A Dance to the Music of Time written by Anthony Powell | 1951-1962 | available from Amazon reviewed by Lebby Eyres uploaded: 10-01-2006 Lebby Eyres gives her verdict on the first six books of Anthony Powell's superb 12-novel masterpiece I joined a book club about two years ago, but for the past year and a bit I’m afraid I’ve only been going along for the wine and the gossip, having failed to finish any of the books on offer. The reason for this? I’ve been ploughing my way through Anthony Powell’s 12-book masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. Well, ploughing is really the wrong word, as it does give the impression of steady consistency. In fact, it has taken me a shamefully long time to read those 1000-odd pages. I started Spring (A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer’s Market and The Acceptance World) in Scotland in September 2003. I finished it in Egypt in September 2004. Happily, I can say, though, that Summer (At Lady Molly’s, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant and The Kindly Ones) was started in September and finished this Christmas. The problem is, A Dance to the Music of Time really isn’t the kind of book you want to read slowly. As the blurb on the dust jacket boasts, the “12-novel sequence chronicles the lives of over 300 characters”. Indeed, it can be very hard to remember who’s who if you don’t read at speed. Luckily, there is one main character, Nicholas Jenkins, the narrator. In Spring and Summer, we follow him from school days to Uni to marriage, then back to boyhood and forward to the eve of the Second World War. During the post and pre-war years of the twenties and thirties, Nicholas meets a vast amount of people, most of whom exist on the fringes of an upper crust social world – artists, musicians, actors and novelists, all struggling to the top of the pile – while the aristos already at the top struggle to stay there as political events rock their stable, privileged world. There’s Widmerpool, the unattractive school outcast who ends up with the surprisingly successful career; Stringham, once so self-assured but now led by the bottle, and Peter Templer, the charming lothario who ends up driving his pretty wife mad. Through chance meetings at restaurants and dinner parties, Nick keeps up with his friends, charting their lives as he charts his. If this all sounds a little male-centric, well, it is. Of course, there are plenty of female characters who come and go, but for the most part they are foils for the men: wives, mistresses, girlfriends, hostesses and the like. Nicholas has been married for the majority of Summer, yet so far we have barely been introduced to his wife Isobel. But no matter; you can always read a couple of Austens afterwards to redress the balance, because this isn’t just a history of men, but a history of the first half of the twentieth century, beautifully written and impeccably plotted. And no doubt I’ll be able to give you my verdict on Autumn and Winter no later than summer 2007. Here’s hoping, anyway. Dancing to the Music of Time: The Life and Work of Anthony Powell is an exhibition of paintings, illustrations and manuscripts relating to the books. It’s on at the Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, 10am- 5pm, admission free. Best quote: "Outside the moon had gone behind a bank of cloud. I went home through the gloom, exhilarated, at the same time rather afraid. Ahead lay the region beyond the white-currant bushes, where the wild country began, where armies for ever campaigned, where the Rules and Discipline of War prevailed. Another stage of life was passed, just as finally, just as irrevocably, as that day when childhood had come so abruptly to an end at Stonehurst." Nicholas Jenkins rating: 9/10 Reading this certainly requires some commitment, but you won't regret it