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Anthony Powell
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The Military Philosophers (A Dance of Music and Time) Kindle Edition

by Anthony Powell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 128 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 ninth volume, The Military Philosophers (1968), takes the series through the end of the war. Nick has found a place, reasonably tolerable by army standards, as an assistant liaison with foreign governments in exile. But like the rest of his countrymen, he is weary of life in uniform and looking ahead to peacetime. Until then, however, the fortunes of war continue to be unpredictable: more names are cruelly added to the bill of mortality, while other old friends and foes prosper. Widmerpool becomes dangerously entranced by the beautiful, fascinating, and vicious Pamela Flitton; and Nick’s old flame Jean Duport makes a surprising reappearance. Elegiac and moving, but never without wit and perception, this volume wraps up Powell’s unsurpassed treatment of England’s finest yet most costly hour.

"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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  1. Book 9 of 12
    A Dance to the Music of Time
  2. Print length
    291 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    The University of Chicago Press
  5. Publication date
    December 1, 2010
  6. File size
    2.8 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004DNWDQY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of Chicago Press (December 1, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.8 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 291 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 128 ratings

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Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell

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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Phred
    5.0 out of 5 stars Book 9 End of the 3rd Movement
    Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2024
    If you have been reading this sequence of novels most of the POV and method of reporting by our narrator should be well established. The Military Philosophers is book 9 and the end of the third movement. The conceit of the movements is that each movement, is three books and that they follow the seasons. The books begin with Spring, making this the end of Fall. Under one analysis, fall represents the failure of a character to live within their means such that the approaching winter means the need to pull back, regroup and build resources for the last part of their lives.

    I am not sure how any of this applies to The Military Philosophers. The Military Philosophers completes our narrator wartime service with the British Army. He has been moved into a portion of the Army Intelligence services that has him coordinating with various of England’s European allies. As such he is bound to England, and remote from battle. He is never present as various characters achieve or fail to achieve heroic at or beyond the front. He can only judge people based on how they behave in the relatively peaceful world of England.

    We have come to know our narrator, Jenkins as a largely detached, observer. He rarely makes much of a point about his work except that it reads as at once routine, but with important consequences in the case of failure. He must keep allied leaders happy even when the decisions he has to relate - Convery rather than make are not likely to be what that ally wants to hear. As such Jenkins, early on tells us that war is theater, and so much acting. Uniforms are costumes, in his case literally bought, used from a costume shop.

    This analogy is generally supported by his experiences, but as is typical with the author, people disappear to little or no emotional cost. I say this even as I am aware that at least two of the disappeared are being used to make some very sharp criticisms of how some people can use war to address grudges rather than forward any larger mission. A third character, an especially lovely women is set up as a femme fatale.

    What then is my bottom line? There are parts of this book that appeal to my idea of storytelling. Much of the book is therefore more to my taste than others. It would seem that Jenkins is going to shed his uniform and resume a life of near pointless parties, meeting new and old characters and more or less randomly connecting this point in time to that. We can hope that a character long established as something of a blister in Jenkin’s large list of acquaintances, but there being 3 more books, one need be patient.
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  • Guy
    4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the younger reader.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2015
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    It's difficult. For readers of a certain age it is compelling but younger readers who didn't live in the era might find it hard going. Takes a tenacious attitude.
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  • Thomas C. Wallace
    5.0 out of 5 stars See above
    Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2016
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  • John C. Cravey
    3.0 out of 5 stars Nick’s bureaucratic war ends
    Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2017
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    Nick continues his military service as a staff officer. He meets Pamela Flitton, a femme fatale. When you learn who Pamela Flitton’s fiancé is, you’ll truly know the meaning of the expression, “They deserve each other.” Nick loses several old friends in the war. Then the war ends and he returns to civilian life.

    This book is an extension of the previous book in the series but with less tragedy. The characters are interesting. The plot is meandering and forgettable as usual.

    The highlight was Nick’s comparison of generals to middle-aged women. I laughed out loud at that.

