Anthony Powell: A Life [Hardcover]

Michael Barber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2004

In this biography of Anthony Powell, publisher, journalist, man-about-town and author of the "Dance to the Music of Time" sequence, Michael Barber takes a close look at the man and the writer. He finds someone whose temperament was often at war with his upbrining. The son of an army officer, educated at Eton and Balliol, Powell chose as his closest friends people like Malcolm Muggeridge and the composer, Constant Lambert, who were not out ot the top drawer or the one below it. And, although happily married for over sixty years to Lady Violet Pakenham, the daughter of an earl, he admitted that he had "always been attracted by girls who looked as they'd slept under a bush for a week". Powell believed that creative writing was, like alchemy, a mysterious, indefinable proces by which experience became art. Michael Barberfocuses on the experience that provided Powell with his raw material. He pays particular attention to the "entre-deux-guerres", that sharply divided cultural interlude when the artists and good-timers with whom Powell identified in the twenties were followed, in the thirties, by the politicians and the prigs.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"An uninspiring figure, to say the least." So wrote Anthony Powell (1905–2000) in his journals about his future first biographer, after Barber (The Captain: The Life of Simon Raven) interviewed him in 1983. It's a tribute to the genial Barber that he can quote this dismissal with bemusement in his sprightly, anecdote-filled biography of the sometimes prickly author best known for that 12-volume chronicle of the human comedy, A Dance to the Music of Time. Drawing on his several interviews with Powell, Powell's four volumes of memoirs, published journals, unpublished letters and more, Barber charts the high points of his subject's career, from his days at Eton and Oxford, through his brief stint in Hollywood, service as a staff officer in WWII and the composition of his masterpiece (published between 1951 and 1975), to his retirement as a book reviewer for the British Telegraph in 1990, after being savaged in its pages by Auberon Waugh. That Dance has always been more a critical than a popular success Barber persuasively attributes at least in part to Powell's personal reticence. As Barber admits in his preface, he was not Powell's choice for official biographer, but until a full, authorized account comes along, this entertaining life serves as a satisfying appetizer for Powell fans. 23 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The first full-length biography of British writer Powell will be relished by fans of the author's celebrated 12-novel sequence Dance to the Music of Time. Although Powell downplayed direct biographical links between his characters and his friends and fellow writers, Barber knows that this topic remains fascinating to the novels' cultlike devotees, and although admitting that many of Dance's most compelling characters--especially the protean figure Widmerpool--are amalgams of many people, he tenaciously traces their genealogies. He also places his subject in the midst of British literary life in the twentieth century, supplying revealing snapshots of other major figures with whom Powell interacted: Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell, and Henry Green, among them. Finally, Barber proves an adept critic, showing how Powell was able to bring a satirist's eye to the messiness of life, driving home the point that "experience, far from being the name that everyone gave to their mistakes, was something from which no conclusions could be drawn." For those who know this too-little-known modern master, here's a chance to revisit old friends. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; 2nd edition (September 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585676187
• ISBN-13: 978-1585676187
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,825,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fails to Bring Powell to Life, July 24, 2005

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Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anthony Powell: A Life (Hardcover)

Michael Barber's immense biography is a benchmark in Anthony Powell studies, but that does not mean it is without fault. Over its length Barber becomes intimately familiar with Powell's idiosyncrasies, but he does not take into account how trying they will seem to the majority of his readers. At every turn, he is obsessed with status and with class; this bias was probably useful in composing his novels, especially the amazing tour de force that was his roman fleuve A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, but it does not make for a very nice person perhaps.

Oh well, perhaps we ask the gods for too much if we expect a talented author to have a charming personalitu as well. And indeed Powell (pronounced "Pole" as in fishing pole) did have his charms, especially when he wanted something from you. As Barber shows us, he despised Graham Greene's writing, calling him a third-rate Joseph Conrad, who had the temerity to add "Roman Catholic propaganda" to an insipid stew, and yet he found it easier to pretend to like him to his face, even calling him "cher confrere," --until Greene's death, and then he could pour out the venom he had secreted.

Barber also discusses Powell's friendship with the doomed, damned composer Constant Lambert, who also figures in the recent Meredith Daneham biography of Margot Fonteyn (he was her lover and mentor early on). Powell satirized Lambert as one of the characters in his novel, as indeed he did everyone who he met and knew well. Daneham provides a more compassionate portrait of Lambert, Barber a colder one, following the lead of Powell, who seems to have had great satisfaction in outliving almost everyone else and then telling the world what he was not able (due to stringent libel laws) to hint at in fictional terms.

We learn the origin of nearly every character and plot point in the DANCE, and that is the great use of this biography. I can't imagine reading another biography of this dreary man, so I expect my final impression of him will be one who, like Evelyn Waugh, saw only the worst in mankind, and made money doing so.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dance to the music of the author, January 6, 2008

By 

hola (penryn, ca USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Anthony Powell: A Life (Paperback)

For any fan of the incredible series "A Dance to the Music of Time", this is a must-read. The characters portrayed in that series were based on people the author knew, and Barber has gone to great lengths to attached the original person to the character in the book.

Powell's life itself is fascinating, and Barber has done a very good job of leading the reader through it. Powell was a member of one of the most famous generations in British literature, thus, with this book, one gets a view of that group of people, as well as the environment that produced them. Powell's relationships with various members of the group make for some of the most interesting parts of the book. For example, he and Evelyn Waugh were competitors (and Waugh didn't like anyone who competed with him) and their poisonously friendly exchanges are fun to read. Powell's relationship with Malcolm Muggeridge is another problematic friendship in the book.

