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Anthony Powell
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Books Do Furnish a Room (A Dance of Music and Time) Kindle Edition

by Anthony Powell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 out of 5 stars 123 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 tenth volume, Books Do Furnish a Room (1971), finds Nick Jenkins and his circle beginning to re-establish their lives and careers in the wake of the war. Nick dives into work on a study of Robert Burton; Widmerpool grapples with the increasingly difficult and cruel Pamela Flitton—now his wife; and we are introduced to the series’ next great character, the dissolute Bohemian novelist X. Trapnel, a man who exudes in equal measure mystery, talent, and an air of self-destruction.

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

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004DNWDRI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of Chicago Press (December 1, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.2 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 123 ratings

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Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell

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4.2 out of 5 stars
123 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Alfonse
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
    Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Everything in this series is brilliant. Read everyone before you die.

    A conversation over forty years.

    Erudite and witty, it is a microcosm of, not just British, but all our lives.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Phred
    4.0 out of 5 stars Being the beginning of the end
    Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2024
    And now we begin the winter of Anthoney Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. Book 10 of the 12 book cycles, each published in threes and more or less aligned with the seasons. Powell had told us that WW II was mere costume theater, and his living camera, recorder of events of events (Narrator, novelist Jenkins) sees it from a mostly passive position, mostly in London, where the bombings are mostly a bore. Mostly. Having no personal experience with war as a matter of fighting, he had given us various leaders, back of the line where politics is paramount. That and the introduction of his poisonous woman Pamala.

    Volume 9 ended with Pamala being the lust interest of every character in the book, for no other reason than her looks. Nothing in her behavior can be called attractive, much less sexy. And speaking of unattractive our arguably central figure Widmerpool has married her. Given that he continues to raise ever higher, I guess he should win the hostile sex kitten. No blushing bride she will spread more of her toxins. Almost to the point of eclipsing her husband. His near disappearance is important, because Widmerpool will continue his climb and we will be kept in total darkness of what he is doing that makes of him an ever-rising star.

    The impression one gets as book ten (Books do Furnish a Room) begins is that Nick Jenkins rushed out of uniform with the same eagerness of a newly graduating senior rushes into his first, emancipated school boy summer. The book begins with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. As suggested books. More exactly publishing will be the main topic. Taking a moment to consider the title, the value of books is decorative. Hardly a rousing anthem for a character whose is presented to us as a writer of books. This is the world where Jenkins will build his second civilian career. Must of it intended to be humorous. All of his contacts are leftist in leanings, but the more you read, the more you realize that their politics are not important, less so as they and the book proceeds. Again, we get a lot of in the world of publishing the personalities and polities that drive decisions among those in the know.

    For reason that eventually become important we are introduced to a marginal writer X. Trapnel. Altogether too much about his techniques as a beggar are endlessly detailed, in part so that we might remember his ability to scrounge money from Widmerpool. A loan with serious plot implication. For all the times he will associate with the humor of this book, he is a pitiful character and he is a plot devise but a person rather to be pitied than so exploited.

    Along the way Powell allows himself a gratuitous shot at book reviewers. He adds nothing to this note in the eye of literature, though there is a humous table side exchange between two self-important book reviewers.

    All of this is to observe a gradual loss of authorial energy. One can almost hear Powell thinkin:, This is a lot of pages over a lot of years all driven by party time small talk and having no real direction of travel. I am not the first to notice that the ever-growing cast, danse troop, if you will is people whose importance is limited to the limited circle of Nicky’s meanderings. To the end Powell is a fine writer, with a keen eye for the phrase. An avid reader will still need the internet as the flow of poetry, artists and the like all long natural to Jenkins, but very likely not au currant with a later 21 century reader.

    I continue to enjoy and recommend these book, but I suspect that Anthoney Powell was, by book 10 also feeling the weight of keeping this going.
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  • John C. Cravey
    3.0 out of 5 stars Pamela Widmerpool, the Anton Chigurh of man-eaters
    Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2017
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    Mrs. Widmerpool’s misadventures are the high points of this book. We also meet “Books do furnish a room” Bagshaw and X. Trapnel. The names and nicknames are getting more and more outlandish.

    One problem with Powell’s work is that it often reads like gossip. But what makes gossip interesting is that it’s dirt on known people who have otherwise respectable reputations. But we don’t really know X. Trapnel, for example, and he’s not respectable. He’s only interesting when he’s speaking or doing something else that moves the story along.

