“Books do furnish a room.” (Anthony Powell)

/ madamebibilophile

I’ve decided that 2024 will be the year of a reading project I’ve been considering for a while – a book per month throughout the year from Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time sequence. Published between 1951 and 1975, and set from the early 1920s to the early 1970s, the sequence is narrated by Nicholas Jenkins, a man born into privilege and based on Powell himself.

What’s that you say? I have half-completed reading projects still languishing? I have a spiralling TBR that doesn’t need 12 more books added to it? Be gone! You are clearly a pragmatist and such attitudes have no place in my reading life 😀

In the first novel, A Question of Upbringing (1951), we follow Nick Jenkins from his school days at a thinly-disguised Eton to his university days at a thinly-disguised Balliol College, Oxford. Starting at School, we meet Jenkins’ friends Stringham and Templer, and hear of their frustrations with housemaster Le Bas.

“’He started life as a poet,’ Stringham said. ‘Did you know that? Years ago, after coming back from a holiday in Greece, he wrote some things he thought were frightfully good. He showed them to someone or other who pointed out that, as a matter of fact, they were frightfully bad. Le Bas never got over it.’

‘I can’t imagine anything more appalling than a poem by Le Bas,’ said Templer, ‘though I’m surprised he doesn’t make his pupils learn them.’

‘Who did he show them to?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Stringham. ‘Henry James, or Robert Louis Stevenson, or someone like that.’”

The boys are varying degrees of privileged, from uber-wealthy to moderately wealthy, from landed gentry to new money. The societal hierarchies are complex and imperfectly understood, even by those in their midst:

“Clearly some complicated process of sorting out was in progress among those who surrounded me: though only years later did I become aware of how early such voluntary segregations begin to develop; and of how they continue throughout life.”

In theory I have limited patience for such stories, after the enormous damage Eton-educated men and their cronies have done in UK politics. Yet I found myself enjoying A Question of Upbringing. I think because Powell doesn’t suggest the superiority of anyone he’s writing about or the systems in place, casting a satirical eye over it all.

For example, when Nick begins his travels, he finds himself hopelessly ill-equipped to comprehend any culture beyond his own:

“I had seen a provincial company perform The Doll’s House not many months before, and felt, with what I now see to have been quite inadmissible complacency, that I knew all about Ibsen’s countrymen.”

It is during these travels that he meets Widmerpool again, a boy somewhat disregarded as figure of fun at school, who shows himself to be more astute than Nick and the other pupils allowed for.

“Later in life, I learned that many things one may require have to be weighed against one’s dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction.”

Nothing of huge significance seemingly happens in A Question of Upbringing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if events somehow cast a long shadow in later volumes. As a standalone novel, Powell keeps the narrative compelling by picking out certain moments and impressions, rather than plodding through years with equal weighting. It’s a short novel, only 223 pages in my edition and this length worked well – satisfying but also with a sense of setting the scene for later novels.

It took me a while to adjust to Powell’s dense writing style; he likes long sentences of several clauses. Once I had got used to this though, I found myself swept along.

“The evening was decidedly cool, and rain was half-heartedly falling. I knew now that this parting was one of those final things that happen, recurrently, as time passes: until at last they may be recognised fairly easily as the close of a period. This was the last I should see of Stringham for a long time. The path had suddenly forked. With regret, I accepted the inevitability of circumstance. Human relationships flourish and decay, quickly and silently, so that those concerned scarcely know how brittle, or how inflexible, the ties that bind them have become.”

Nick is an enigmatic narrator. In this first volume he describes many people and events, observes whole scenes, without appearing to have spoken or acted himself at all. We learn very little about him. I found myself wondering why Powell had opted for an omnipresent narrator over an omniscient one, when Nick barely seems present. But that’s not a criticism, just what seemed a curious choice. Maybe Nick will emerge from his own story in the subsequent volumes. I’m looking forward to finding out.

To end, a dance from the 1950s, looking back to the 1920s:

39 thoughts on ““Books do furnish a room.” (Anthony Powell)”

  2. Lovely review Madamebiblio and great fiddling and dancing to watch too – thank you!
    I have read Dance to the Music of Time twice; and seen the Channel 4 production too. I enjoyed the way it spanned so many years and following the lives of the different characters over the course of their lives.

