Hardcover book with dust jacket. Library of Congress No. 70-161417. Apparently a first edition thus. Three sections, each separately numbered. The Valley of Bones; The Soldier's Art; The Military Philosophers. Black boards with gold lettering on the spine.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The "War Trilogy" within Powell's great novel,
By
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (Paperback)
_A Dance to the Music of Time_ is an extremely absorbing and well-crafted novel (composed of 12 smaller novels). Its subject is the decline of the English upper classes from the First World War to about 1970, a decline seen is inevitable and probably necessary, but somehow also regrettable.Such a description might make the novel seem stuffy, but it is not. _A Dance to the Music of Time_ is at times very funny indeed, and always interesting. always involving. It features an enormous cast of characters, and Powell has the remarkable ability to make his characters memorable with the briefest of descriptions. In addition, Powell's prose is addictive: very characteristic, idiosyncratic, and elegant. The long novel follows the life of the narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, from his time at Eton just after World War I to retirement in the English countryside in the late '60s. But Jenkins, though the narrator, is in many ways not the most important character. The comic villain Widmerpool, a creature of pure will, and awkward malevolence, is the other fulcrum around which the novel pivots. The third volume of the beautiful University of Chicago Press trade paper edition of _A Dance to the Music of Time_ consists of what is often called the "War Trilogy". These three novels ( _The Valley of Bones_, _The Soldier's Art_, and _The Military Philosophers_) cover Nick Jenkins' experiences in the war. As a consequence, many new characters are introduced, though old favorites still show up; and the tone is somewhat different. They are still remarkable, often very moving, and often very funny, novels.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best novels written in English,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (Paperback)
This volume contains the third group of three novels of Anthony Powell's masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. Readers coming to this series for the first time should start with the first volume. Powell's work is social comedy in the tradition of Jane Austen and George Meredith. Contemporary writers with whom he is often compared include Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh. The 12 short novels of A Dance to the Music of Time give a panoramic picture of English upper-class social life from 1921 to 1971 that is both intensely realistic and amazingly funny. Readers either love Powell's work or can't understand what others see in it. My own opinion is that Dance is the best novel written in the twentieth century. Others share this view: A Dance to the Music of Time is #43 on the recently constructed Random House/Modern Library 100 Best Poll (of twentieth century fiction) and was made into a 4-part miniseries on British television just about a year ago.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Characterful,
By tertius3 (MI United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (Paperback)
Powell's prose is elegantly uncorroded by the modern fast paced advertising style, as suggested by his fondness for commas and involved yet utterly precise sentences. He obliquely approaches a bleak war as it was experienced on the home front, and in the rear areas frequented by his narrator, Nick Jenkins, a remarkably incisive yet detached and circumspect character of whom we learn very little of the quotidian despite his ever presence. Powell is a master of underplayed scenes. WW II takes some familiar characters in casually shocking ways, invariably reported second-hand. It may be offputting that locations and outside events are frequently allusive, depending as they do on the state of the reader's prior knowledge for their significance, dating, and rationale. (This technique is not specifically intended to reproduce "the fog of war"-which it quite effectively does-but is generic to Powell's style.) Then again, this chronicle of the decline of a group of classmates, girlfriends, and relatives from rather upper-class Britain is not intended for Americans. It is an intensely observed and analysed view of people doing their none too good best at trivial jobs. The second novel here (each about 250 pages long and separately paginated), The Soldier's Art, features Widmerpool especially, one of the most socially awkward self-important incompetents ever to blunder through fine literature yet inexorably advancing, earlier in trade and now into ministerial levels. By this the third book in the handsome Chicago edition, I am beginning to appreciate the low-key but thorough humour of this masterpiece, although French is needed for several outright jokes here. The individual novels progress from one set of character studies to another, set pieces in social situations (often society parties, especially in the earlier novels), with three to five of these revealing episodes per novel. In sum, splendid writing, but not everyone's cup of tea.
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