    Pamela Widmerpool, on the other hand, is always treated as a full-blown literary character, even though she seems barely human. Her entire life is focused on destroying men spiritually. She’s a force of nature, like Anton Chigurh. What else happened in this book? I can barely remember. What else do you need?

    3 stars
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  • David Giard
    4.0 out of 5 stars England, Nick, and the people in his life recover after World War II
    Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020
    World War II has come to an end and Nick Jenkins, the narrator of Anthony Powell's 12-volume "A Dance to the Music of Time" has taken a job in a publishing house and is writing a biography. Goods are scarce and the nation is tired, but everyone is moving forward with their lives.

    "Books Do Furnish a Room" begins the final trilogy/season/movement of the series.

    The ambitious, but insufferable Kenneth Widmerpool has been elected to the House of Lords, which should make him happy; but, as expected, his marriage to femme fatale Pamela Flitton presents many personal difficulties.

    This book is mostly about Pamela and the newly-introduced X. Trapnel - an enigmatic author, who becomes infatuated and entangled with Pamela - again with predictably disastrous consequences. Pamela is cruel and manipulative and unfeeling and fascinating. She draws men to her and poisons them, before leaving them damaged.

    As always, Powell does an excellent job at building characters and evolving them as they age.
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • James Brydon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful insight into the writer's world
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This is the tenth volume of Powell's autobiographical epic, "A Dance to the Music of Time", and sees his fictional avatar Nick Jenkins return once more to civilian life after his service in the Second World War, as chronicled in [The Valley of Bones], [The Soldier’s Art] and [The Military Philosophers]. However, before resuming his former place in London's literary world, he returns to academia, staying in his old Oxford college while researching the life of Robert Burton, and in particular his classic renaissance volume, [The Anatomy of Melancholy]. There is a certain poignancy about this choice of subject for Nick Jenkins: while [A Dance to the Music of Time] has frequently been praised for its humour and piquant observations of life, beneath the jolly carapace the predominant theme is one of cyclical melancholia.

    His return to a post-war Oxford offers an opportunity for another encounter with Sillery, one of the principal influences during Jenkins’s time as an undergraduate. Still steeped in his intricate webs of political intrigue and relentless snobbery, underpinned by his particularly delicious form of personal malice, Sillery has been ennobled by the new, post-war Labour administration, and seems agog for any snippets of gossip or speculation about life in London, although his energies are principally directed to editing his journals for publication.

    Jenkins’s spell in Oxford is cut short by news of the sudden death of his brother in law, the socialist peer Lord Warminster (known to friends and family as Erridge). Erridge’s funeral is one of Powell’s set piece masterpieces, with the Tolland family demonstrating all of their own respective foibles while also having to contend with the unexpected appearance of Kenneth Widmerpool (now an ambitious Labour MP), and his wife, along with J G Quiggin and Gypsy Jones, among others, who had lately been involved with Erridge and, in particular, his plans to fund the launch of a new, left-leaning politico-literary magazine called ‘Fission’

    Returned to civilian life and back from his brief hiatus in Oxford, Jenkins now finds himself "doing the books" for ‘Fission’ while also struggling to complete his exegesis of Burton, which will eventually be published under the title 'Borage and Hellebore'. Working for Fission brings Jenkins back into regular contact with J G Quiggin who has now relinquished his own aspirations as an author and taken to publishing. The magazine is edited by Lindsey Bagshaw, known to all his acquaintances as 'Books Do Furnish a Room' Bagshaw, or simply 'Books'. Bagshaw is a veteran journalist and lifelong student of the numerous strains of socialism.

    Through Bagshaw, Jenkins also makes the acquaintance X Trapnel, a highly accomplished yet dangerously volatile writer who strides around the icy capital in an old RAF greatcoat while brandishing a swordstick.

    Jenkins was surprised to find that Kenneth Widmerpool, recently appointed as Principal Private Secretary to a member of the Cabinet, was involved with the magazine as one of its financial backers and a regular columnist. In this latter role he churns out wordy pieces espousing the merits of increased cultural and trade links with the Soviet bloc countries. After an inauspicious first encounter with her, Trapnel becomes utterly enchanted by Pamela, Widmerpool's unconventional wife. Pamela has hitherto been a fairly ephemeral character but takes a more prominent role in this volume, leaving her husband to set up home with Trapnel in the dim hinterland of Kilburn. Needless to say, life with Pamela is far from tranquil, which drags Trapnel down, and compromises his health (he has never been physically robust) and his writing. The portrayal of Trapnel is based upon the equally melancholic life of Julian Maclaren-Ross, who promised so much but died regrettably young without ever fulfilling his potential.

