A Dance to the Music of Time GR 2013 - October: Books Do Furnish A Room

Our discussion thread for the October volume of A Dance to the Music of Time: Books Do Furnish A Room



Main thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/147074

I'll sure regret this, but I bought the 4th instalment additionally as audio book. I'll be away a lot in October and don't want to carry the heavy paperback (contains books 10-12) around and with the audio there's a good chance I'll get through this month's book in time, although it will sure be a difficult listen.

Yow. Maybe you're accustomed enough to AP's style now that listening will be easier. Hope so.

Doesn't work well... I listened 3 times through the short first chapter yesterday, then read a bit of the second one on paper, wanted to continue on audio and almost immediately fell asleep. Okay, I was a bit sick and feverish which can't have helped my concentration, but those Powell sentences are not made for the audio medium. I know Ilana believes it's the narrator and I agree he doesn't sound "enthusiastic" (or interested) at all and doesn't make much of an effort with the different voices.

Half through chapter 2 I wonder if we'll at some point learn why Pamela agreed to become Mrs. Widmerpool?

...he doesn't sound "enthusiastic" (or interested) at all...

Nathalie, maybe the narrator is channeling Nick.
Good luck with it.

I keep wondering if Nick's (and almost everyone else's) behaviour is that "stiff upper lipp" thing? Is it just us nowadays to lament the lack of emotion and it was allright for Powell's contemporaries?

Sure, it's a repression mechanism, but if you can't mourn the death of a friend with his sister who's also your ex-lover, what do you do with all those feelings which must exist? Lock yourself in the basement and cry secretly?

Maybe that's another reason for Nick (and almost everyone else) not having any real close friends. Less to lose..

Mini spoiler:
In this book Nick meets Mona - "sad about Peter, isn't it?"

I just finished this one and liked it very much. I thought it was brilliant of Powell to bookend this novella with visits to Oxford and then Eton to take us back to the beginning of this mammoth series. The touches of nostalgia fit right in with Nick entering middle age. Here are the comments I posted on my thread...
SPOILERS ahead!


"The war had washed ashore all sorts of wrack of sea, on all sorts of coasts. In due course, as the waves receded, much of this flotsam was to be refloated, a process to be continued for several years, while the winds abated. Among the many individual bodies sprawled at intervals on the shingle, quite a lot resisted the receding tide. Some just carried on life where they were on the shore; others--the more determined--crawled inland." (131)

Ah, finally a book in this series I can relate to. Unsurprisingly, it has to do with books and publishing. Nick returns to Oxford in his 40s suffering from post-war melancholy. He is writing a biography of Robert Burton and spends weekdays in the library doing research, returning to London on weekends. Widmerpool has been elected to the House of Commons. He is still married to that "first class little bitch"(Pg. 80) Pamela. She gets bored once again and leaves with Bohemian novelist X. Trapnel (pictured on book's cover with his 'sun spectacles') who is associated with the new publishing firm, Quiggen & Craggs. The editor is Books Bagshaw whose full nickname is "book-do-furnish-a-room" -- giving this tenth entry in A Dance to the Music of Time its wonderful title.

There is a plethora of humor and satire in this volume. Chapter Two should be titled "Funerals Can Be Funny" with most of the humor centered around the scenes created by Pamela. She is by far the most interesting (in an outrageous sort of way) character in this series imho. Although Powell keeps adding new characters, he doesn't forget those who died in the war. When Nick goes to Eton to enroll his son, I couldn't help but remember Charles and Peter. The nostalgia is subtle which makes it ever so much more poignant to me. As much as I enjoyed the war stories in the Third Movement, this novella may be my favorite so far. I don't count or rate the individual novellas, but I hope the last two continue in this entertaining vein.

**SPOILERS AHEAD!!**

I was a bit slow this month but have now finished this gem of an installment. Here is what I wrote on my other challenge thread:

After commenting on how the last volume felt like saying goodbye to youth, I was pleasantly surprised to find this next volume so full of reminders of the very early books. The unexpected appearance of Le Bas was an obvious point, but also the image of a forlorn Widmerpool sitting on the wall in the rain brought back a vivid memory of our first sight of him in the very first book, walking along the road.

