A BUYER'S MARKET, the second volume of Anthony Powell's 12-volume sequence "A Dance to the Music of Times" is a considerably more ambitious work than the first. While A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING was an enjoyable if something lightweight look back at narrator Nicholas Jenkins' days at school and university, now we see him entering the ballrooms of high society while also discovering the London demimonde of the late 1920s.
The novel is impressive in form also. Nearly the entire first half of the novel is dedicated to a single evening, where Jenkins describes the participants of a dinner, a dance and a seedy part in exhaustive detail. Here we see more clearly than the first novel Powell's conception of his social circle over the decades as a dance. Stringham and Widmerpool, among other characters from the first novel, enter Jenkins' life again after a gap of several years, but no sooner do they show up than they are cast away by new fates. With Jenkins' greater maturity comes a recognition of more important societal concerns in 1920s England. One character's awkwardly closeted homosexuality creates complications for Jenkins' circle, as does the need for a young female character to procure an abortion when it was seriously illegal. By the end of the novel, Jenkins has even entered among political radicals, who go on to play a large role in the third volume of the series.
Perhaps Powell isn't for everyone. I've sometimes heard people call it downright unjust that this author sees so much universal importance in what is essentially gossip about a handful of upper-class people, when the masses of early 20th century Britain were still fighting for their rights. Also, the delicacy with which sexual matters are treated in this novel -- a major part of the plot but never overtly presented -- may annoy contemporary readers. Nonetheless, I have to say that I enjoy Powell's world. Its characters are three-dimensional, memorable and always reminscent of people we know in our own lives. As I write this, I look forward to going on and re-reading THE ACCEPTANCE WORLD.
All twelve volumes of "A Dance to the Music of Time" have been reissued by University of Chicago Press in four handsome trade paperbacks. If you think you're going to go the distance, that's a better investment than older editions of the individual volumes.
