Essential reading, 06 Mar 2008
Anthony Powell's reputation has suffered as his snobbery and elitism emerged from his memoirs; his work stands up to Evely Waugh's (another author who was not a nice person) and the Roman a clef element is still fascinating- the Moreland/ Constant Lambert character is wonderfully drawn. I devoured the series while revising for finals in the 1970's and I think the books made me a beter doctor than my reading of Gray's anatomy (the anatomy textbook, not the TV series). As many of the characters are versions of real people I am amazed that one reviewer found them cardboard!!!

Hyped, 14 Jul 2004
A very poor book. The author has gone for width at the expense of depth. The characters are poorly drawn, just a lot of different names stuck on to cardboard cut outs.

Absolutely fantastic serial, 20 Dec 1999
This picks up after Spring and continues the story. This is a must read if you've read Spring - and if not, why not?

Essential reading, 06 Mar 2008
Anthony Powell's reputation has suffered as his snobbery and elitism emerged from his memoirs; his work stands up to Evely Waugh's (another author who was not a nice person) and the Roman a clef element is still fascinating- the Moreland/ Constant Lambert character is wonderfully drawn. I devoured the series while revising for finals in the 1970's and I think the books made me a beter doctor than my reading of Gray's anatomy (the anatomy textbook, not the TV series). As many of the characters are versions of real people I am amazed that one reviewer found them cardboard!!!

Hyped, 14 Jul 2004
A very poor book. The author has gone for width at the expense of depth. The characters are poorly drawn, just a lot of different names stuck on to cardboard cut outs.

Absolutely fantastic serial, 20 Dec 1999
This picks up after Spring and continues the story. This is a must read if you've read Spring - and if not, why not?

Office Politics, 29 Oct 2008
The superficial couplings and separations of the supercilious cast continue through the Second World War. Powell, in keeping with the milieu in which his characters waffle, reduces the greatest conflict of human history to an exercise in office politics. Jenkins, the author's alter ego, drifts aimlessly and ineffectually through different roles while Widmerpool eschewing the opportunity to continue enriching himself puts his appetite for work and prodigious administrative talents at the service of his country. The comparison with Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy cannot be avoided; where Powell's characters live lives of utter pointlessness, Waugh's struggle with a perception of reality that gives both purpose and dread to the quotidian.

An English epic of wartime social history., 23 Mar 1999
I place this work among literary mammoths of our time, including Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet" and Henry Williamson's "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight." My judgment results not merely from this work's great length, but rather in Powell's greatly detailed characters, sprawling plot development and sheer READABILITY. Despite its great length [about 3,000 pages] it still pales in length in comparison to the aforementioned "Chronicle," which at times, plods along and tallies up to approximately 8,000 pages. Bravo to the University of Chicago Press for re-publishing this work in such a beautiful edition, as well. Buy this set and read this wonderful work. You'll enjoy it.

The richest social world I know of in fiction, 29 Jan 1999
First, although I adore this series, I would like to demur from the description of this series as a comedy. Certainly there are many comic situations and laughable characters, but Powell's (pronounced POE-UHL, not POW-UHL) comedy is intended less to make uslaugh than to make ussmile. I know many novels that are far funnier than this one, and if that were the book's only virtue, it would not enjoy the status that it does.

Above all, this is a work that limns in almost tedious detail the interrelations and interworkings of a segment of English society in the 20th century. These first three books take you from the early twenties into the early thirties. Despite the series great length, there is nothing epic about the scale of the novels except for the overall length of of the series as a whole. The scenes are all horribly mundane. A party here, a dinner there, a chance meeting in a bar, more parties, more dinners. But as the parties and dinners multiply, and as one social encounter builds upon another, the series does indeed take on an epic quality.

This new edition is far more attractive than the old mass market edition of the series, but I do wish that someone would have taken the effort to supply an appendix (perhaps to the final volume) that would (as in some editions of Trollope and Proust) explain who all the characters are and to whom they are related. By the sixth volume in the series, I began to find it extremely difficult to remember precisely where each character fit in the social world as a whole.

The greatest virtues of Powell's series are his richly delineated characters (of which there are at least fifty to a hundred who are to some degree significant) and his marvelously elegant prose. I believe that anyone who loves novels would love this series, in particular those who have enjoyed Proust.

One of the very finest of postwar novels!, 07 Jan 1999
As a longtime reader and reviewer [The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, The New Republic, etc.], I must say I am absolutely mesmerized by A Dance to the Music of Time. I am now in the process of reading, sometimes rereading, all twelve novels in this unique, absolutely remarkable work.

BEAUTIFUL EDITION TO KEEP AND TREASURE, 24 Nov 1998
This is really a review of the University of Chicago Press' excellent paperback edition: the cover image is of the French painting that gives the sequence it's title, wittily spread over all four titles.Also well-printed and bound. Much better than the crass and tacky TV tie-in dustcover and cheap paper of the English reprint.

Essential reading, 06 Mar 2008
Anthony Powell's reputation has suffered as his snobbery and elitism emerged from his memoirs; his work stands up to Evely Waugh's (another author who was not a nice person) and the Roman a clef element is still fascinating- the Moreland/ Constant Lambert character is wonderfully drawn. I devoured the series while revising for finals in the 1970's and I think the books made me a beter doctor than my reading of Gray's anatomy (the anatomy textbook, not the TV series). As many of the characters are versions of real people I am amazed that one reviewer found them cardboard!!!

