- Hardcover: 472 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; abridged edition edition (17 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226677214
- ISBN-13: 978-0226677217
- Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 1.6 x 0.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,000,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
This is an abridged version of Powell's four volumes memoirs, which were published between 1976 and 1982. Anthony Powell earnt the reputation of being a literary giant within the generation of Waugh, Orwell and Greene. He is probably best known for his 12 volume work "A Dance to the Music of Time". These memoirs reveal Powell the man and author, and also provide an inside view of the British literary scene and social elite, from the 1920's to the 1980s. Powell observes the obsenity trial sparked by "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and Shirley Temple's libel suit after Graham Greene reviewed "Wee Willie Winkie" with "more than his usual verve". He also paints vivid portraits of other authors, such as Kingsley Amis, V.S. Naipaul, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
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First Sentence
I was born in London, 21 December, 1905, the winter solstice (''tis the year's midnight, and it is the days's'), feast of the sceptical St Thomas, cusp of The Centaur and The Goat; the hour, towards one o'clock of a Thursday afternoon; the place, 44 Ashley Gardens, Westminster, a furnished flat rented for the occasion in one of the several redbrick blocks in that rather depressing area between Victoria Street and the Vauxhall Bridge Road. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
I was born in London, 21 December, 1905, the winter solstice (''tis the year's midnight, and it is the days's'), feast of the sceptical St Thomas, cusp of The Centaur and The Goat; the hour, towards one o'clock of a Thursday afternoon; the place, 44 Ashley Gardens, Westminster, a furnished flat rented for the occasion in one of the several redbrick blocks in that rather depressing area between Victoria Street and the Vauxhall Bridge Road. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I don't usually read memoirs or biographies because I think they are a second-hand (and second-best) approach to literature, and I certainly don't recommend this book to anyone who has not read the author's novels. This time though, having spent so much time reading "Dance" and listening to its audio version by Simon Callow, I thought I owed it to myself to dig a little deeper into this remarkable author. Most of all, I hoped this book would convey some of the atmosphere of "Dance", of which I cannot have enough. I think it did. The people and the places of these memoirs are not to be regarded as "keys" to the book but they certainly were inspirational to "Dance" and AP often mentions the similarities and differences between those people and their fictional counterparts. There is some name-dropping and, of course, the vast majority of the names will remain unknown to me but their doings and idiosyncrasies, described in the usual AP style, are interesting in their own right. It has been said that AP revealed little about himself in his memoirs. This is true but therein lies, maybe, the strength of AP's approach to writing: a good novelist, according to AP, is one more interested in other people than in himself/herself. This is the principle followed in this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
A Ball
14 Feb 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The life reflections of a highly literate Englishman. Famous names are scattered throughout the text, arising naturally from the various circles Anthony Powell found himself within over his long and productive life.
Anyone with an interest in the book trade and art of writing, or in English writers of the past century, should certainly be urged to read these memoirs.
I especially liked Mr. Powell's close of life lessons, advice drawn from a small incident involving Michaelangelo.
Anyone with an interest in the book trade and art of writing, or in English writers of the past century, should certainly be urged to read these memoirs.
I especially liked Mr. Powell's close of life lessons, advice drawn from a small incident involving Michaelangelo.
18 of 29 people found the following review helpful
To Keep the Ball Rolling
9 May 2001
Format:Hardcover
To earn the reputation of a literary giant within the generation of Waugh, Orwell, and Greene is no mean feat. To do so with the grace and genius that characterized Anthony Powell...is nothing short of spectacular. This book of Powell's memoirs is the first one-volume collection to be published in America. The reviews for this book are glowing. "Powell was indeed a literary giant, and eminently deserving of the praise that was lavished upon him."- The Wall Street Journal. "A Master of wit, paradox, and social delineation."- The New York Times. "[Powell was] more fun than Proust, and at least as true to human nature."- John Perry, Salon Magazine
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