Dance to the Music of Time – First Movement

Good

I'm about halfway through this book, the first of four (three novels per volume). I had never read Powell before, but he writes beautifully. It's an odd series: nothing much happens. No great adventures, no excitement. Just the interactions of people. But still it's pleasantly compelling to read, to be drawn into the intimate view of his times. If you have enjoyed Downton Abbey, this is a literary exploration of roughly the same period. But not from a noble perspective: his characters are more prosaic and earthy. There's a light touch of humor and self-deprecation that runs through the novels, too,

maybe it was just my frame of mind but I could not get into this book at all...Good luck.

とても面白い作品である。優雅でコミカル、皮肉を込めた会話等、実に楽しい小説だ。この本以降にあと三冊続くのだが、未だ第二楽章しか入手していない。しかし第三、第四楽章も既に注文してあるのでじき届くだろう。この大河小説のことは中村真一郎さんの『文学的散歩』によって知ったが、中村さんの仰る通りの傑作である。文章、特に会話が素晴らしい。真のユーモアがそこにある。江湖にお薦めしたい。

After 700 pages of Anthony Powell's "A Dance To the Music of Time, First Movement," reading it, or more to the point, completing it, amounts to a repetitious marathon of dances, tea parties, drinks at the Ritz, and snide innuendoes all told by an asexual narrator named Nick Jenkins. This biting, at times humorous, social critique of post World War 1 England, focusing on the British aristocracy, starts out well in Book 1 describing student life at an English prep school, bores the reader in Book 2 by recreating three to four dances or social engagements, and, barely resuscitate itself in Book 3 as the narrator dwells on love in an artistic finale. The one character, an unmarried middle class man, most criticized by Jenkins, turns out to be the strongest and most interesting as the book staggers to the end.Powell’s writing is turgid and opaque, plotting non-existent, characterization decidedly masculine, unfriendly to women and racially insensitive at times. There is a movie of this series, available on British television here in the States but the reviewer has not seen it. The cover showing a Poussin painting is inviting and a nice touch.