Hyped, 14 Jul 2004
A very poor book. The author has gone for width at the expense of depth. The characters are poorly drawn, just a lot of different names stuck on to cardboard cut outs.

Absolutely fantastic serial, 20 Dec 1999
This picks up after Spring and continues the story. This is a must read if you've read Spring - and if not, why not?

Office Politics, 29 Oct 2008
The superficial couplings and separations of the supercilious cast continue through the Second World War. Powell, in keeping with the milieu in which his characters waffle, reduces the greatest conflict of human history to an exercise in office politics. Jenkins, the author's alter ego, drifts aimlessly and ineffectually through different roles while Widmerpool eschewing the opportunity to continue enriching himself puts his appetite for work and prodigious administrative talents at the service of his country. The comparison with Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy cannot be avoided; where Powell's characters live lives of utter pointlessness, Waugh's struggle with a perception of reality that gives both purpose and dread to the quotidian.

An English epic of wartime social history., 23 Mar 1999
I place this work among literary mammoths of our time, including Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet" and Henry Williamson's "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight." My judgment results not merely from this work's great length, but rather in Powell's greatly detailed characters, sprawling plot development and sheer READABILITY. Despite its great length [about 3,000 pages] it still pales in length in comparison to the aforementioned "Chronicle," which at times, plods along and tallies up to approximately 8,000 pages. Bravo to the University of Chicago Press for re-publishing this work in such a beautiful edition, as well. Buy this set and read this wonderful work. You'll enjoy it.

The richest social world I know of in fiction, 29 Jan 1999
First, although I adore this series, I would like to demur from the description of this series as a comedy. Certainly there are many comic situations and laughable characters, but Powell's (pronounced POE-UHL, not POW-UHL) comedy is intended less to make uslaugh than to make ussmile. I know many novels that are far funnier than this one, and if that were the book's only virtue, it would not enjoy the status that it does.

Above all, this is a work that limns in almost tedious detail the interrelations and interworkings of a segment of English society in the 20th century. These first three books take you from the early twenties into the early thirties. Despite the series great length, there is nothing epic about the scale of the novels except for the overall length of of the series as a whole. The scenes are all horribly mundane. A party here, a dinner there, a chance meeting in a bar, more parties, more dinners. But as the parties and dinners multiply, and as one social encounter builds upon another, the series does indeed take on an epic quality.

This new edition is far more attractive than the old mass market edition of the series, but I do wish that someone would have taken the effort to supply an appendix (perhaps to the final volume) that would (as in some editions of Trollope and Proust) explain who all the characters are and to whom they are related. By the sixth volume in the series, I began to find it extremely difficult to remember precisely where each character fit in the social world as a whole.

The greatest virtues of Powell's series are his richly delineated characters (of which there are at least fifty to a hundred who are to some degree significant) and his marvelously elegant prose. I believe that anyone who loves novels would love this series, in particular those who have enjoyed Proust.

One of the very finest of postwar novels!, 07 Jan 1999
As a longtime reader and reviewer [The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, The New Republic, etc.], I must say I am absolutely mesmerized by A Dance to the Music of Time. I am now in the process of reading, sometimes rereading, all twelve novels in this unique, absolutely remarkable work.

BEAUTIFUL EDITION TO KEEP AND TREASURE, 24 Nov 1998
This is really a review of the University of Chicago Press' excellent paperback edition: the cover image is of the French painting that gives the sequence it's title, wittily spread over all four titles.Also well-printed and bound. Much better than the crass and tacky TV tie-in dustcover and cheap paper of the English reprint.

Elegant, humourous observation., 10 Jun 2008
These 12 novels recount episodes in the life of Nicholas Jenkins, generally reckonened to be mostly autobiographical, written from the viewpoint of Jenkins.

The writing is incredibly sensitive, funny and observant. Powell is able to choose words with such precision that a short descriptive sentence can evoke a whole 3-dimensional image. Jenkins comes across as quiet and elegant - a sane man amongst ambitious egoists. He is able to see things, espcially funny things, that the more hurried characters would, one imagines, miss.

The main comical thread of the series is Widmerpool - a rather vulgarly uncouth, larger-than-life character, and public school contemporary of Jenkins. Widmerpool progresses through the ranks of the City and the army, before finally becoming the leader of a hippy cult. He is the very opposite of Jenkins and provides a wonderful foil to his own very reserved nature. Equally memorable is Pamela Flitton - it would be harder to imagine a stronger, more powerful character in all literature.

It is only right at the end of the series that Powell unfortunately gets lost in a whole maze of family and friends detail - such matters had always been important to him, but had hitherto been kept in proper balance. Now we find whole chunks of minutiae, surely only of relevance to people close to Powell. But it is also in these final stages that we encounter the most intense comedy - the whole business of Widmerpool's cult and sad demise.