Barber is a good writer, and he tells the story of Powell's life clearly and well. He describes the critical events in Powell's upbringing (esp. his attendance at Eton) and points out how these events affected the person Powell became. He also explains the basis for each of Powell's novels, which, as a reader of these works, I found very interesting.

Barber does not cover Powell's marriage and his children is any but a cursory manner, and the book would likely have been better had that been more fully examined. One learns more about his relationships with his parents and brother than with his wife and children, and this gap is bothersome.

Anthony Powell was a private man from middle-class means who married a member of the nobility, and his quest for wealth dictated most of his actions. The parallels between him and Waugh are striking, but whereas Waugh was not at all a nice man, Powell shows to be a more humane and less judgmental person.

This is a good book for anyone interested in the period, and an excellent one for those who love Powell's magnum opus.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dance to no music with two left feet, February 21, 2009

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Rampaging Hippogriff (Melbourne) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anthony Powell: A Life (Paperback)

Having thoroughly enjoyed both my readings of Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, I looked forward to learning more about the author and his work. Having read this book, I still do. The cover photograph acts as a helpful warning - yes, an arty (or at least black & white) photo of Powell is used, but there is, almost in the middle, a big blurry bit, which if you look closely is a cat. Apparently Powell liked cats, but this does not make the picture any more interesting or appropriate. The preface, with Barber's self abasing o how should I refer to the Great Man I am not worthy paragraph, provides an even stronger warning about the problem of continuing the book...

If Barber cannot bring himself, without ludicrous cringing, to refer to Powell according to biographical convention, how can the reader rely upon him to produce a useful book? The early part of the biography, dealing with Powell's family background (important for someone so interested in genealogy) and education at Eton gives very little impression of Powell himself, who does not really appear in the book until he has finished at Oxford. In the meantime, we are provided with random facts and gossip about people and things at both Eton and Oxford, which mean little to those who were not there. More explanations and concentration on Powell's experiences would help. Surely, at Oxford especially, there could be more about the social conditions there when Powell was up (not just that it wasnt like Brideshead, I think most people have worked that one out)given the interwar years were quite interesting. We could be clearly informed of what he read & perhaps why, and been spared Barber's little joke about it being at Oxford then 'sapiens to be homo', which only adds to the pain. Indeed, we could be spared many little jokes and clever uses of quotes. We are admirers of Powell's writing, not Barber's.

As Powell starts work & engages more with the world, Barber brings him a little more into focus. Sadly, it is hard to see him in the crowds of nearly every single person he ever met being shown to be important to the Dance. And again, we dont necessarily learn who these people are or were, other than that they were part of the correct cliques. Barber repeats gossip without necessarily supporting it (as about Gerald Duckworth's assult of his step sister Virginia Stephens [later Woolf] - possibly true, but included for no real reason other than chat), and without a clear narrative, everything just jumbles together. The Second World War provides at least some direction, and the years following it, as Powell wrote the Dance, are a bit easier to follow, but Barber continues confuse Powell's life and the development of his work. The reader is informed that the Dance was originally intended to be in six parts - Why? When did it change to 12? Why did this happen? The odd friend & reviewer seems to have known this, but not others. What about the non-reviewing readership? And why wouldn't Americans be able to cope with books with a first person narrator, as Barber claims?

Powell's later life, as he finished the Dance, is a little less crowded, and reading about literary fights is always amusing - but why do we need to know that Barber calls Auberon Waugh Bron? - , yet we still learn little about the development of the book over the years. Barber notes that Powell was interviewed regularly, but provides little information as to what he said in the interviews. The accounts of Barber's own interview and lunch with Powell are provided, and one cannot but help agree with Powell's assesment. The reader is regularly informed of Powell's snobbery, which is an widely-agreed upon component of his work and life, but again Barber makes little effort to demonstrate the role it played. Perhaps it is Barber's lack of access to Powell's personal papers, and Powell did keep his personal life out of the public eye, but the near absolute lack of reference to his family is troublesome. The absence of Powell's parents from the time they send him to Eton until they die (with only the noting in passing of his father's refusal to buy in to Duckworths to help Powell's career) is odd, especially given Barber's view that everyone Powell met influenced the Dance - surely his parents would have some influence beyond what we see of Jenkin's parents in the book? There is little discussion of them as such, either, for all that this is an unauthorised biography.

While the plots of Powell's other books are often described in detail, the Dance remains a little more vague - it is not a readily described story, but surely a biographer could try somewhat? Some but not all characters from the Dance are mentioned, but not always explained, and those people whom Barber thinks contributed to them are noted, but again not always with an explaination or argument as to why he thinks so. An example is the character of Max Pilgrim,for whom Barber suggests a couple of real people as inspiration, but not Noel Coward, who is named in most other discussions of Pilgrim. There is little discussion of Powell's most memorable creation in the Dance, Widmerpool, about whom so much could be said.

Michael Barber's biography of Anthony Powell fails to inform the reader very much at all about Powell's life or the creation of his literary masterpiece, Dance to the Music of Time. We do learn some gossip about people in various literary, intellectual, and social cliques at the time, we are informed that Powell and his narrator were very similar, and that Powell looked for inspiration in his life for his work. Overall, one can only agree with Powell's own assesment of Barber - uninspiring, to say the least.