A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement

By: Anthony Powell

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 23 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Anthony Powell's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Charles McGrath about the life and work of Anthony Powell – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.

©1971 Anthony Powell (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Vance's narration captivates listeners throughout this outstanding examination of a life in progress." ( AudioFile)

"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician." ( Chicago Tribune)

"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience." ( The New Yorker)

Was England ever thus?

Originally encountered this book at a Barnes and Noble looking for a present to give to a friend who loves English lit from the post WWI era. I gave her the first volume as a non committed way of letting her know that if she liked it, she could make a comment of any kind and I would buy the rest for her. She never made a comment. This had the curious effect of heightening my interest.
To make a long story short, I listened to the whole thing on audiobook while traveling on my car. It split my life in two. On the one hand, real life, on the other, Nick's life. Although not as "deep" as say, Henry James, the cumulative impact is substantial. One truly gets a feel for a country in transition from a limited and somewhat detached person's point of view. More than that, I feel like I understand a little better how an englishman of a certain class and era thought.
Not a great thought, or earth shattering revelation, but of such small details a life is made, which I think is the point of the author's summation at the end of the book.

Beautifully read

I normally think that the less you think about the reading performance then the better it is. But looking back at this one I am almost as much in awe of Simon Vance as I am of Anthony Powell.

Wonderful

This is an engrossing, immersive narrative over 12 volumes. Narrator Simon Vance gives rich, thoughtful performances for the dozens of characters (300 or so according to the afterword) and brings them to life over the decades. I loved it.

A six month affair ends...

After around 6 months, and over 80 hours of listening, it is hard to say goodbye to Nick Jenkins, narrator of the 12 books that make up "A Dance..." and his 300 or so friends and acquaintances- although by the end, many of them have made their last live appearances, echoes of them continue to reverberate through the story after their deaths.
While the series has limited foreground dramatic incident, it is the development of, and evolving relationships between, the large cast of characters that makes the series so appealing. A portrait of upper middle and upper class English life, primarily between the wars, with a focus on the world of arts and letters, and lesserly politics, the books paint a portrait of a class, and a way of life, that the author and narrator clearly sees as changing, and sometimes disappearing, even as the lives are being led, often lending it a muted elegaic quality. It does, also, have a strong vein of (gentle) humor throughout, in its regard for the eccentricities and quirks of the characters and their behaviour.
Of the 12 novels comprising the 4 parts, I particularly enjoyed "Books do furnish a room" and "Temporary Kings" in this part, and "Casanova's Chinese Restaurant". But for me, it was the whole journey that made "A Dance to the Music of Time" special
Listeners who complete the series can test their retention of the minutiae of the plot and characters on the web site anthonypowell.org (Dance quiz). Were you really paying attention when Mr Deakin met his unfortunate end?
The reading is terrific, the main characters (especially the men) clearly delineated from each other, with their own endearing speech habits and accents, the tone very apt for a chronicle of a bygone era.

Vance is the perfect narrator..

Simon Vance delivers completely the comedy and the ironic distances of Powell's Nick Jenkins, not an easy thing to do. All 200 plus characters are sufficiently distinct.

Deep, Wide, and Dazzling

I admit that I love a long book that is densely packed with characters. I love to see the beginning and middle and end of a whole set of intersecting lives, as you do in Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet or Vanity Fair or Little Dorritt. This one, with twelve volumes, may seem daunting in its length, but the symmetry of it, and the complications of the tapestry, and the pathos mixed with humor, make every second of it worthwhile. I want nothing more than to start over and read it again.

Imagination must...select and arrange reality.

BOOK TEN ('Books Do Furnish A Room'):

"Imagination must, of course, select and arrange reality, but it must be for imaginative ends: all too often the role of imagination in this sequence is to funny-up events and people whose only significance . . . is that Powell has experienced them."
- Philip Larkins, in a review of 'Books Do Furnish a Room'

'Books Do Furnish a Room' starts with a discussion of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy* and this book (and themes of melancholy and love) reappear frequently throughout the novel.