One of the most breathtaking moments is when we read of a second world war bomb attck in London, in which a bomb tragically hits the home of a friend of Jenkins, killing a number of his friends and loved-ones in the process. At the height of the distressed panic which ensues in the wake of the attack, Powell starts a new chapter - we are at once transported back a couple of decades to the serenity of Jenkins' childhood home. This sudden, contrasting transition from, as it were, 'everything to nothing', makes an incredible impact on the reader.



These books are the business!, 11 Apr 2007
Picked up the video almost at random and thoroughly enjoyed it. Soon after, I bought the books and was utterly entranced. Couldn't put 'em down. Hooked me the way telenovellas hook my Hispanic wife.

Ignore the naysayers: 'The Dance...' may be erudite and literary; but it's perfectly accessible and readable as well.

Interminable but not without merit, 10 Jan 2006
I have to admit that this book has sat by my bedside for about 2 years. I have taken several runs at it not without enjoying many parts of it but it is very off-putting. Sentences are long, rambling and sometimes feel as though the writer was trying very hard to be funny and erudite at the same time. His style is sort of P.G. Wodehouse meets Proust.

Other reviewers suggest that it gets better later on in the other 12 novels. I hope so. I haven't given up on the rest but there is something repellently snobbish about this writer's attitude. He's a very male writer and as a female reader there isn't much to invite me in. It doesn't surprise me that the rave reviews quoted on the jacket are all plaudits from male writers. Evelyn Waugh is a thousand times better from every point of view and this is treading the same territory in many ways.

I will keep going with it since I can see how it will improve but it is rough going.

Another opinion, 15 Sep 2003
I was inspired by the accompanying bad review to write in defence of Powell's first three novels of the 'Dance...' sequence. Even if we accept that the truly outstanding novels of the sequence are from 4-9, the early years of Jenkins, Stringham, Widmerpool etc. are still essential reading. I suppose the superlatives of Powell devotees like myself will always sound a bit obsessive to unbelievers, but the scope and majesty of his 'Dance to the Music of Time' is rivalled only by Waugh's Brideshead in documenting high society and intellectual life between 1914 and 45. Once immersed in Powell's world there is no going back, and no substitute.

Interminable, 11 Jun 2003
As limp, turgid and self-important as it sounds. Read his brief, profoundly nihilistic pre-war comic novels instead, souffles compared to this sludge - they're better than Waugh.

Essential reading, 06 Mar 2008
Anthony Powell's reputation has suffered as his snobbery and elitism emerged from his memoirs; his work stands up to Evely Waugh's (another author who was not a nice person) and the Roman a clef element is still fascinating- the Moreland/ Constant Lambert character is wonderfully drawn. I devoured the series while revising for finals in the 1970's and I think the books made me a beter doctor than my reading of Gray's anatomy (the anatomy textbook, not the TV series). As many of the characters are versions of real people I am amazed that one reviewer found them cardboard!!!

Hyped, 14 Jul 2004
A very poor book. The author has gone for width at the expense of depth. The characters are poorly drawn, just a lot of different names stuck on to cardboard cut outs.

Absolutely fantastic serial, 20 Dec 1999
This picks up after Spring and continues the story. This is a must read if you've read Spring - and if not, why not?

Office Politics, 29 Oct 2008
The superficial couplings and separations of the supercilious cast continue through the Second World War. Powell, in keeping with the milieu in which his characters waffle, reduces the greatest conflict of human history to an exercise in office politics. Jenkins, the author's alter ego, drifts aimlessly and ineffectually through different roles while Widmerpool eschewing the opportunity to continue enriching himself puts his appetite for work and prodigious administrative talents at the service of his country. The comparison with Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy cannot be avoided; where Powell's characters live lives of utter pointlessness, Waugh's struggle with a perception of reality that gives both purpose and dread to the quotidian.

An English epic of wartime social history., 23 Mar 1999
I place this work among literary mammoths of our time, including Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet" and Henry Williamson's "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight." My judgment results not merely from this work's great length, but rather in Powell's greatly detailed characters, sprawling plot development and sheer READABILITY. Despite its great length [about 3,000 pages] it still pales in length in comparison to the aforementioned "Chronicle," which at times, plods along and tallies up to approximately 8,000 pages. Bravo to the University of Chicago Press for re-publishing this work in such a beautiful edition, as well. Buy this set and read this wonderful work. You'll enjoy it.

The richest social world I know of in fiction, 29 Jan 1999
First, although I adore this series, I would like to demur from the description of this series as a comedy. Certainly there are many comic situations and laughable characters, but Powell's (pronounced POE-UHL, not POW-UHL) comedy is intended less to make uslaugh than to make ussmile. I know many novels that are far funnier than this one, and if that were the book's only virtue, it would not enjoy the status that it does.

Above all, this is a work that limns in almost tedious detail the interrelations and interworkings of a segment of English society in the 20th century. These first three books take you from the early twenties into the early thirties. Despite the series great length, there is nothing epic about the scale of the novels except for the overall length of of the series as a whole. The scenes are all horribly mundane. A party here, a dinner there, a chance meeting in a bar, more parties, more dinners. But as the parties and dinners multiply, and as one social encounter builds upon another, the series does indeed take on an epic quality.

