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A Buyer's Market (A Dance of Music and Time) Kindle Edition

4.2 out of 5 stars 195 ratings

Anthony Powell’s universally acclaimed epic A Dance to the Music of Time offers a matchless panorama of twentieth-century London. Now, for the first time in decades, readers in the United States can read the books of Dance as they were originally published—as twelve individual novels—but with a twenty-first-century twist: they’re available only as e-books.

The second volume,
A Buyer’s Market (1952),finds young Nick Jenkins struggling to establish himself in London. Amid the fever of the 1920s, he attends formal dinners and wild parties; makes his first tentative forays into the worlds of art, culture, and bohemian life; and suffers his first disappointments in love. Old friends come and go, but the paths they once shared are rapidly diverging: Stringham is settling into a life of debauchery and drink, Templer is plunging into the world of business, and Widmerpool, though still a figure of out-of-place grotesquerie, remains unbowed, confident in his own importance and eventual success. A Buyer’s Market is a striking portrait of the pleasures and anxieties of early adulthood, set against a backdrop of London life and culture at one of its most effervescent moments.

"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."--
ChicagoTribune

"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."--Elizabeth Janeway,
New YorkTimes

"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."--Naomi Bliven,
New Yorker

 

“The most brilliant and penetrating novelist we have.”--Kingsley Amis

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“I think it is now becoming clear that A Dance to the Music of Time is going to become the greatest modern novel since Ulysses.”
—Clive James

“I would rather read Mr Powell than any English novelist now writing.”
—Kingsley Amis

About the Author

Anthony Powell was born in 1905. He served in the army during World War II. He is the author of seven other novels, and four volumes of memoirs, To Keep the Ball Rolling.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004DNWDNW
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of Chicago Press (December 1, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.3 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 292 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 195 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
195 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2012
    I read the first book in Anthony Powell's monumental 12-volume series, "Dance to the Music of Time," and immediately took up the second book, "A Buyer's Market." A longer book than its predecessor, "A Question of Upbringing" nevertheless covers a short period of time during which the characters introduced in the Book 1, have now moved on from school to London, where they are establishing themselves in London society, at approximately the same levels within England's stratified social structure to which they belonged. But, in post World War I Britain, things are changing, slowly to be sure, but some of the comforts and entitlements of the young men whom the reader knows from "A Question of Upbringing," are not as secure and automatic as anyone once thought they would be. Consequently, the plot is not predictable and is made even more interesting by Powell's introduction in this Book 2, of several new characters, who, I believe, will play important roles in the remaining 10 volumes.

    After reading these two Powell books, "A Question of Upbringing" and "A Buyer's Market," I'm becoming to believe that Powell is an acquired taste: you either acquire it or you don't. I think I have it, so I'm going to read Book 3, but first I'm going to let some time pass before so doing. It remains to be seen if I will take on the task of reading all 12 volumes of "Dance to the Music of Time."
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2020
    Initially, I thought I was beginning to dislike Powell's style although I was bothered by it in Book 1. Then, I found that my writing style was being affected by it, which allowed me to see the elegance and crispness of thought in it. 'A Buyer's Market" did weave its spell on me despite my irritation with the lack of incident and some rather uninteresting characters in the extensive gallery he gives us because it gradually and subtly throws a new light on the motivations and foibles of the variegated characters. The age of the dance and ball evoked in this book fascinated too in an ambivalent way as it showed the youthfully romantic exuberance but also the stultifying ritual of upper to upper middle class politesse and custom. I will take a little break from Powell having read the first two in the collection but I will be drawn back to see how the characters fare, especially as Widmerpool is exerting increasing fascination.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2015
    im cheating and writing the same review for each of these 12 books because the reasons i love them are the same for each

    if you love proust, evelyn waugh, atonement and the like - then you will love these books - they are a wonderful - principally internal monologue/dialogue based - stroll through the middle of the 20th century - nothing much happens, nobody is particularly happy, but it's fascinating in any case

