Why do you need a biography of a writer that wrote a twelve-volume quasi-autobiographical novel, and four volumes of memoirs? Because his great gift was seeing other people, not himself. He told the The Paris Review: “I have absolutely no picture of myself. Never have had.”

Being Powell’s admirer, late-in-life friend, and officially-appointed biographer didn’t keep Hilary Spurling from a frank discussion of the fact that his wife, Lady Violet, appears to have had an affair during the war which knocked him into a deep depression. (They recovered and had a long, happy marriage.)

The story is heavily front-loaded—we’re already three quarters of the way through the book before Powell writes the first volume of the twelve volume cycle that makes him famous, A Dance to the Music of Time. And the 20 or so years following the publication of the last volume, in which he published several more books and presumably did other things, are relegated to a brief postscript.

Spurling also wrote, also at the invitation of Powell, the excellent reference book Invitation to the Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (1977). Endless browsing pleasure, if you liked those books.

Do you wonder whether you might like A Dance? Then here are a couple entries on minor characters from Spurling’s handbook picked nearly at random. If this amuses you, then it will amuse you.

JEAN-NEPOCUMENE

The younger and quieter of Mme Leroy’s two young relatives, perhaps great-nephews, at La Grenadière in 1923. Possible author of the crude but not unaccomplished drawing of Widmerpool etched on the wall of the cabinet de toilette.
QU 114-5, 122-3, 137-8, 142, 156, 159, 161, 164.

MAISKY

Lady Molly’s monkey, bought in Soho in 1934 and named for the then Soviet ambassador. Receives homage at the Jeavons’ party (‘There was something of Quiggin in his seriousness and self-absorption: also in the watchful manner in which he glanced from time to time at the nuts, sometimes choosing one specially tempting to crack’); and brings out Miss Weedon’s anti-simianism.
Later bites Erridge’s butler Smith who d. after trying to filch a biscuit from him: “Silly thing to do, to take issue with Maisky. Of course Smith came off second-best. Perhaps they both reached out for the biscuit at the same moment. Anyway, Maisky wouldn’t have any snatching and Smith contracted septicemia with fatal results. Meant the end of Maisky too, which wasn’t really just. But then what is really just in this life?” (Ted Jeavons). Far outclassed Sillery in point of devastating monkey-like shrewdness.
LM 160-1, 163-4, 167-8. KO 235. MP 78-9. BDFR 7. ( )

Mine is a bit of an unfair review; this was presented in 5, 13-minute segments, and I caught only the last two. But those two covered the writing of Dancing to the Music of Time, which is what Powell is known for. I'm afraid I was distracted by the reader's presentation, which I found somewhat inappropriate. She read like it was a thriller, every word weighted with drama, when the fact of the matter was that it was rather mundane. If you are particularly interested in Powell, you would likely enjoy this biography. Otherwise, it didn't appear that there was anything unusual or exciting about his life that would keep the average person interested, and I'm certain that wasn't the result of the abridging. The reader, Hattie Morahan, furthermore had a tendency to use odd inflections. I realize the British inflect differently from Americans, but typically that's within a word itself. But when the inflection occurs within a phrase, such as "spring WATER" rather than "SPRING water", it affects the attention given. Suddenly one is focusing on the water itself, rather than the fact that it was a spring being highlighted. Momentarily distracted, I would find myself lost in the narrative and have to backtrack and replay the last few minutes. It was very good for inducing sleep, however. ( )

Anthony Powell’s twelve novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time, is one of the great jewels of post war British literature. Largely biographical, and narrated in the first person, it offers a glorious perspective of life stretching from before the First World War until the late 1960s, featuring a cast of hundreds of characters. Often very funny, a bedrock of melancholia also runs through the story. One of the most striking aspects, however, is how little we learn about the narrator himself.

Hilary Spurling, well known for her various literary biographies, was a friend of the Powell family for many years, and had previously published Invitation to the Dance, a handbook to the Music of Time sequence which lists all the characters, analyses their intricate relationships and summarises all the plots and subplots – in itself a Herculean feat.

Her latest book takes the form of a biography that focuses on Powell’s early years and the period during which he wrote the Dance to the Music of Time sequence. Extensively researched, Spurling’s book certainly illuminates the sequence, casting light on many aspects of the characters and the often bizarre mishaps that befall them. Appropriately her style of writing resembles Powell’s own approach to narrative. In his hands, it works majestically, drawing the reader in to his chronicles. Many writers have tried to emulate it, and have simply succumbed into rambling.

It is far from being a whitewash or hagiography, however, and in fact, in many ways Powell comes across as an often unsavoury character, and certainly less amiable than Nick Jenkins, his counterpart from the sequence. ( )