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Anthony Powell
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Hearing Secret Harmonies (A Dance of Music and Time) Kindle Edition

by Anthony Powell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 148 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.

In the final volume, Hearing Secret Harmonies, Nick and his contemporaries have begun to settle into the quieter stages of later life—even as the rise of the counterculture signals that a new generation is pushing its way to the front. The darkly fascinating young Scorpio Murtlock unexpectedly draws Widmerpool into his orbit, calling to mind occult and cultish doings from earlier decades; close friends leave the stage, never to be replaced in this life; and, drawing all the long, tangled strands together, Anthony Powell sounds an unforgettable requiem for an age.

"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 12 of 12
    A Dance to the Music of Time
  2. Print length
    322 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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There are 12 books in this series.

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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004DNWDS2
  • 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 ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 148 ratings

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Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
148 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers praise the book's art quality, with one describing it as a masterpiece. Moreover, the writing receives positive feedback, with one customer noting its measured prose and intricate sentences. Additionally, customers appreciate how the book handles memory retention, with one review highlighting its haunting sense of time passing.

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4 customers mention "Art quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers praise the book's art quality, with one describing it as a masterpiece and another noting it's in good condition as a second-hand copy.

"...unpretentious drawing on a whole wide range of allusions to music, fine art, and literature - and a haunting sense of time passing, memory, change,..." Read more

"I'm very happy to have discovered this series, it is wonderful. I enjoyed it to the very end...." Read more

"...Masterful piece of literature in the style of Proust." Read more

"...For example, THE KINDLY ONES is a classic that stands on its own. That’s the one to read if you read only one volume in the series...." Read more

3 customers mention "Memory retention"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's memory retention, with one review noting how it recounts a man's experiences, while another describes it as a leisurely read about a man's world.

"...of allusions to music, fine art, and literature - and a haunting sense of time passing, memory, change, through two world wars and after...." Read more

"...I enjoyed it to the very end. It recounts the memories of a man who lived during the twentieth century and fought in WWII...." Read more

"...It’s a leisurely read about a man’s world." Read more

3 customers mention "Writing quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, with one noting its measured prose and intricate sentences, while another describes it as a treat for the patient reader.

"...Measured prose, slow incremental accumulation of an entire world, informed but unpretentious drawing on a whole wide range of allusions to music,..." Read more

"...The books are slowly paced with very long, intricate sentences, a treat for the patient reader." Read more

"...The writing is enjoyable, but there is not much overt action...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Peter Merrington
    5.0 out of 5 stars Harmonic resonance
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    I read the first eleven of Anthony Powell's twelve-volume sequence of novels 'A Dance to the Music of Time', and was engrossed. Deeply, hugely impressed and engrossed. And then found I'd lost my copy of the twelfth one, 'Hearing Secret Harmonies'. I ordered a copy on Amazon, from the UK to South Africa, and it duly arrived some three weeks later. Good clean second-hand copy (looks like new).

    'Hearing Secret Harmonies' is a wonderful conclusion to this English mixture of Balzac and Proust. With a thematic focus on Jacobean drama and occultism, ageing, friendships and betrayals, death, the youth and sexual liberation, the early 1970s (the series begins in circa 1920). I felt after finishing it that I was forlorn, lost, bewildered, forced reluctantly to return to my diurnal world.

    I have now ordered Hilary Spurling's companion to Powell's sequence.

    As a new novelist myself ('Zebra Crossings, tales from the Shaman's Record' and 'The Zombie and the Moon, more tales from the Shaman's Record' - Jacana Media, Johannesburg and Cape Town, 2008, 2011) I felt that reading Powell taught me a lot about the reflective aspects of writing. Measured prose, slow incremental accumulation of an entire world, informed but unpretentious drawing on a whole wide range of allusions to music, fine art, and literature - and a haunting sense of time passing, memory, change, through two world wars and after. Powell's use A Question of Upbringing: Book 1 of A Dance to the Music of Timeof an anecdotal first-person narrator's voice is marvellously done.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Dave Peticolas
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece
    Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I'm very happy to have discovered this series, it is wonderful. I enjoyed it to the very end. It recounts the memories of a man who lived during the twentieth century and fought in WWII. But it is really about his large circle of acquaintances and the travails of their lives as he sees them. The books are slowly paced with very long, intricate sentences, a treat for the patient reader.
    One person found this helpful
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  • SushII
    4.0 out of 5 stars Readers’ patience will be rewarded
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    I read all 12 books, and agree with reviewers who praised the series as a window into upper-middle class lives in England during the first half of the 20th century. The writing is enjoyable, but there is not much overt action. Powell’s music of time is a slow waltz, during which lots is happening, but you have to look carefully to see it in his low-key, polite manner of playing. The action is all in the stories he tells about other men he meets in the course of his life; you don’t get much about the narrator himself. The women appear only as they affect the male characters who are the subjects of the book. It’s a leisurely read about a man’s world.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Paul A. Janowiak
    5.0 out of 5 stars It took me two years to read all 12 volumes ...
    Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    It took me two years to read all 12 volumes... and it was worth it. Masterful piece of literature in the style of Proust.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Sally A. Kitt Chappell, PhD
    5.0 out of 5 stars Twelfth volume and loose strings tied
    Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Not the best but a satisfying conclusion!
    And don't tell me how many words i have to write! Oh no!
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  • John C. Cravey
    3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Hearing Secret Harmonies / Review of A Dance to the Music of Time
    Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Nick’s many acquaintances are dying and retiring. Their grandchildren are getting married. It’s the late 20th century and this dance is coming to an end.