This new edition is far more attractive than the old mass market edition of the series, but I do wish that someone would have taken the effort to supply an appendix (perhaps to the final volume) that would (as in some editions of Trollope and Proust) explain who all the characters are and to whom they are related. By the sixth volume in the series, I began to find it extremely difficult to remember precisely where each character fit in the social world as a whole.

The greatest virtues of Powell's series are his richly delineated characters (of which there are at least fifty to a hundred who are to some degree significant) and his marvelously elegant prose. I believe that anyone who loves novels would love this series, in particular those who have enjoyed Proust.

One of the very finest of postwar novels!, 07 Jan 1999
As a longtime reader and reviewer [The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, The New Republic, etc.], I must say I am absolutely mesmerized by A Dance to the Music of Time. I am now in the process of reading, sometimes rereading, all twelve novels in this unique, absolutely remarkable work.

BEAUTIFUL EDITION TO KEEP AND TREASURE, 24 Nov 1998
This is really a review of the University of Chicago Press' excellent paperback edition: the cover image is of the French painting that gives the sequence it's title, wittily spread over all four titles.Also well-printed and bound. Much better than the crass and tacky TV tie-in dustcover and cheap paper of the English reprint.

Elegant, humourous observation., 10 Jun 2008
These 12 novels recount episodes in the life of Nicholas Jenkins, generally reckonened to be mostly autobiographical, written from the viewpoint of Jenkins.

The writing is incredibly sensitive, funny and observant. Powell is able to choose words with such precision that a short descriptive sentence can evoke a whole 3-dimensional image. Jenkins comes across as quiet and elegant - a sane man amongst ambitious egoists. He is able to see things, espcially funny things, that the more hurried characters would, one imagines, miss.

The main comical thread of the series is Widmerpool - a rather vulgarly uncouth, larger-than-life character, and public school contemporary of Jenkins. Widmerpool progresses through the ranks of the City and the army, before finally becoming the leader of a hippy cult. He is the very opposite of Jenkins and provides a wonderful foil to his own very reserved nature. Equally memorable is Pamela Flitton - it would be harder to imagine a stronger, more powerful character in all literature.

It is only right at the end of the series that Powell unfortunately gets lost in a whole maze of family and friends detail - such matters had always been important to him, but had hitherto been kept in proper balance. Now we find whole chunks of minutiae, surely only of relevance to people close to Powell. But it is also in these final stages that we encounter the most intense comedy - the whole business of Widmerpool's cult and sad demise.

One of the most breathtaking moments is when we read of a second world war bomb attck in London, in which a bomb tragically hits the home of a friend of Jenkins, killing a number of his friends and loved-ones in the process. At the height of the distressed panic which ensues in the wake of the attack, Powell starts a new chapter - we are at once transported back a couple of decades to the serenity of Jenkins' childhood home. This sudden, contrasting transition from, as it were, 'everything to nothing', makes an incredible impact on the reader.



These books are the business!, 11 Apr 2007
Picked up the video almost at random and thoroughly enjoyed it. Soon after, I bought the books and was utterly entranced. Couldn't put 'em down. Hooked me the way telenovellas hook my Hispanic wife.

Ignore the naysayers: 'The Dance...' may be erudite and literary; but it's perfectly accessible and readable as well.

Interminable but not without merit, 10 Jan 2006
I have to admit that this book has sat by my bedside for about 2 years. I have taken several runs at it not without enjoying many parts of it but it is very off-putting. Sentences are long, rambling and sometimes feel as though the writer was trying very hard to be funny and erudite at the same time. His style is sort of P.G. Wodehouse meets Proust.

Other reviewers suggest that it gets better later on in the other 12 novels. I hope so. I haven't given up on the rest but there is something repellently snobbish about this writer's attitude. He's a very male writer and as a female reader there isn't much to invite me in. It doesn't surprise me that the rave reviews quoted on the jacket are all plaudits from male writers. Evelyn Waugh is a thousand times better from every point of view and this is treading the same territory in many ways.

I will keep going with it since I can see how it will improve but it is rough going.

Another opinion, 15 Sep 2003
I was inspired by the accompanying bad review to write in defence of Powell's first three novels of the 'Dance...' sequence. Even if we accept that the truly outstanding novels of the sequence are from 4-9, the early years of Jenkins, Stringham, Widmerpool etc. are still essential reading. I suppose the superlatives of Powell devotees like myself will always sound a bit obsessive to unbelievers, but the scope and majesty of his 'Dance to the Music of Time' is rivalled only by Waugh's Brideshead in documenting high society and intellectual life between 1914 and 45. Once immersed in Powell's world there is no going back, and no substitute.

Interminable, 11 Jun 2003
As limp, turgid and self-important as it sounds. Read his brief, profoundly nihilistic pre-war comic novels instead, souffles compared to this sludge - they're better than Waugh.

An excellent start, 04 Oct 2008
This is the first of a splendid series of novels, dealing with the youth of what are to become the central characters; Jenkins, Templar, Quiggin, Members, Stringham and Widmerpool. We see clues to their future development; notably Widmerpool's manipulative nature and lust for power. If you have only seen the TV version, as good as it is, it is highly abbreviated and misses out the French episode. It is a pleasure to read, and never seems too long.