    2.7 stars
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  • Darwin8u
    5.0 out of 5 stars Engrave no battle on his cheek
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2016
    "Engrave no battle on his cheek,
    With war I've naught to do,
    I'm none of those that took Maestrick,
    Nor Yarmouth Leaguer knew.
    -- 'Vulcan, contrive me such a cup', John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

    This is the last book in the Fall/WWII trilogy (3rd Movement) of A Dance to the Music of Time. It was at once the saddest of the series so far and also the most Proustian, with several direct quotations from Remembrance of Things Past and also several geographies in common with that other monster of 20th Century fiction.

    The book had me hooked from the first couple paragraphs. To me, at least, it resembled (in a less funky and mad way) the opening section of Europe Central? You know the part. The very beginning too. Where, STEEL IN MOTION, with a black telephone/Signal Corps octopus vibrating, ringing, somnambulating, sleepwalking, eavesdropping, gloating as Europe Central buzzes.

    See, here from the first couple pages of 'The Military Philosophers':

    "from the secret radio Spider, calling and testing in the small hours..."

    "Endemic as ghouls in an Arabian cemetery, harassed aggressive shades lingered for ever in such cells to impose on each successive inmate their preoccupations and anxieties, crowding him from floor and bed, invading and distorting dreams. Once in a way a teleprinter would break down, suddenly ceasing to belch forth its broad paper shaft, the column instead crumpling to stop in mid-air like waters of a frozen cataract."

    Without giving too much away (meetings are held, rockets scream, people die, but the Allies eventually win) this novel centers on WWII from about 1942 to the end of the war. The war, except for the bombs and the V2 rockets is largely fought elsewhere by other friends. Nick is engaged primarily as a liaison officer (first with the Poles and then with the Belgians, etc.) where he learns how to maneuver through bureaucracy and personalities. Widerpool again (and also Pamela) seem to both act as catalysts whose actions impact heavily the lives around them.

    I think it is also worth posting the Nestor poem in full that I (and Powell) borrowed a verse from:

    Vulcan, contrive me such a cup,
    As Nestor us'd of old;
    Show all thy skill to trim it up,
    Damask it round with gold.

    Make it so large, that, fill'd with sack,
    Up to the swelling brim,
    Vast toasts on the delicious lake,
    Like ships at sea, may swim.

    Engrave no battle on his cheek,
    With war I've nought to do,
    I'm none of those that took Maestrick,
    Nor Yarmouth Leaguer knew.

    Let it no name of planets tell,
    Fix'd stars, or constellations;
    For I am no Sir Sidrophel,
    Nor none of his relations.

    But carve thereon a spreading vine,
    Then add two lovely boys;
    Their limbs in amorous folds entwine,
    The type of future joys.

    Cupid and Bacchus my saints are,
    May Drink and Love still reign!
    With wine I wash away my cares,
    And then to love again.

    In war time it is always interesting to see the interactions between the soldiers in the field and the POGs* (persons other than grunts). Powell plays with this a bit. Jenkins and Widerpool aren't exactly "safe" but their positions during the war keep them primarily in London. The war is being fought by other men. There is also tension between the above ground and below ground (secret) elements of the war. Again, towards the end of these war trilogies we see clothing used to convey the idea of the war as a play. One costume is exchanged for another as Jenkins is demobbed.

    * this was a term I was first introduced to by my little brother who served as a "foot" or a "grunt" with 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan.
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  • Otto
    4.0 out of 5 stars Bello!
    Reviewed in Italy on June 20, 2022
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    Il libro è arrivato in condizioni accettabili. Nono volume di "A dance to the music of time". Si tratta di un romanzo molto ben scritto, forse la parte migliore di tutta "la saga". Consigliato.
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    Otto
    4.0 out of 5 stars
    Bello!