    although - there's a chance that - given my love for long series - i may just love these because there's 12 of them...
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2014
    I read the first book in this series and liked it well enough to follow up with Book 2. This one may have ended my enthusiasm for the sequence, though I am not sure exactly why - I think largely because the story didn't seem to go much of anywhere. While one expects the language of that era to be dense, the writer here seemed extremely wrapped up in drawing out every nuance, particularly those having to do with his own perceptions and thought process, and not necessarily with the story line-- pedantic, in other words. Not sure if I will go back to this author, whose work was supposedly the inspiration for Brideshead Revisited, which I love.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2013
    For the discerningSuper reader since it is complicated. However the portraits of characters are unequalled if you spend the time to think about it. I am reading for a second time and ma read again
  • Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2016
    I enjoyed this complete series, the description of each character and how their lives evolved through the years held my interest throughout all 12 books.
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2016
    A dance to the music of time is one of the greatest works of fiction in the English language.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2016
    Please read the entire series, I think you will enjoy.

Top reviews from other countries

  • James Brydon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful continuation of the Dance to the Music of Time sequence
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2013
    Perhaps the most surprising characteristic of A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell’s sweeping twelve volume autobiographical novel, is how little one learns about the narrator. The books take the form of reminiscences by Nick Jenkins, and extend to well over a million words, but the focus is steadfastly upon the people whom he encountered rather than on himself.

    The second volume of the roman fleuve opens with Jenkins, presumably in middle age or beyond, looking through the wares on offer at a downmarket auction and recognising a lot of four paintings by E Bosworth Deacon. This prompts him to recollect his earliest encounter with Mr Deacon, who had been a friend of his parents, and whom they had chanced upon during a visit to the Louvre shortly after the end of the First World War. (Jenkins’s father had been a delegate at one of the plethora of conferences that were held in Paris after the war, and whose work ultimately fed in to the Treaty of Versailles). During that period, Mr Deacon was living in Paris, and seemed to be in a state of denial about the recent conflict.

    Jenkins is then moved to recall one of Deacon's paintings in particular, "The Boyhood of Cyrus", which had hung in the hall of a house where he had attended dances during his early years living in London. This brings us back to "real time" in the novel sequence, with Jenkins now in his early twenties (probably around 1926/27) and living in a shabby set of rooms in Shepherd Market, then a run-down area of London close to the smart neighbourhood of Mayfair. He mentions, almost in passing, that he is working for a firm that publishes art books ... and that is about all we find out about his day to day life.

    He is, however, in love (or at least he thinks he may be ...) with Barbara Goring, a rather noisy, hyperactive girl who plays a prominent part in the world of society dances and debutantes’ balls. Jenkins hovers on the fringes of this world, and at one ball has a chance encounter with Widmerpool, whom he had last seen four or five years ago in France where they had both passed a summer staying with the LeRoy family while trying, with limited success, to learn French. It is only at this meeting that Jenkins learns that Widmerpool’s forename is Kenneth. Widmerpool is now moving forward in life, having established himself as a solicitor but with designs to enter the world of business.

    The ball takes an unexpected and (for Widmerpool, at least) traumatic turn, and at the end of the evening Widmerpool and Jenkins find themselves walking through the back streets of Piccadilly when they literally bump into Mr Deacon. With his gamine and forthright companion, Gypsy Jones, Mr Deacon has been selling pacifist newspapers at Victoria Station. While still conversing with Mr Deacon and Gypsy Jones, Jenkins and Widmerpool are hailed by their former school companion Charles Stringham, who encourages them to join him at a party being given by his current partner Mrs Andriadis. What seems a mere chance encounter detonates a serious of reverberations that will resound through the remaining volumes of this immense, elaborate and enchanting saga. We are also treated to the welcome reappearance of some characters from the previous volume (including Uncle Giles, who has always been one of my favourites!)
    Powell's style is always understated, and it is, perhaps, only on a re-reading that the true intricacy of the sequence becomes evident. The books are never full of incident. Indeed, this novel takes the form of three or four set pieces, including the ball describe above, a social visit to the home of a leading industrialist, a bohemian birthday party and the aftermath of a funeral. They are, however, richly stowed with acute observation and a laconic, sardonic encapsulation of the hopes and fears of the decades between the wars. The humour is exquisite, but always underpinned by a strong current of melancholia.
  • S Riaz
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Buyer's Market
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2014
    This is the second novel in the Dance to the Music of Time series, following on from A Question of Upbringing. It is set in 1928, when our narrator, Nick Jenkins, is twenty one or two. However, it begins with a flashback to Paris just after WWI, when Nick has a chance meeting with an artist, Mr Deacon, an acquaintance of his parents. This introduction serves the reader to understand the various relationships in Nick’s life, as he meets up with Mr Deacon again after a dinner party at the Walpole-Wilsons.

