A Dance to the Music of Time

A Dance to the Music of Time
Series of 12 books
by Anthony Powell
read: 2011
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #43, Guardian 1000 Novels, James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for At Lady Molly's)

Atonement reminded me of A Dance to the Music of Time, particularly how the lives of the characters were disrupted by the war.  But while the characters in Atonement are mired in the blood and guts of the conflict, narrator Nick Jenkins is mired in red tape.  The war effort is not spared author Anthony Powell's dry wit, and Jenkins spends his time sending paperwork to embassies, helping a lovelorn officer, and (as always) trying to avoid being swept up in Kenneth Widmerpool's machinations.  But it's not all humor; many friends and family members die in the War, and the reader gets the impression that their lives were snuffed out with their stories yet untold, much as a person living then would.

I spent a long time with these books.  None were particularly long but there were twelve of them.  Most had themes, and often the story jumped between time exploring those themes.  For instance, the first book "A Questioning of Upbringing" concerns Nick's relationship with schoolmates Peter Templar and Charles Stringham and issues of class, "The Kindly Ones" features the occult, especially embodied in the odd Doctor Trelawney, and "Temporary Kings" deals with themes of sexual deviance.  Each book can be read as a standalone work, especially since narrator Nick is largely a background character, but reading it in sequence you become fond of the different characters, even the officious, manipulative Widmerpool.

I feel like making this entry a lot longer, to preserve my memory of the characters and the episodes in the different books.  But it's hard to know where to start.  I think I'll just leave it in my memory so I can return to it when prompted, as the narrator is at the very beginning of the novel.