    As Jenkins becomes more deeply immersed in Burton's work he sees ever more characteristics of different forms of melancholia among those people with whom he works, and Trapnel in particular. Trapnel does display a certain style, but is ill-equipped for the vicissitudes of post-war London, and the Dickensian winter that shows no sign or thawing. Often very funny this novel is also very closely observed and offers pellucid insight into the difficulties endured by the professional writer.
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  • HaenschenSchulze
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just marvellous (2)
    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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  • s k
    4.0 out of 5 stars Literary Endeavours
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2013
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    Books Do Furnish a Room may be the first of the winter novels, but it is far from a decrescendo to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. The book is much better than The Military Philosophers (volume nine), and that, surely, is due to the territory, as Nicholas Jenkins, in 'an attempt to reaffirm some sort of personal identity' after the rigours of conflict, returns to his literary endeavours. In a sense, then, the cycle has come full circle, and we have returned to the artistic milieu of the interwar years, an environment Powell negotiates with ease.

    Although writing a book on Robert Burton (author of The Anatomy of Melancholy), Nick spends more time reviewing for Fission, a newly launched magazine published by J.G. Quiggin and Howard Craggs. Once again, this move places him within range of Widmerpool, who is both a business advisor and an economic commentator for the doomed journal. Nevertheless, for his own amusement, Nick watches the periodical's various intrigues with a bewildered detachment, thereby absorbing all the various rumours, especially those regarding the innumerable promiscuities of Pamela Widmerpool (née Flitton).

    The novel features another of the triangular relationships favoured by Powell. This time, though, a new character is introduced: X. Trapnel, the haywire novelist. The lovers' trio, then, consists of Pamela, Widmerpool, and Trapnel. Unprecedentedly, Powell gives a twelve-page exposition of Trapnel's capricious characteristics, labelling him a 'dandy...lover...comrade...eccentric...sage...virtuoso...[and] spendthrift'. He also, for all his attributes, has no qualms cuckolding Widmerpool. The dynamic between the three is smoothly handled, the reasons behind Pamela's flightiness revealed. Yet she is still an enigma; a Gordian knot neither Widmerpool nor Trapnel can cut. Even so, fate has cruelly decreed that all three partake of the dance, and thus it continues.

    Annoyingly, there are still some events left dangling, loose ends perennially untied. Isobel gives birth to a second son, yet this one, like the first, remains unnamed: why? Although post-war domesticity is not on Powell's agenda, surely they should be involved, if only to round off Nick's character. Furthermore, when Dicky Umfraville implies he is Pamela's father, the matter is quickly dismissed: will this complex issue be resolved? Who knows? But as we come to the end of the Dance sequence, it is clear the Widmerpools are drifting into the centre: but just what, exactly, will be their fates?
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  • Barbara Burge
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is the tenth book in Anthony Powell's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 10, 2018
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    A wonderful picture of life in Britain before during and after WW2. Excellent characters and relationships. I used it for sheer pleasure in great writing.
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  • Peter Ceresole
    4.0 out of 5 stars Recovery time
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2013
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    Like all the other 'Dance' novels, this one is terrific if you can stand Powell's style. Occasionally it irritates the hell out of me; reported speech, convolution, never use five words when ten will do. I get quite annoyed- 'why the heck can't you just say it in a normal voice?' But then the stories and the characters are so vivid and so true to themselves that I forgive him all his preciousness. It just works...

    This is set in 1947-8, including the terrible winter, and everybody is simply exhausted after the war. There are no luxuries, nothing cheerful, the war has changed everything and people are just trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Many have died- characters are gone forever, new ones emerge- including 'Books' himself- and Erry's funeral is a frozen scene of hell. I remember that time, as a small child, and this book rings absolutely true. Widmerpool moves into Parliament and starts a new power game that comes to ghastly fruition in the next volume. A new character, X Trapnel, is introduced, seduced by Pamela Widmerpool and destroyed by her. This book pairs particularly closely with the next novel, 'Temporary Kings' where her viciousness comes to a head. The atmosphere is as always subtly and bewitchingly conveyed, and as always it nicely repays a thorough read.
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