    Reviewed in Italy on June 20, 2022
    Il libro è arrivato in condizioni accettabili. Nono volume di "A dance to the music of time". Si tratta di un romanzo molto ben scritto, forse la parte migliore di tutta "la saga". Consigliato.
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  • HaenschenSchulze
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just marvellous (3)
    Reviewed in Germany on September 8, 2012
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    Ein wunderbares Buch, das ich jedem empfehlen kann, der es auf Englisch lesen kann; und das gilt für alle zwölf Bände! (Deshalb auch für alle die selbe Rezension). Es ist einfach großartig, wie Anthony Powell die Zeit vor und während des zweiten Weltkriegs schildert, wie er Handlungsstränge verschränkt, seine Charaktere lebendig werden lässt und diese nach vielen Seiten oder Bänden wieder auftauchen lässt. Großartige Literatur und spannende Lektüre, was sonst nicht immer zusammen geht.
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  • Peter Ceresole
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the best
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2013
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    This is simply the easiest to follow and most vivid of the 'Dance' sequence. Very like a conventional novel, in fact, compared to the sometimes obscure meanders that make the sequence so different and so fascinating to read.
    Nick Jenkins is in military liaison, looking after relationships with Allied and Neutral military missions in Britain. As you'd expect, it's not a war-action novel; the nearest we get to that is fire watching on a Ministry roof, observing the V1 flying bombs flying in over London trailing dragon plumes of fire. But there's plenty of incident, deeply relevant to the period. His tussles with Blackhead, the 'super civil servant'' over straw paillases for Polish women military personnel, is one of the great gems of the 'Dance'. Widmerpool also emerges in his pomp, risen high in the Cabinet Office and displaying graphically described callousness and hunger for power. In this novel, Pamela Flitton, the true femme fatale of the series, emerges in her full destructive force, bewitching and sleeping with a full range of men and causing infinite trouble. There are two superb, totally identifiable portraits in this book, of Alanbrooke the CIGS, and a longer one describing a visit to Montgomery's field HQ. On this post D-day field trip with the military attachés, Nick also stays in a small hotel in a half-derelict seaside town which he realises is Proust's Cabourg; his excitement at this discovery, and his long meditation on Proust, Powell's idol and literary master, is a profoundly affecting part of the book. The final description of the Victory service in St Paul's cathedral is both funny and moving, expressing exhaustion at the war's end, and leads to a meeting with his former lover Jean Templer, who once opened the door to him naked, now transformed almost unrecognisably into a grand South American lady, married to a Latino military attaché. Typically of the 'Dance', we have encountered him before, as part of a 'tribe' of glamorous, unidentified South Americans staying at the Ritz, and typically hardly referred to at all in this book- but it's clearly them...
    Nothing is neatly tied up, but links to the past and to the future are laid out to be discovered. Of all the books, this one and the final one (Hearing Secret Harmonies) are those I come back to most often. A treasure trove.
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  • James Brydon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Another dose of magic from The Master!.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2012
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    Another dose of magic from The Master!.

    This is the ninth volume of Anthony Powell's glorious largely autobiographical novel sequence 'A Dance to the Music of Time' and opens in 1942 with laid back narrator Nicholas Jenkins working as a caption in the army in Whitehall on liaison duty with the Free Poles. All of the surviving principal characters from the sequence are here on display, not least the monstrous Kenneth Widmerpool whose relentless machinations and tireless have ambitions have carried him to a significant niche in the convoluted hierarchies of Cabinet Office. Jenkins has escaped from Widmerpool's immediate circle, operating now among the immensely more civilised and sympathetic company of the intellectual David Pennistone who brings consideration of the history of philosophy to play in even the most straightforward of official transactions.

    Although Jenkins does not get to participate in any direct action in the traditional sense of the word, his military career is far from incident free, and he has to trace a carefully-plotted path to avoid inflaming the delicate sensitivities of the various Allied and Neutral Powers with whose representatives he has to deal.

    Powell also offers us fascinating cameo appearances from Field Marshall Montgomery and Allanbrokke, together with finely-drawn depictions of the tedium of red-tape laden administration. The final section of the novel includes a beautiful narration of the service at St Paul's Cathedral to commemorate the victory.

    This was the first volume in which the humour seems to outweigh the melancholia, which might explain why it is, I think, my favourite instalment in the whole sequence: there can be little dispute that the three war novels ('The Valley of Bones', 'The Soldier's Art' and this one) form the strongest group within the twelve. They also represent the finest war novels that I have read, for all their lack of direct military engagement.
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  • Barbara Burge
    5.0 out of 5 stars Part 9 of A Dance to the Music of Time. Anthony Powell
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2018
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    Strangely enough, I used it for reading. What other uses do books have? When I've finished it I'll order the next in the sequence.
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