The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 22 October 2015
by Anthony Powell
Visual art runs through Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time the way music runs through Proust's In Search of Lost Time. To the narrator, Nick Jenkins, tableaux at parties suggest compositions from classic works. Deep moods, scenery and the nature of Time in our lives, all of these suggest or are suggested by certain paintings and sculptures. So, it is fitting that, in the opening of the second volume, Jenkins encounters a few abandoned works, at a seedy auction house, by an artist he has encountered all his life. Indeed, Mr Deacon's remaining years and his dissolution are an overarching theme in this book. In four broad chapters, the author highlights a handful of momentary events spanning a couple years of his young adulthood. There are several parties and gatherings, a couple of weddings and other transitional events. There are seemingly countless characters, some familiar from A Question of Upbringing, and some introduced here. Jenkins is, for the moment, in a transitional state himself, trying to settle on a career editing art books, while yearning for the kind of success that some of his friends have come by seemingly with more ease. On the other hand, there are signs that some of these friends, among them Stringham, Templar, and the ubiquitous Widmerpool, are on paths to burning out quickly. The elder Mr Deacon serves as a model and object lesson. His art never had much success, and he goes about with characters of questionable repute and who are yet also objects of a curious desire on the part of Jenkins. Much of what transpires, too, is hung upon the thread of Jenkins's growing understanding of relationships with women. He has a furtive, almost pining, interest in the women he encounters, from cultured Barbara Goring to scruffy Gypsy Jones. In the meantime, again, his friends seem to be moving full speed ahead in their own relationships. We are not meant to get a truly complete image of what Jenkins is like, his conversation, his family, or his career. He is very much an observer. But his needs, his desires do rise to the surface. It is a deft performance on the part of the author.
This is the second instalment of a twelve-volume saga. The books look back on a life lived in the upper-middle-class and educated culture of the first half and more of the 20th century. The language is often dense, but articulate, given to British precision, but also subtle and observant. Recommended.
Also by Anthony Powell: [A Question of Upbringing] [The Acceptance World] [At Lady Molly's] [Casanova's Chinese Restaurant] [The Kindly Ones]
[The Valley of Bones] [The Soldier's Art] [The Military Philosophers]