A little something to whet the appetite..., 10 Feb 2008
As the first of a 12-book sequence Powell can be forgiven for not packing this book with action. Instead we meander pleasurably through Jenkins' years of education and are given the first tempting insights into the characters that surround him.
I would have given this 5 stars but for the poor quality binding. Horrid stiff covers and pages coming loose at the bottom after just one reading.

Persevere, enter its world, the rewards are great, 05 Nov 2007
A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell's "A Question of Upbringing" is the first part of his mammoth twelve novel epic "A Dance to the Music of Time". He writes with wit, humour and not a little sarcasm, describing a quintessential Englishness that perhaps was never representative of the society and has, arguably, disappeared. He wrote this first volume in 1951 and, though the book starts with a London scene from that era, the majority of the book deals with the characters' school and university experiences and recalls a time passed.

The main character is Jenkins. I will follow the author's lead and use surnames only for males, surnames plus titles for married, older or otherwise unavailable women, and Christian names for eligible women, whether they be of a certain class or prone to wear flowery dresses while standing next to post boxes in the street. As his friend, Stringham, discovered, even some of the surname plus title women at times can prove highly eligible.

The book's form is both simple and intriguing. It is so effective we almost miss the ingenuity of its construction. There are just four chapters, each in excess of fifty pages and each focused on one particular episode. We have school, a social gathering, a holiday in France and college undergraduate life. Powell's writing has such a lightness of touch that we forget how intensely we are invited to analyse the circumstances of each chapter and how penetratingly we discover the characters' lives. There is considerable innuendo, much gossip and usually piles of money, along with social status and influence wrapped up in every household.

The quintessence of their Englishness, like characters in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, arises out of their apparent inability to question - or perhaps even notice - their privilege. It's a state they inhabit without either reflection or gratitude, so much taken for granted that it lies beyond doubt, its achievement apparently assumed, not expected. School means one of the better "public" schools. Going "up to university" assumes Oxbridge as a right, though Powell tinges this with the perennial blight of the English upper classes, intellectual paucity, by having several of his keen entrants "decide" not to complete a degree. One assumes that many of the others will take thirds before assuming their company chairs or ministerial portfolios. The army figures large in family histories, always at officer class, of course, and so does the City, where one can always become "something". Even Americans, however, can be described as having "millionaire pedigree" on both sides, an economic status that presumably compensates for what is otherwise a palpable lack of breeding. When family members do not assume expected and assumed heights, they are referred to in hushed tones, the words "black sheep" perhaps not politically or at least socially correct even then.

But if this really was a quintessence of Englishness, it was a pretty rare ingredient. Maybe one or two per cent of the population went to the right school. Only about five or six per cent attended higher education of any sort, let alone a university one "went up to". Neither Sandhurst nor corporate board rooms were populated by the masses. (They still aren't!) And so this was a quintessence of separateness, of rarefied heights in an extended class system and, certainly by the 1950s, some of these peaks had been scaled by other aspirants, using new climbing techniques eschewed by the incumbents of years.

And so "A Question of Upbringing" reveals its duality. It's a tale that celebrates a time lost, a nostalgic peek into a remembered adolescence where a hand placed apparently carelessly and always momentarily upon that of a member of the opposite sex remained a daring highpoint of teenage years.

Nostalgia is always tinged with loss, however. Early in the book, Powell describes the school thus: "Silted-up residues of the years smouldered interruptedly - and not without melancholy - in the maroon brickwork of these medieval closes: beyond the cobbles and archways of which (in a more northerly direction) memory also brooded, no less enigmatic and inconsolable, among water-meadows and avenues of trees: the sombre demands of the past becoming at times almost suffocating in their insistence."

And how about this for a presumption of affluence: "It was a rather gloomy double-fronted façade in a small street near Berkeley Square: the pillars of the entrance flanked on either side with hollow cones for the linkmen to extinguish their torches." And we notice we are in a different age when Powell has his lads pick up two girls off the street to joy-ride in a new Vauxhall. Without a suggestion of tongue-in-cheek or indeed relish he can write that: "The girls could not have made more noise if they had been having their throats cut."

When I first read Anthony Powell, I could not get past my ingrained hatred of this class and its power-assuming, wealth-inheriting inhabitants. It was a country that was not mine. I come to it now a little wiser and a little richer myself, richer in experience at least, and now I can appreciate the irony that my previous naivety ignored. I now look forward with some relish to the next eleven episodes. "A Dance to the Music of Time" is certainly a masterpiece to be revisited.


The most overrated series of novels ever?, 26 Sep 2007
Young fogey Jenkins (the worlds most aged teenager) narrates his uneventful life in Eton and Oxford. Devoid of much emotional or intellectual life, shielded from history (though not class prejuduce), he manages a few witty character observations before a boring holiday in France and a flat ending. How anyone makes it to book 2 (let alone book 12) is beyond me.
Comparisons with Joyce and Proust are excruciatingly wide of the mark. Waugh is a genius in comparison with this minor effort (this books "literary" merit seems miniscule to me). Powell has a witty eye and captures some speech well, but the book is flabby, dated and poorly structured.

