The Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time): Amazon.co.uk: Anthony Powell: 9780749306526: Books

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This is the sixth volume in the cycle known as The Music of Time and the recent one volume republication of the first three books has affirmed the increasing critical attention and appreciation for this work since its appearance ten years ago. In spite of the misleading comparisons with Proust, the closest company Powell keeps is with Waugh, if only in the elegance of his wit and range of his social satire. Time again is treacherous and idiosyncratic, so that experience becomes a non-sequitur of occasional, fitful encounters. Old friends come and go; associations are renewed; relationships dissolve in the random scenes now and later, here and there. This particular volume has a somewhat more definite design in that its first part (covering spectator-participant Nicholas Jenkins' childhood just before World War I) and its second part (just before World War II when "another stage of life was passed") are overcast by the uneasy prescience of war. There are marvellous scenes in the early section at Stonehurst where a large staff (Albert- the artist- chef, Bracey- the soldier-servant, etc.) is implemented by a ghost, and Billson, the parlormaid, a disturbed spirit herself, makes an appearance "stark"; also those involving a dubious local mystic, Dr. Trelawney, who will reappear later, along with Albert, at the seedy seaside hotel where Uncle Giles, one of the great characters in this series, finally relinquishes his "unsatisfactory mode of life"... The particular pleasures and virtues of this work-in-progress have been established; it is an amazing achievement and this particular book lessens the distance between the narrator and the reader. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

The second novel in Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Dance, 6 Mar 2010

By

Antresor - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time) (Paperback)

I have been a fan of Powells'saga for a long time but found that two titles were missing from my shelf so got them from amazon.
I read and reread with undiminished pleasure the record of a vast array of characters progressing from childhood to old age ; just why I find these people amusing is hard to say but maybe it's because I was born precisely in the middle of the story and can relate to both its beginning and end.

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Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best thus far..., 3 Feb 2011

By Paul Rooney "Paul Rooney" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time) (Hardcover)

The initial part of this, the sixth volume is told in retrospect by the narrator. It concerns his childhood prior to the Great War.

For the first time in the novel we meet his parents. There is sadness and humour in this section, as there has been throughout.

When the scene returns to a contemporary setting the world has now realized that war is again inevitable and it is only when this will occur.

More early characters die off with new and interesting ones being introduced. The core still remain however and we are treated to the arch bore, Widmerpool, dressed up in a farcical looking uniform.

There is a touch of the mystical about this volume with several discussions on the spirit world, after life.

This volume is comparable to volume three as the two best in my view thus far.

The book ends with the world at war.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Furies unleashed on Britain twice in 25 years, 19 Dec 2010

By Christopher Culver - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time) (Paperback)

When we last left Anthony Powell's 12-volume work "A Dance to the Music of Time", we were in the late 1930s and steadily approaching the outbreak of the Second World War. THE KINDLY ONES, the sixth novel in the sequence, unexpectedly opens with a flashback to the start of the First. In 1914, Nicholas Jenkins is an eight or nine year-old, living in a rented manor in the countryside where his father is stationed. For some fifty pages, we follow some disputes and love affairs among the family's servants, until an offhand mention that Archduke Ferdinand has just been assassinated casts a shadow over Jenkins' youth.

THE KINDLY ONES then returns to where the Dance had left off. In late 1938 Jenkins visits Stourwater again and several old acquaintances reappear. An elderly character dies and Jenkins must sort out his belongings. A drunken Bob Duport makes some uncomfortable revelations after Jean Templer's life during her affair with Nick almost a decade earlier. Finally, the start of World War II pushes every adult member of society into some new job. The pervading sentiment of THE KINDLY ONES is melancholy and wistfulness. Jenkins' perusal of the documents of a deceased relative offer a sad meditation on the mounting failures of one's life. The Seven Deadly Sins tableaux introduced here reduces the characters to grotesque caricatures and plays a role in a later volume of the Dance, where it is shown as a symbol of a bygone era.

Although the flashback fills in some of Nicholas Jenkins' past, he remains an enigmatic narrator, reporting the events around him in great detail but never betraying much of his own feelings. As the novel comes to an end, he is desperate to find some way into the army, but why he wants to join is a mystery (adventure? serving his country? not looking like an intellectual layabout?). There is twice mention that wife Isobel is expecting a child, but I don't expect to hear much about the raising of a family in the next volume. But the novel does encompass much more than the aristocratic rounds of the previous volumes, and we do enter among some of the lower classes.

When I started THE KINDLY ONES, I found the 1914 flashback to be slow-going, and I thought this was going to be one of the lesser volumes in the Dance. By the end of the novel, I was convinced that the flashback has its place in the novel's overall feeling of melancholy. Powell's particular generation had a rough time of it, living through two outbreaks of total war that decimated their families and acquaintances. It's not all poignant reflections, though. There continue to be moments of great humour here, such as a charismatic cult leader who speaks in pretentious riddles, or Widmerpool's buffoonish transition to full-time soldier.

With every volume read, I look ever more forward to moving onto the rest of the sequence. This is a moving chronicle of an entire generation.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Furies unleashed on Britain twice in 25 years, 19 Dec 2010

By Christopher Culver - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Kindly Ones : A Novel (Volume 6 of A Dance to the Music of Time) (Paperback)

When we last left Anthony Powell's 12-volume work "A Dance to the Music of Time", we were in the late 1930s and steadily approaching the outbreak of the Second World War. THE KINDLY ONES, the sixth novel in the sequence, unexpectedly opens with a flashback to the start of the First. In 1914, Nicholas Jenkins is an eight or nine year-old, living in a rented manor in the countryside where his father is stationed. For some fifty pages, we follow some disputes and love affairs among the family's servants, until an offhand mention that Archduke Ferdinand has just been assassinated casts a shadow over Jenkins' youth.

THE KINDLY ONES then returns to where the Dance had left off. In late 1938 Jenkins visits Stourwater again and several old acquaintances reappear. An elderly character dies and Jenkins must sort out his belongings. A drunken Bob Duport makes some uncomfortable revelations after Jean Templer's life during her affair with Nick almost a decade earlier. Finally, the start of World War II pushes every adult member of society into some new job. The pervading sentiment of THE KINDLY ONES is melancholy and wistfulness. Jenkins' perusal of the documents of a deceased relative offer a sad meditation on the mounting failures of one's life. The Seven Deadly Sins tableaux introduced here reduces the characters to grotesque caricatures and plays a role in a later volume of the Dance, where it is shown as a symbol of a bygone era.

Although the flashback fills in some of Nicholas Jenkins' past, he remains an enigmatic narrator, reporting the events around him in great detail but never betraying much of his own feelings. As the novel comes to an end, he is desperate to find some way into the army, but why he wants to join is a mystery (adventure? serving his country? not looking like an intellectual layabout?). There is twice mention that wife Isobel is expecting a child, but I don't expect to hear much about the raising of a family in the next volume. But the novel does encompass much more than the aristocratic rounds of the previous volumes, and we do enter among some of the lower classes.

When I started THE KINDLY ONES, I found the 1914 flashback to be slow-going, and I thought this was going to be one of the lesser volumes in the Dance. By the end of the novel, I was convinced that the flashback has its place in the novel's overall feeling of melancholy. Powell's particular generation had a rough time of it, living through two outbreaks of total war that decimated their families and acquaintances. It's not all poignant reflections, though. There continue to be moments of great humour here, such as a charismatic cult leader who speaks in pretentious riddles, or Widmerpool's buffoonish transition to full-time soldier.

With every volume read, I look ever more forward to moving onto the rest of the sequence. This is a moving chronicle of an entire generation.

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