The central plot thrust of book 10, or the first book of the final season/October (if you will) centers on X. Trapnel a novelist loosely based on Julian McLaren-Ross a writer described by his biographer as "mediocre caretaker of his own immense talent". This novel is the first of the post WWII novels. It takes place in the years immediately after WWII when England is dealing with the social and economic turmoil of the Post war years. Powell describes these changes by describing how the sea and tides will roll certain things back, lose certain things, and propel new things onto shore. I'm obviously paraphrasing because it is late and I haven't the energy right now to find the damn quote. Anyway, it was an interesting brick in this series, not my favorite, but rewarding for some of its dialogue and plot twists.

* An amazingly rich work that I'm almost done with myself (I've got two hundred pages left in the last of the three partitions. I've spent about 3 years worth of Sundays intermittently reading while sitting through church. I'm not sure of my wife is thrilled with me reading Burton in Church, but Burton's explorations of Melancholy seem to almost need an altar or some sacred space to read it near

BOOK ELEVEN ('Temporary Kings'):

"Reading Novels needs almost as much talent as writing them."
- Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings

Temporary Kings opens at an international literary conference in Venice. The literary pot is beginning to boil. Who knew the literary world was such a Casino Royale of intrigue. I really think Powell set this novel's beginning in Venice to make the reader think of the Romantic era, but also of the Doges of Venice and all those dukes and kings that seemed to rise and fall during the period between Rome and the Romantics. Hell, I'm probably way off, but that's my wall and I'm going to lean against it.

More than almost any book, except the series itself (Dance to the Music of Time), Temporary Kings seems dominated and driven by a work of art. Art and music, like food and sex, are scattered in all of Powell's novels, but in this one, a painting of Candaules and Gyges by Tiepolo. In the myth Candaules, the Lydian (Sardis) king has a fatal enthusiasm to show his queen’s naked body to his lieutenant Gyges (without her knowledge or permission). She discovers her husband's peeping sin and invites Gyges to kill him and take his place on the throne. Powell practically beats the reader over the head with this idea. The myth itself is fairly melodramatic (characters in the book discuss the myth as a perfect Opera story), but also seems to parallel some of the activity of some major characters.

BOOK TWELVE ('Hearing Secret Harmonies'):

Hearing Secret Harmonies is the end, the final, the cap of this huge series. Powell reminds me of one of those extreme runners. Those masochists who seem to enjoy running 50, 100, or more miles. The amazing things about writing 12 novels that are together nearly 3000 pages and written over 24 years (1951 - 1971), is how uniform these books are. I'm not saying uniform in a boring way. I'm just saying there isn't a real weak link in them. They are beautifully constructed. I think of big canvasses like the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Certainly, with such a big canvas the risk of a disappointing section or segment isn't linear. A big book, with more pieces and pages, comes with an exponentially growing level or risk. Powell just didn't have a shitty two years anywhere in that 24 years.

The end of the epic

"A Dance to the Music of Time" draws to a close with these three novels, and that's probably a good thing. I loved the first 9, and I even like number 10 (the first part of this installment). But 11 and 12 are not as fresh. It's probably silly to even review these, though -- if you've listened to the first three volumes, you're going to listen to this one, and, even if it's not as solid as the earlier ones, it's still very good.

Simon Vance's portrayals are, as always, excellent. With so many characters coming and going, his voicings often give me additional context to remember who some of the characters are.

Beautiful treatment of a great work

Any additional comments?

This is one of the great novels of the 20th century, and this audio version does full justice to Powell's writing.

Wonderful picture of England between the two wars

This book started slowly but grew on me. The characters are fascinating, the narrator is good, the plot keeps moving but is not particularly exciting. I actually ended up reading the entire 12-volume series. I liked it all except for the last book, in which the 1970's hippies made everything ridiculous.