Slow introduction to a literary wonderland, 03 Apr 2007
"A Question of Upbringing" is the first volume in Anthony Powell's 12-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time". The latter is a kind of English "A la Recherche du Temps perdu" - an elegaic look back across a life stretching through much of 20thC English history, teeming with fascinating and entertaining characters.

Unfortunately, "A Question of Upbringing" is a bit slow, and lacks much of the humour of later volumes. Not much happens: the narrator goes to school, then university. He has a frustrated romantic encounter in France and we meet key characters who will resurface later. But it's worth persevering, because the next few volumes (see my reviews!) are much better, and infinitely funnier.

Pros: gentle introduction to a masterpiece. Cons: a bit dull, though elegant in parts.

Essential reading, 06 Mar 2008
Anthony Powell's reputation has suffered as his snobbery and elitism emerged from his memoirs; his work stands up to Evely Waugh's (another author who was not a nice person) and the Roman a clef element is still fascinating- the Moreland/ Constant Lambert character is wonderfully drawn. I devoured the series while revising for finals in the 1970's and I think the books made me a beter doctor than my reading of Gray's anatomy (the anatomy textbook, not the TV series). As many of the characters are versions of real people I am amazed that one reviewer found them cardboard!!!

Hyped, 14 Jul 2004
A very poor book. The author has gone for width at the expense of depth. The characters are poorly drawn, just a lot of different names stuck on to cardboard cut outs.

Absolutely fantastic serial, 20 Dec 1999
This picks up after Spring and continues the story. This is a must read if you've read Spring - and if not, why not?

Office Politics, 29 Oct 2008
The superficial couplings and separations of the supercilious cast continue through the Second World War. Powell, in keeping with the milieu in which his characters waffle, reduces the greatest conflict of human history to an exercise in office politics. Jenkins, the author's alter ego, drifts aimlessly and ineffectually through different roles while Widmerpool eschewing the opportunity to continue enriching himself puts his appetite for work and prodigious administrative talents at the service of his country. The comparison with Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy cannot be avoided; where Powell's characters live lives of utter pointlessness, Waugh's struggle with a perception of reality that gives both purpose and dread to the quotidian.

An English epic of wartime social history., 23 Mar 1999
I place this work among literary mammoths of our time, including Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet" and Henry Williamson's "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight." My judgment results not merely from this work's great length, but rather in Powell's greatly detailed characters, sprawling plot development and sheer READABILITY. Despite its great length [about 3,000 pages] it still pales in length in comparison to the aforementioned "Chronicle," which at times, plods along and tallies up to approximately 8,000 pages. Bravo to the University of Chicago Press for re-publishing this work in such a beautiful edition, as well. Buy this set and read this wonderful work. You'll enjoy it.

The richest social world I know of in fiction, 29 Jan 1999
First, although I adore this series, I would like to demur from the description of this series as a comedy. Certainly there are many comic situations and laughable characters, but Powell's (pronounced POE-UHL, not POW-UHL) comedy is intended less to make uslaugh than to make ussmile. I know many novels that are far funnier than this one, and if that were the book's only virtue, it would not enjoy the status that it does.

Above all, this is a work that limns in almost tedious detail the interrelations and interworkings of a segment of English society in the 20th century. These first three books take you from the early twenties into the early thirties. Despite the series great length, there is nothing epic about the scale of the novels except for the overall length of of the series as a whole. The scenes are all horribly mundane. A party here, a dinner there, a chance meeting in a bar, more parties, more dinners. But as the parties and dinners multiply, and as one social encounter builds upon another, the series does indeed take on an epic quality.

This new edition is far more attractive than the old mass market edition of the series, but I do wish that someone would have taken the effort to supply an appendix (perhaps to the final volume) that would (as in some editions of Trollope and Proust) explain who all the characters are and to whom they are related. By the sixth volume in the series, I began to find it extremely difficult to remember precisely where each character fit in the social world as a whole.

The greatest virtues of Powell's series are his richly delineated characters (of which there are at least fifty to a hundred who are to some degree significant) and his marvelously elegant prose. I believe that anyone who loves novels would love this series, in particular those who have enjoyed Proust.

One of the very finest of postwar novels!, 07 Jan 1999
As a longtime reader and reviewer [The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, The New Republic, etc.], I must say I am absolutely mesmerized by A Dance to the Music of Time. I am now in the process of reading, sometimes rereading, all twelve novels in this unique, absolutely remarkable work.

BEAUTIFUL EDITION TO KEEP AND TREASURE, 24 Nov 1998
This is really a review of the University of Chicago Press' excellent paperback edition: the cover image is of the French painting that gives the sequence it's title, wittily spread over all four titles.Also well-printed and bound. Much better than the crass and tacky TV tie-in dustcover and cheap paper of the English reprint.

Elegant, humourous observation., 10 Jun 2008
These 12 novels recount episodes in the life of Nicholas Jenkins, generally reckonened to be mostly autobiographical, written from the viewpoint of Jenkins.

The writing is incredibly sensitive, funny and observant. Powell is able to choose words with such precision that a short descriptive sentence can evoke a whole 3-dimensional image. Jenkins comes across as quiet and elegant - a sane man amongst ambitious egoists. He is able to see things, espcially funny things, that the more hurried characters would, one imagines, miss.

