Anthony Powell
Have any of you heard of this author? I’m surprised that I haven’t, since he has a full page of titles of his novels, stories and a few plays. A friend recently lent me the first volume of his “A Dance to the Music of Time” — which was written back in the ’50′s! Where have I been?
She says that his surname rhymes with “Lowell.”
The whole work –I forget how many volumes– is something like the Forsyte saga, goes on for years. In this first volume we meet him as an English schoolboy and follow him to Oxford and the dispersal of his school friends into their different worlds — further schooling or into The City in business.
I can’t decide whether I like it or not. I like that kind of saga, but am not sure whether I like his writing or not. It’s very, very funny as to incidents, characters and situations — but Powell’s writing tends to get too pompous and wordy. For me.