Well, with the Blandings Castle saga behind me, I have decided to embark on yet another saga, this one quite different. It is, however, also set in England and it covers the period from 1921 to the 1960's. I'm talking about Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series of twelve novels, or a novel in twelve parts. The twelve books in the series are often divided into four "seasons" of three books each. These three book omnibuses are how I purchased the books - and yes, not having learned my lesson with the Lonesome Dove saga, I purchased the entire series from Abe Books in one go.
The blurb says that the "...sequence chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations." As someone who finds Britain in the first half of the last century as my favorite place and time, this sounded like a series right up my alley. I came across it in the Axillary Memory blog of James Wallace Harris, and you can read his far more thoughtful reviews of the books; here, here, and here.
In this installment I will talk about the first three novels/installments of the series A Dance to to the Music of Time: Spring. that I have read to date. I will keep any insights gained from reading further books to when I read them, or the final entry, however far I get. Thus, what you read here is only how I viewed the work after reading Spring. My impressions may change as I go along.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
 |
| A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin |
First some notes on how I'm approaching this project.
I will treat this as one novel in 12 parts. Having read the first three novels, I think that each "novel" does not stand on its own very well, and since reading them in order is essential, as characters introduced in the first book, appear and reappear throughout the stories, Without their context from the previous books, their situations would not make a great deal of sense. And since I am treating this as a single novel, I will grade it only after I have read all of the books, or when I stop reading them, whichever comes first.
I'm reviewing these novels in sets of three, as published in the omnibus versions I purchased. They are designated by the four seasons, and each three novel set seems to cover a decade or so. I am going to treat each of the three "novels" as installments in the 12 part novel. I don't know how many installments I will read back to back without a break. We'll find out.
The stories seem to be semi-autobiographical. Semi in that from what I've read about the author in Wikipedia, the first three stories somewhat reflect the course of the author's life. I suspect that he took people and incidents from his life to use and manipulate to create this work of fiction. For example, while the author went to Eton, the narrator of these stories, Nicholas Jenkins, certainly did not. That said, both went to university, (unnamed in the book) and both worked for a publisher of art books, and both wrote a novel while doing so. So yes, there are parallels, ones that we might explore later on.
The concept of the story is inspired by the painting above. It is a work by Nicolas Poussin entitled A Dance to the Music of Time, painted around 1634-36 The idea is that just as the dancers begin to dance in a circle, and then, one by one each leaves the circle to dance alone before returning to the circle, so do the people one knows, entering and leaving one's life off and on throughout it. There is no doubt a lot more symbolism in the painting, and certainly in the books, but I have a feeling that most of that goes over my poor head.
A Dance to the Music of Time: Spring by Anthony PowellThis volume includes:
A Question of Upbringing (1951)
A Buyer's Market (1952)
The Acceptance World (1955)
These three books or installments cover the time period from about 1921 to 1930 - the final installment mentions the "slump" which I take to be the stock market crash of 1929 in the States. They cover this period like a stone skipped over a still pond; each book is divided into 4 or 5 chapters, each concerns on a certain narrowly focused incident or situation - a dance or a dinner party. Months, if not years, separate the events described within each book, with the intervening period mentioned only in passing. Thus, we are treated to a series of snapshots, rather than any sort of narrative of Britain of the time.
A Question of Upbringing begins with the narrator, Jenkins, in an unnamed boarding school where we are introduced to a cast of fellow students, and other characters who will reappear regularly through the following years. After school he is sent to France to live in a boarding house to learn French, then attends university.
In Buyer's Market and The Acceptance World we find that he has moved to London and is working for a publishing company that publishes art books. By the end of this set, he has published his first novel, though it is mentioned only in passing, and is carrying on an affair with the separated wife of someone who he once met briefly.
As I mentioned above, these snapshots which comprise the format of the novel usually cover a single episode in his life and their immediate ramifications. We are treated to a view of life in British upper society, though as the son of an army officer, Jenkins' status is rather undefined. Apparently he comes from a family good enough to be invited to the dances of the upper class. We also get glimpses of the artsy society and left wing political activity. As an eligible bachelor he is is invited to the dinners and balls of "The Season" where the daughters of the rich are formally introduce to society to begin their quest for a suitable husband. Along the way we are introduced to many more reoccurring characters from different parts of his life. If, like my wife, you are need to take notes to keep the characters straight in a mystery story, you might want to have a notebook handy when reading these stories, as they are claimed to have a cast of 300 characters. I just go with the flow, the main characters are on stage often enough, and the side characters, are, well, side characters.
As for Powell's writing style, a passage more or less at random will illustrate it: "That illusion, such as a point of view was, in due course, to appear - was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments. As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all; so that, at last diversity between them, if in truth existent, seems to be almost imperceptible except in a few crude and exterior ways: unthinkable, as formerly appeared, any singe consideration of cause and effect."
In short, this is literary fiction. While my selection might have been chosen for its meandering depths, much of the writing is along the same lines; wordy and thoughtful. No doubt there is a lot of food for thought in these stories, if you care to invest in the time to extract it, though I must confess that my eyes rather glaze over upon coming on passages like this, content to merely get the gist of it. If that. Que sera, sera.
Because this is a first person narrative, Jenkins spends a lot to ink pondering what is going on in all other characters' minds, and in their lives, throughout the story. Indeed the major focus of the stories is speculation on what other people are thinking, why they are doing what they are doing, and what they hope to accomplish, as he encounters them off and on over the years. I will say that the third novel, written several years after the first two, moves at a somewhat brisker pace than the first two, and I have hopes that future installments will have a bit less naval gazing and more dialogue in them.
My initial hope with these books was to get a sense of Britain in this time period, and I suppose I am; a sliver of it from a certain class of people. Even so, it is interesting enough. My biggest complaint so far is that there has not been one glimpse of joy in the stories he choses to tell, and not a lot of humor, that I can detect, anyway, so far. However, we have only begun and anything can happen as it goes along.
A small point; in one of the episodes, Jenkins, after attending a ball, runs into an artist friend and his girl helper late at night, and he is invited to join them to get a cup of coffee at "the stall by Hyde Park Corner," where they meet another friend of Jenkins. Many years ago I painted that very stall by Hyde Park Corner, base on a photo in the book, The Spirit of London by Paul Cohen-Portheim (photo #101 2 A.M. At Hyde Park Corner.) I have reproduced my ink painting below.
Coming up next week: A Dance to the Music of Time: Summer
No comments:
Post a Comment