The main comical thread of the series is Widmerpool - a rather vulgarly uncouth, larger-than-life character, and public school contemporary of Jenkins. Widmerpool progresses through the ranks of the City and the army, before finally becoming the leader of a hippy cult. He is the very opposite of Jenkins and provides a wonderful foil to his own very reserved nature. Equally memorable is Pamela Flitton - it would be harder to imagine a stronger, more powerful character in all literature.

It is only right at the end of the series that Powell unfortunately gets lost in a whole maze of family and friends detail - such matters had always been important to him, but had hitherto been kept in proper balance. Now we find whole chunks of minutiae, surely only of relevance to people close to Powell. But it is also in these final stages that we encounter the most intense comedy - the whole business of Widmerpool's cult and sad demise.

One of the most breathtaking moments is when we read of a second world war bomb attck in London, in which a bomb tragically hits the home of a friend of Jenkins, killing a number of his friends and loved-ones in the process. At the height of the distressed panic which ensues in the wake of the attack, Powell starts a new chapter - we are at once transported back a couple of decades to the serenity of Jenkins' childhood home. This sudden, contrasting transition from, as it were, 'everything to nothing', makes an incredible impact on the reader.



These books are the business!, 11 Apr 2007
Picked up the video almost at random and thoroughly enjoyed it. Soon after, I bought the books and was utterly entranced. Couldn't put 'em down. Hooked me the way telenovellas hook my Hispanic wife.

Ignore the naysayers: 'The Dance...' may be erudite and literary; but it's perfectly accessible and readable as well.

Interminable but not without merit, 10 Jan 2006
I have to admit that this book has sat by my bedside for about 2 years. I have taken several runs at it not without enjoying many parts of it but it is very off-putting. Sentences are long, rambling and sometimes feel as though the writer was trying very hard to be funny and erudite at the same time. His style is sort of P.G. Wodehouse meets Proust.

Other reviewers suggest that it gets better later on in the other 12 novels. I hope so. I haven't given up on the rest but there is something repellently snobbish about this writer's attitude. He's a very male writer and as a female reader there isn't much to invite me in. It doesn't surprise me that the rave reviews quoted on the jacket are all plaudits from male writers. Evelyn Waugh is a thousand times better from every point of view and this is treading the same territory in many ways.

I will keep going with it since I can see how it will improve but it is rough going.

Another opinion, 15 Sep 2003
I was inspired by the accompanying bad review to write in defence of Powell's first three novels of the 'Dance...' sequence. Even if we accept that the truly outstanding novels of the sequence are from 4-9, the early years of Jenkins, Stringham, Widmerpool etc. are still essential reading. I suppose the superlatives of Powell devotees like myself will always sound a bit obsessive to unbelievers, but the scope and majesty of his 'Dance to the Music of Time' is rivalled only by Waugh's Brideshead in documenting high society and intellectual life between 1914 and 45. Once immersed in Powell's world there is no going back, and no substitute.

Interminable, 11 Jun 2003
As limp, turgid and self-important as it sounds. Read his brief, profoundly nihilistic pre-war comic novels instead, souffles compared to this sludge - they're better than Waugh.

An excellent start, 04 Oct 2008
This is the first of a splendid series of novels, dealing with the youth of what are to become the central characters; Jenkins, Templar, Quiggin, Members, Stringham and Widmerpool. We see clues to their future development; notably Widmerpool's manipulative nature and lust for power. If you have only seen the TV version, as good as it is, it is highly abbreviated and misses out the French episode. It is a pleasure to read, and never seems too long.

A little something to whet the appetite..., 10 Feb 2008
As the first of a 12-book sequence Powell can be forgiven for not packing this book with action. Instead we meander pleasurably through Jenkins' years of education and are given the first tempting insights into the characters that surround him.
I would have given this 5 stars but for the poor quality binding. Horrid stiff covers and pages coming loose at the bottom after just one reading.

Persevere, enter its world, the rewards are great, 05 Nov 2007
A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell's "A Question of Upbringing" is the first part of his mammoth twelve novel epic "A Dance to the Music of Time". He writes with wit, humour and not a little sarcasm, describing a quintessential Englishness that perhaps was never representative of the society and has, arguably, disappeared. He wrote this first volume in 1951 and, though the book starts with a London scene from that era, the majority of the book deals with the characters' school and university experiences and recalls a time passed.

The main character is Jenkins. I will follow the author's lead and use surnames only for males, surnames plus titles for married, older or otherwise unavailable women, and Christian names for eligible women, whether they be of a certain class or prone to wear flowery dresses while standing next to post boxes in the street. As his friend, Stringham, discovered, even some of the surname plus title women at times can prove highly eligible.

The book's form is both simple and intriguing. It is so effective we almost miss the ingenuity of its construction. There are just four chapters, each in excess of fifty pages and each focused on one particular episode. We have school, a social gathering, a holiday in France and college undergraduate life. Powell's writing has such a lightness of touch that we forget how intensely we are invited to analyse the circumstances of each chapter and how penetratingly we discover the characters' lives. There is considerable innuendo, much gossip and usually piles of money, along with social status and influence wrapped up in every household.

