the joke about multi-volume fantasy novels versus mutli-volume literary novels so I don't have to. I noted that the narrator is the one character who seems to actively take an interest in others, particularly their inner lives, and an empathy even with the unsympathetic seems to be the key, if nothing else, at least to being a writer.

And now: ouchie.

During the two years that I have been reading A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell (1905-2000) has become one of my three favorite authors. In his novel, divided into four “movements” with three volumes each, Powell followed his narrator in Great Britain in the 1900s from boyhood to semi-retirement. Along the way I became acquainted with a variety of interesting characters living upper middle class lives in London and the countryside. Jenkins is a writer of fiction and non-fiction who is a keen observer of behaviors of his family, friends, and fellow writers and artists. Nick’s observational skills are not hampered by over- reaction, and the narrator may appear uninterested in other people’s feelings. The depth of his show more character is revealed in the compassionate interaction, observation, description of others.

The twelve volumes of Powell’s work make it one of the longest novels in English. It is similar to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time in length. The two novels also share topics if not style, and are on a similar intellectual level. A way to help the reader decide to read A Dance to the Music of Time is to say that it is a “thinking person’s” Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. In fact, as I mentioned in reviews of the first three movements, Galsworthy is represented by a successful but egocentric and foolish literary character, St John Clarke.

The fourth movement that I am reviewing here is composed of the volumes: Books Do Furnish a Room (1971), Temporary Kings (1973), and Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975). In this movement, the theme that has been recurring throughout the saga, people one meets early in life tend to come around again in middle life and around again in later life. Each time these social seasons come around, the view of the people changes with an increase in observer wisdom. Certainly Nick Jenkins gains wisdom during his many decades as a student, soldier, lover, husband, and writer. At the end of the story, Nick and the reader of the many volumes are able to hear the secret harmonies of the span of life described so beautifully and with good humor by Powell. The twelve volumes were written from 1951-1975. show less

I've been reading Anthony Powell's epic, 12-book "A Dance to the Music of Time" throughout 2014. I'm reading one novel a month and will be reading the final three books through December. I'm posting reviews as I go.

"Books Do Furnish A Room" is the 10th book in the series but Powell hasn't lost any steam here. In fact, this was one of my favorite books in the series so far. Our faithful narrator Nick Jenkins is now relating the deaths of several of the characters. (I was somewhat surprised when Jenkins mentions he is 40.... for some reason I had assumed he in his 40's in the war years.) His friends seem to be dying at a fast clip as we're losing characters left and right. Much of the book also focuses on Widmerpool and his unhappy show more marriage, which I assume is the start of the MP's downfall. 5 stars.

"Temporary Kings," the 11th book in the series is also pretty terrific. The title aptly reflects the loss of vitality experienced as the characters are aging and often coming to the end of their lives or careers. Widmerpool manages to stay afloat after a series of challenging circumstances, but his unhappy marriage implodes. Very much looking forward to the final book in the series. 5 stars.

The final book "Hearing Secret Harmonies" kind off in a weird direction for me.... there wasn't quite enough build up for me for taking Widmerpool in his sad final decisions. However, the final installment was certainly interesting and tied up the story. 4 stars. show less

(26) The last of this collection of novellas, I guess you could say. The 4th 'movement' of the Dance for me was the weakest link. I was beginning to enjoy them more in the second and third movement as I got used to the author's verbose style full of allusions and complex sentences. I actually expected this one to be the best as I felt it would take an ironic and profound look at growing old and the the 'winter' of life. Perhaps the novels did just that, but if they did it was lost on me with all the nonsense about the silly cult. Widmerpool's whole ending was unlikely given the character we thought we knew and it just felt wrong and forced. The only novella of the three I enjoyed some was 'Temporary Kings,' at the literary conference in show more Venice.

I felt the loss of the old friends Stringham and Templar, that had been easily replaced by the military friends. Trapnel, Gwinnett, and the weird cult boy never interested me. It also was disappointing that Powell did not focus much on the Tolland nieces and nephews (never mind Isobel and Nick's children!) As your life moves on, you become very involved in the younger generation through your children, right? I understand Nick's role as a foil, but this complete neglect of his own children's lives was not believable. Also, the weird almost lack of grief when people died. So matter of fact - after awhile, I felt as if this played false as well. In general, due to things feeling incongruous, eventually the book began to feel like what it was - long and ponderous.

I am glad I read the whole collection given my Anglophile literary tastes. My reading life would have been incomplete without it, but on the whole it was a bit tedious. Poor Widmerpool - he deserved a better ending. Not a sympathetic one, mind you - just better. show less