More than this though, the whole mood of the book felt like settling back down into the old ways after the dark interlude of the war. There was something very satisfying about this and I felt completely hooked by the story telling. The musings on the art of writing were also extremely interesting and though provoking, particularly Trapnel's views on Naturalism.

All in all, up there as one of the best installments so far!

**More Spoilers**

Another general thought:

There are 2 things that I find myself battling with as I approach the end of the Dance. 1. The frustration that Nick never talks about himself and 2. the predictability of some of the "punchlines", as it were (The manuscript in the canal for example)

My internal battle is whether these are things to be critical of or intentional devices on Powell's part to be applauded.

I keep reminding myself of the description of these novels as a series of anecdotes shared at a dinner party. In this context my these quibbles make perfect sense. Powell refrains from adding personal detail because he thinks his "guests" wouldn't want to hear about his own life and feelings. A kind of story tellers modesty. I always think that just because Jenkin's doesn't tell us about his emotions and feelings doesn't mean he doesn't have them. Similarly the telegraphed twists make sense, as the inevitability of what is coming is what builds up the suspense throughout the story.

Final thought of the day,

Donna, that's a great quote you picked out! I think that was one of the only bits of the book that I re-read because I liked it so much!

I've also just finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which interestingly also had a famous section called "the wave speech" which this made me think of. Taken together they form quite an interesting juxtaposition.

It's a wonderful quote, but nothing I remember from the book. I shouldn't have tried the audio, it just doesn't work well. But I reread many sections on paper and for me it is among the best books of the series as well. All that book talk and then some welcome comic relief after the war and all the losses. Pamela is a wonderful character for us readers, not so much for Nick and his friends as it seems. Will we learn what triggers her? She's so inexplicably spiteful when things don't go her way.
Le Bas - I thought he had died long ago, what a pleasant surprise to see him again!

I have wondered over the past several years how I came to buy a copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy. Now I know!!! (Meanwhile, still reading *BDFaR*)

Here's what I posted on my thread:

We’re into the homestretch of the Powell magnum opus now with just two volumes to go. Nick Jenkins, our intrepid narrator, who tells us next to nothing about his personal life, is in his 40s in the late 1940s. The war is over but its devastation is evident in the destruction of many of the buildings in London and many of the lives that have been altered or lost. Nick is back working in the literary world, writing a biography of Robert Burton, whose study on the theme of melancholy would work well in these post-war years. Opening the volume in Oxford, Nick’s old stomping grounds, provides the nostalgia that continues throughout.

A little later we meet Nick’s new colleagues at the emerging literary magazine,Fission and among those is the writer X. Trapnel, whom Nick describes in this way:

”Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honour, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raisonneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honour, to die young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age.” (Page 144)

The thing that Trapnel wants most is Widmerpool’s wife, the inscrutable Pamela, who eventually uses him up and disposes of him, just as she did Widmerpool, who has now moved on to the House of Commons.
I can only think that Powell is brilliant in the way he brings us full circle at the end of the novel as Nick is back at Eton enrolling his son and who should be sitting at the library desk but LeBas, his old house master (who I could have sworn had died earlier).

Masterful and maybe my favorite volume yet. I’m already regretting the end while simultaneously looking forward to rereading the whole “Dance.”

November thread is up: http://www.librarything.com/topic/160503
*sigh* I can't believe there are only about 500 pages left...

Mark me up as having finished this one just under the wire too.
I agree that it's a good one. Maybe the thing that tickled me most was this conversation in which Widmerpool says to Nick and Roddy Cutts, "I fear pomposity is not one of my failings." Makes me giggle even now!

Finished at last! (I'm still very behind with my read). This was one of my favourites so far, possibly because of the wonderful X. Trapnel - my full review here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/recent-reads-books-do-fu...