    Sadly, my copies are nowhere near as nice as the ones you show in your photo. I have it in four chunky volumes. Having the series as separate books is much better.

    I loved the comment you made about half finished reading projects and a big tbr being no barrier to starting new projects and reading books not in the current tbr! I’m with you on that!

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    • Great to hear how much you enjoy this! I’m looking forward to it. I’ll look out for the tv series once I’ve finished too, thank you for alerting me to it.

      I deliberately hunted down individual copies (handily I found this set being sold all together on eBay very reasonably) as I thought I’d find the collected volumes too overwhelming – silly really!

      Thank you for your support with a new project – I knew the blogging community would be on my side! I’m just hoping my family don’t read this post 😀

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  4. Hurrah for reading projects! And good on you for putting it in writing. I am flirting with the idea myself (not as clear-cut as yours – I have a bunch of books about swimming and another bunch about grief and bereavement and was considering committing to one of each a month… considering I said!).

    Your beginning quote made me laugh because it reminded me of a time when my son was little (4yo) and his charming but cheeky friend came over for a play. The friend looked at our very small, box TV – flat screens were becoming the thing by that stage – and asked if we were ‘poor’. I gestured to the wall, filled by long bookshelf crammed with books and said, ‘Actually, we are very rich…’ but obviously the meaning was lost on him 😀

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    • I love that story Kate! Hopefully he learnt an important lesson that day 🤣

      I fear either of your reading projects will cause my TBR to spiral! They sound great – I’ll look forward to seeing what you decide.

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  5. A marvellous project, Madame B – I did the same myself some years back and one of these a month is very manageable! His writing style is definitely very individual and it does take some adjusting to, but once you get used to it, it just flows. I’ll follow your progress with interest! 😀

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  7. Good luck with your challenge! I’ve often felt I should probably read this cycle sometime, so I’ll follow your reviews with interest and see if you persuade me one way or the other. So far it sounds quite appealing!

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  9. I’ve nearly finished vol. 3 in a single volume edition – took it with me as a big read while away over Christmas and NY. I struggled to get into it, partly because of some of the odiousness of some of the characters – that upper class sense of entitlement that you touch on – but there is an element of satirical criticism of this in the narrator’s portrayal. And yes, Nicholas does move more centrally into the picture as the novel sequence progresses.

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  10. Bravo, Madame Bibi! I set out to do the same thing (one book a month) four years ago, but it proved so absorbing that I ended up rattling through them in my eagerness to get to the end. (It also helped that I was recovering from a major fracture at the time, which basically meant I couldn’t leave the house for 6 or 7 weeks!)

    It’s interesting to see what you’ve said about Nick because I think he remains somewhat elusive throughout. I never felt I got to know him as an individual, although it hardly matters given the plethora of other characters in the series!

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    • I’m relieved to hear you say that Jacqui, because I am quite tempted to start volume two already… maybe this won’t be a year long challenge after all 😀

      That’s intriguing about Nick – an unusual choice for a narrator. I’m really interested to see how much sense I have of him by the end.

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  11. I heart your box sets (and it looks like someone else enjoyed them which is also encouraging)! This idea really appeals to me and I was all set to be ridiculous (as if I don’t have a dozen other projects, neglected) but he’s not in the library where I’m at just now. It sounds, from the comments, as though you are really in for a treat!

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  12. Ooh brilliant! I did this several years ago and loved it. It fits into a perfectly with 12 volumes. Powell is very wordy, but as you say, you get used to it. I will watch your progress with interest. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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  15. I remember finding a sentence over 100 words long in the first book. However, I very much enjoyed the 4 that I’ve read… I started a one a month project some years ago, and got stuck there by committing to too many other things, then I couldn’t get going again. Good luck with it.

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  16. That’s an ambitious project, Mme Bibi. At least, it would be for me. I’ve never been too keen on long books. That said, one book per month doesn’t sound too daunting. I seem to remember a few reviews and they were all rather enthusiastic. The writing is different but not too challenging. But that’s coming from someone who reads in German. Enjoy your books.

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  17. Pingback: “The business of her life was to get her daughters married.” (Jane Austen) | madame bibi lophile recommends

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