    My interpretation is that Powell is comparing the 1960s and 1970s to the Edwardian era. Both eras found some of the most promising young Britons looking for new Messiahs in occult or radical movements. These occult leaders have all the titanic strengths of politicians and business tycoons, but with greater spiritual and social gifts. The check against such scary power is that it’s very hard to keep modern Westerners in a cult. This book provides examples of young people in the late 20th century being less comfortable in cults than the Edwardians. Could it be the decline in self-discipline?

    2.7 stars

    Series review

    I don’t understand why twelve volumes and hundreds of characters were necessary. Furthermore, there’s hardly any plot worth remembering in most of the volumes. And because he seems to want to jam in as much as possible, Powell often resorts to gossip to move things along. A much better version of this series could be squeezed into four strong volumes, focusing on a dozen characters.

    I don’t know. Maybe the twelve volumes, meandering events and hundreds of characters were necessary to convey the sense of a large intertwined social network making their way through slow-moving time.

    But I won’t deny that I enjoyed every volume, some more than others. For example, THE KINDLY ONES is a classic that stands on its own. That’s the one to read if you read only one volume in the series. If you like that one and would like to try another, try TEMPORARY KINGS. It’s the most explosive book in the series.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • pertap
    5.0 out of 5 stars this series improves with each volume.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    this is the final book of the series. no car crashes or gun fights. such a relief to spend a little time considering real life and how we get through it. a lovely experience rereading this.
    One person found this helpful
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  • N8RMama
    4.0 out of 5 stars For the 12 book series
    Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    This review is good the series, not just this book, since that is how it is listed on the top 100. What a triumph! The interconnected lives and situations being new meaning to the phrase "small world". And with the continual connection to the Dance and art and a chronicler of time- this series was worth the three months it took to read it. It will stay in my mind for a long time.
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • HaenschenSchulze
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just marvellous
    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! 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 Superb ending to a superb series.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Like all the novels in the series, this is a special (and maybe specialised) treat. Threads are neatly but not obviously tied up and squared away. The autumn of Nick Jenkins's life closes in, the smell of bonfires and the chill of autumn skilfully evoked as ever. Widmerpool, lynch-pin of the whole series, dies an ignominious, desperately sad death that mirrors his first appearance. The road menders' fire bucket, which opens the entire series, closes it here along with a stunning torrent of prose ('I hear new news every day') from Robert Burton, which wraps up the entire 12 novels with unforgettable passion, leaving Nick to express the dying fall in typical, cool, Powellite fashion; 'even the the formal measure of the Seasons seemed suspended in the wintry silence.' In the period of this novel, I was a journalist in TV, and it seems to me that Powell has captured beautifully the feel of the time, the revival of cults and beliefs after the forced rationality of the post war era, captured the flavours of the growing 'art' scene with the slight sulphurous whiff of Northern Ireland behind it all. As always, Powell's style irritates; never use five words when ten will do, eschew the active voice. Sometimes irritation boils over- 'why the hell can't he just *say* it?' But he *does* say it, with a cast of characters who become as real as the people you know. If your taste is for Powell, this is simply terrific stuff.
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  • James Brydon
    5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasing resolution
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2012
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    A triumphant resolution to Powell's outstanding twelve volume chronicle. Widmerpool is as odious as ever, though his immersion within a pseudo-religious cult definitely comes as a surprise. As ever we learn relatively little about Nick Jenkins, the narrator of this epic - throughout the sequence he has taken a back-seat role, always observing though never initiating the events unfolding around him.
    Newly introduced in this volume is the sinister Scorpio Murtlock who has the ability to wreak havoc wherever he goes, and who is determined to become acquainted with Widmerpool for his own nefarious purposes.
    All the old favourites are here: J G Quiggin, Mark Members, Matilda Donners, Norman Chandler and, briefly, Bithel, who had featured so humorously in "The Valley of Bones".
    I don't think that this is the strongest novel in the sequence, though I presume that it must always be difficult to bring such a huge opus to a close. Powell certainly performs very well, tying up most of the long-running loose ends. I enjoyed re-reading this novel though, as always, I felt saddened to have completed it.
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  • Barbara Burge
    5.0 out of 5 stars Last volume in a series of twelve
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I haven't read it yet - having a breather at the end of a very long climb. eleven books in just over a year in the same sequence. I know I'll enjoy it very much and feel sad that it has to end. Powell s a great novelist, though not remembered as well as he should be. Dance to the Music of Time has been compared with Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.
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  • Mr. Kevin Keeley
    5.0 out of 5 stars Hearing Secret Harmonies
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Having picked up several other books in the same series [A Dance to the Music of Time] by Anthony Powell from a local charity shop I could not resist this one when I saw it on Amazon. It is the book which brings the series to a fitting and sometimes sad conclusion, especially the downfall of Kenneth Widmerpool. He deserved everything but his end was tragic. Anthony Powell has worked won ders with this series of books.
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