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Casanova's Chinese Restaurant. A Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 5

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This volume starts on a completely different tack than previous volumes in this sequence. Our narrator Nicholas Jenkins is now married and is involved in the arts scene as he is a writer for the British motion picture industry.

We have some of the earlier characters introduced early in the novel starting to die off and many new ones being introduced.

There is the suicide of a main character and the usual seemingly endless swapping of women amongst them.

The world politically is coming to grips with the fact that there is to be another war and this is apparent in the behaviour of many of the characters.

Again excellent.

Hugh Moreland and Nick Jenkins--Jenkins is the main character of the series, the narrator--plan to go to the cinema to the consternation of Mr. Deacon. Mr. Deacon likes Moreland. Moreland is interested in Matilda Wilson, an actress. Moreland has Nick Jenkins accompany him to play by Webster in which she is appearing. Nick understands that he is being used as a sort of beard, a distraction, to their romance.

Lady Warminster is the sister of Molly Jeavons. Lady Warminster, Blanche, is quieter than the other sisters. She gives the impression of being undeveloped. St. John Clarke, another personage in this installment of the series, is a minor public figure. He plays a part here, but as a writer he has been forgotten by the critics.

Nick has not seen Kenneth Widmerpool since his, (Nick's), marriage to Isobel Tolland. It is discussed among the characters how his engagement was cancelled. Charles Stringham and a secretary to Charles's stepfather, a Miss Weedon, live at the Jeavonses', (Lady Molly's), currently. Then Nick runs into Widmerpool at a nursing home. Widmerpool is surprised to see him in such a setting. (Later it is learned that Widmerpool is very put out over the abdication.)

Things progress over time and Moreland's now wife, Matilda, has a child, a girl, who survives for only a few hours. Moreland is in deepest dejection. The Morelands keep late hours. They have a sort of anti-marriage Nick thinks. Shortly after Nick's running into the Morelands d and it is learned that an important performance of a Moreland composition is planned, the abdication crisis arises. Moreland fears that under the circumstances his music may receive short shrift. The fear is not merely hypothetical since it seems at the time that nearly everyone is focusing his or her full attention on the machinations of Edward and Baldwin. Nick and Isobel are joined by Lady Priscilla at the concert and the party later by Charles Stringham's mother. It is noted that Priscilla received a free ticket to the event.

In writing the books comprising A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME the author presents his view of reality. The events taking place are experienced by persons who come upon the stage by means of coincidence and serendipity. For example, when Charles Stringham shows up at his mother's party, intoxicated, Nick is detailed to keep an eye on him. This casual state of affairs inevitably results in a shifting of chaotic, disparate shards of reality. The said shards are then material to be reassembled by some unseen hand into a new harmonious whole.

CASANOVA'S CHINESE RESTAURANT, the fifth novel in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time", makes for an unexpected twist in the sequence. Though mainly set in 1936-1937, the novel opens to a flashback to the late 1920s, when Nicholas Jenkins had recently made the acquaintance of Mr. Deacon and Barnby. A whole new cast of characters is introduced, making it shockingly apparent to the reader that Jenkins was leading another sort of life concurrently with the events of the earlier novels.

When we return to the mid-1930s, tumultuous political events loom over the first half of the novel. Nazi Germany is only hinted at, but the Spanish Civil War attracts Jenkins' brother-in-law Erridge (strengthening the character's basis in George Orwell). But CASANOVA'S CHINESE RESTAURANT is ultimately dominated by dark interpersonal themes. Two female character's pregnancies fail, flawed marriages fall apart, adulteries are rampant, and after sitting the last novel out, an alcoholic Stringham appears to haunt the novel like a spectre.

Yes, the Dance continues to chart Jenkins' life through the grand parties and dinners with friends that he attends. Readers who dislike the endless aristocratic chit-chat simply have to accept that that's how Powell chooses to document these interesting years. But the bleakness of much of this fifth novel invigorates the Dance with a new strength. And even among the bitterness and anger, Powell's characteristic deadpan humour persists, so there's still quite a few laughs here. If you've read this far, don't stop.