The quintessence of their Englishness, like characters in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, arises out of their apparent inability to question - or perhaps even notice - their privilege. It's a state they inhabit without either reflection or gratitude, so much taken for granted that it lies beyond doubt, its achievement apparently assumed, not expected. School means one of the better "public" schools. Going "up to university" assumes Oxbridge as a right, though Powell tinges this with the perennial blight of the English upper classes, intellectual paucity, by having several of his keen entrants "decide" not to complete a degree. One assumes that many of the others will take thirds before assuming their company chairs or ministerial portfolios. The army figures large in family histories, always at officer class, of course, and so does the City, where one can always become "something". Even Americans, however, can be described as having "millionaire pedigree" on both sides, an economic status that presumably compensates for what is otherwise a palpable lack of breeding. When family members do not assume expected and assumed heights, they are referred to in hushed tones, the words "black sheep" perhaps not politically or at least socially correct even then.

But if this really was a quintessence of Englishness, it was a pretty rare ingredient. Maybe one or two per cent of the population went to the right school. Only about five or six per cent attended higher education of any sort, let alone a university one "went up to". Neither Sandhurst nor corporate board rooms were populated by the masses. (They still aren't!) And so this was a quintessence of separateness, of rarefied heights in an extended class system and, certainly by the 1950s, some of these peaks had been scaled by other aspirants, using new climbing techniques eschewed by the incumbents of years.

And so "A Question of Upbringing" reveals its duality. It's a tale that celebrates a time lost, a nostalgic peek into a remembered adolescence where a hand placed apparently carelessly and always momentarily upon that of a member of the opposite sex remained a daring highpoint of teenage years.

Nostalgia is always tinged with loss, however. Early in the book, Powell describes the school thus: "Silted-up residues of the years smouldered interruptedly - and not without melancholy - in the maroon brickwork of these medieval closes: beyond the cobbles and archways of which (in a more northerly direction) memory also brooded, no less enigmatic and inconsolable, among water-meadows and avenues of trees: the sombre demands of the past becoming at times almost suffocating in their insistence."

And how about this for a presumption of affluence: "It was a rather gloomy double-fronted façade in a small street near Berkeley Square: the pillars of the entrance flanked on either side with hollow cones for the linkmen to extinguish their torches." And we notice we are in a different age when Powell has his lads pick up two girls off the street to joy-ride in a new Vauxhall. Without a suggestion of tongue-in-cheek or indeed relish he can write that: "The girls could not have made more noise if they had been having their throats cut."

When I first read Anthony Powell, I could not get past my ingrained hatred of this class and its power-assuming, wealth-inheriting inhabitants. It was a country that was not mine. I come to it now a little wiser and a little richer myself, richer in experience at least, and now I can appreciate the irony that my previous naivety ignored. I now look forward with some relish to the next eleven episodes. "A Dance to the Music of Time" is certainly a masterpiece to be revisited.


The most overrated series of novels ever?, 26 Sep 2007
Young fogey Jenkins (the worlds most aged teenager) narrates his uneventful life in Eton and Oxford. Devoid of much emotional or intellectual life, shielded from history (though not class prejuduce), he manages a few witty character observations before a boring holiday in France and a flat ending. How anyone makes it to book 2 (let alone book 12) is beyond me.
Comparisons with Joyce and Proust are excruciatingly wide of the mark. Waugh is a genius in comparison with this minor effort (this books "literary" merit seems miniscule to me). Powell has a witty eye and captures some speech well, but the book is flabby, dated and poorly structured.

Slow introduction to a literary wonderland, 03 Apr 2007
"A Question of Upbringing" is the first volume in Anthony Powell's 12-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time". The latter is a kind of English "A la Recherche du Temps perdu" - an elegaic look back across a life stretching through much of 20thC English history, teeming with fascinating and entertaining characters.

Unfortunately, "A Question of Upbringing" is a bit slow, and lacks much of the humour of later volumes. Not much happens: the narrator goes to school, then university. He has a frustrated romantic encounter in France and we meet key characters who will resurface later. But it's worth persevering, because the next few volumes (see my reviews!) are much better, and infinitely funnier.

Pros: gentle introduction to a masterpiece. Cons: a bit dull, though elegant in parts.

The dance speeds up, 02 Apr 2007
"A Buyer's Market" is the second volume of Anthony Powell's magisterial "Dance to the Music of Time" (see my review of volume 1, "A Question of Upbringing"). If volume 1 is slow, volume 2 shows the series gradually developing momentum, with a series of humorous set-pieces interspersed with disturbing, almost macabre episodes as the narrator moves through the high society of inter-war London. Powell begins to introduce more bizarre characters and previously marginal figures such as Widmerpool begin to move to centre-stage. Apart from his exquisite dry humour, Powell also begins to show off his literary skills. Look at Max Pilgrim's song at 4 a.m. at a ball in Eaton Square:

Even the fairies
Say how sweet my hair is;
They mess my mascara and pinch the peroxide.
I know a coward
Would be overpowered,
When they all offer to be orthodox. I'd
Like to be kind but say: 'Some other day, dears;
Pansies for thoughts remain still the best way, dears.'

It's about half-way through "A Buyer's Market" that you realise you're going to have to buy all 12 volumes of "A Dance to the Music of Time".