Sunday, March 25, 2012

A Dance to the Music of Time

I can't believe that I finished this series. 2500 pages! What started out as an immensely pleasurable experience got very, very old in the end when the prose - always at the edge of tediousness became awash with $10 words and 40-word sentences. But I must admit, I was addicted to this series, tedious passages and all and am glad to have read it.

The books cover 50-60 years in the life of narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, an upper middle class literary reviewer/writer with friends in the arts and family with titles. He knows everyone and so is invited to interesting soirees where he meets and becomes friends with a number of outrageous characters. The cast of hundreds has society mavens, alcoholics, hostesses, artists, musicians, millionaires, normal business people, a nymphomaniac, a necrophiliac, cult leaders, seers, and on and on.

The most outrageous character is Kenneth Widmerpoole who first shows up in book 1, an overly-serious lad, running down a lane on his way to a life as a successful businessman, colonel and peer. He is a man without a conscience and without a heart. He marries a sulky nymphomaniac who steals the show (the plot) in several of the later books with her many moods and antics. Widmerpoole makes his final curtain call, again running down a lane, in book 12, an old and very changed man.

The books are full of dry humor. Kingsly Amis, who wrote upper middle class slapstick, called Powell "the most subtle writer now performing in English". Subtle, indeed. If you aren't paying attention, you miss all sorts of jests. Which gets back to the issue of tediousness. It's not always easy to pay such close attention at that level to prose that feels foreign and dated.

The highlights? Books 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7-9. I enjoyed  book 3, a romance, quite a bit. It was both sexy and graceful (in a 1950ish sort of way). Books 7-9 - the war years - were second best. Although Jenkins did not go off to war, the war most definitely came to him in many ways. He spent 5 years in the army ending up as a liaison to other countries. These books provide a solid look at London in blackout conditions with buildings and people disappearing nightly. I found books 4 and 5 boring, but I was addicted to the prose and so got through them quickly. Book 11, set in 1958 is all about sex - and book 12, set in 1968 extends that and wraps up the series with both solemn endings and just desserts.

My Take:  The strength of the books is that they chronicle a certain culture in time with wit and insight. The subject matter, with its serious moments, is generally not deep. This series will either enthrall you or bore you to tears. I stand with the former group. (****)

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