    We are very aware of the time period in which this is written. This is very much the London of the Bright Young Things, when Nick – now working in publishing – seems to spend most of his time at dinner parties, ‘low’ parties and house parties. During this constant gaiety – at one point, people are veering between two parties held in the same square – you sense a certain desperate sense of looking to be entertained and entertaining.

    The book is full of chance encounters. Through Mr Deacon, Nick is introduced to Barnby and Gypsy Jones. Other characters, from A Question of Upbringing, also appear – including Charles Stringham, Sillery, Uncle Giles and Widmerpool. Although a figure of fun at school, Widmerpool is certainly becoming a man of ambition and, throughout this book, we are aware that Nick has a slight dissatisfaction with his career, his romantic life and the way his lifestyle compares unfavourably with his contemporaries. These novels are very much a series and, although they do work as stand-alone books, it is much better – and makes more sense – to read them in the order they are intended to be read in.
  • Martin Jones
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good Advice For Buyers Or Sellers
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2021
    A Buyer’s Market is the second volume in Anthony Powell’s twelve book A Dance To The Music Of Time sequence. In this instalment, narrator Nick Jenkins is a young man working, in a small way, for a fine art publisher in London. He is living through that time in life when people attempt to establish a career and find a husband or wife, trying to sell themselves, or buy into something. Amongst all the parties, the networking, the dating disasters, the wondering about where to go in life and who to go there with, it’s very difficult to tell who is a buyer or seller. Everyone is both. This blurring of seemingly separate roles is a major theme in the book.

    “I used to imagine life divided into separate compartments, consisting, for example, of such dual abstractions as pleasure and pain, love and hate, friendship and enmity…As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all.”

    Nick tries to think about his interactions with people, who ebb and flow through the rooms of house parties. As he studies all this, the strict demarcations of experience seem to dissolve. The buyer becomes the seller, the friend at school who was predicted to be a failure does very well in the City, the frivolous moment - involving, say, a girl tipping sugar over a boy’s head - becomes a poignant sign post, marking an important juncture.

    A Buyer’s Market is an account of a specific, wealthy 1920s social milieu, which somehow sees much that lies beyond its confines. This feeling is summed up by lovely lines on the final page, as Nick wanders through the night-time streets of Westminster reflecting on the linked topics of Russian billiards and eternity. These two things might not seem to have much to say about each other, but by the last page I was quite willing to accept that they did.
  • heughkid
    5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2015
    I bought this book as a replacement for a copy I had owned for forty years and which had fallen apart. It is the second part of Powell's monumental work " A Dance to the Music of Time", which is arguably the best sustained account of English middle class life in existence. It is possible to read this book in isolation, but much better to read it as part of the whole sequence. This is an immensely enjoyable and rewarding experience. Powell's style is immensely elegant and also very funny.
  • John Anthony Kehoe
    4.0 out of 5 stars Inter-war entertainment
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2015
    Very entertaining continuation of the inter war saga begun with Powell's 'A Question of Upbringing' with earlier characters reappearing throughout. The author has an irritating habit of repeating the phrase ' for some reason...' continually recurring throughout his work: a small criticism. It may be a purposeful way of adding to his ruminative style

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