Hearing Secret Harmonies
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cornerstone
Published:7th Jul '05
Should be back in stock very soon
The final novel in Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time
'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.'GUARDIAN
'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature.
'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.'GUARDIAN
'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers.
In this final volume of Anthony Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’, the sixties are in full swing and Nick Jenkins and his wife Isobel are living out their later years in the countryside. Not content with a quiet retirement, Nick’s old school friend Widmerpool is on the rise again and is appointed chancellor of a new university. But while Nick and his contemporaries are settling in to a slower pace of life, the rise of sixties counterculture signals a new generation pushing its way to the front. And as the Dance draws to a close, a wedding brings together old faces one last time.
One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature – a wonderful portrait of society, full of insight into the complexities of human behaviour, richly detailed and shrewdly funny. -- William Boyd
Discovering Anthony Powell’s "A Dance to the Music of Time" has been one of the greatest pleasures of my reading life. The cool elegance of the prose, the deliciously dry humour, the confident choreography of his characters made for an incomparable treat. Twelve volumes was simply not enough. -- Michael Palin
“A Dance To The Music of Time” is an epic, elegant masterpiece, so full of lightness and comedy that you're unprepared for how it quietly wrecks your heart. -- Lauren Groff
Powell’s novel sequence is at once a rich chronicle of 20th-century English social life and an intricately wrought work of art. It is also extremely funny, in its sly fashion. -- John Banville
The novels of Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time” themselves move hand in hand in intricate measure through the last century, bearing wisdom and understanding for the present. In an ever-quicker, ever-shallower world, his steadiness and wit reliably escort the reader into depth and patience. Nobody gives pattern to the spectacle of human existence like Powell. -- Louisa Young
Reading “A Dance to the Music of Time” was such a joyous experience, I remember wishing there'd been more than twelve volumes. -- Roddy Doyle
He has wit, style, and panache, in a world where those qualities are in permanently short supply * The New York Review of Books *
I re-read the "Dance" every five years or so and always find something new – the world has changed but the characters are evergreen. Everybody has a Widmerpool in their life. -- Daisy Goodwin
[A] comic masterpiece * Irish Times *
A masterful stylist and a wise, often hilarious observer of human nature and his times, Anthony Powell is an under-appreciated literary gem. The pleasures and dramas of the "Dance" continue to illuminate daily life. -- Claire Messud
ISBN: 9780099472537
Dimensions: 198mm x 131mm x 21mm
Weight: 260g
320 pages