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A Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement

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A Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement

By: Anthony Powell
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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About this listen

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

In the second volume they move to London in a whirl of marriage and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures. These books "provide an unsurpassed picture, at once gay and melancholy, of social and artistic life in Britain between the wars" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.).

The third volume follows Nick into army life and evokes London during the blitz. In the climactic final volume, England has won the war and must now count the losses. In the background of this second volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, the rumble of distant events in Germany and Spain presages the storm of World War II. In England, even as the whirl of marriages and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures gathers speed, men and women find themselves on the brink of fateful choices. Includes the novels: At Lady Molly's, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant, and The Kindly Ones.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Anthony Powell's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Charles McGrath about the life and work of Anthony Powell – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

©1962 Anthony Powell (P)2010 Audible, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction England Marriage Witty Infidelity

Critic reviews

"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician." ( Chicago Tribune)
"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." ( New York Times)
"Simon Vance is a master of differentiating characters and conveying a complexity of emotions while allowing listeners room to experience their own reactions. Vance skillfully guides us through Nick's London of artists, musicians, and writers; the several faces of marriage; and the odd mix of hope and fear as the world slips once again into a nightmare." ( AudioFile)
All stars
Most relevant
To enjoy this next instalment of this loosely autobiographical novel (the narrator Nicholas Jenkins is reputed to be Powell) I think one needs to have listened to the First Movement where the main characters are introduced otherwise the nuances of the relationships will be lost. There's a lot of writing to evoke the era and the story moves slowly with many diversions to include a wealth of characters which, apparently, to those in know are based on real people, but many will now be unfamiliar to most of us. These many hours of listening in the Second Movement cover the inter-war years and the ups and downs of the people we met in the First Movement. I think there's an advantage to listening to this set of 12 books that together comprise the three Movements (9 parts in total as downloads) as one can be doing other things as the same time. I must admit that at times it was just verbal wall-paper keeping me company as I walked in the hills, but as the hours flow by I am getting more wrapped up in Nick and his associates lives.
The narrator is excellent and deserves a medal for the huge task of recording the whole series.

The narrative moves on

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writing a review of the second movement is perhaps a waste of time: if you've encountered - and completed - the first, then surely you will be hooked. I read the first movement, and was so glad to listen to the rest.

simon vance is a superb narrator of powell, and captures the comedy running through the novels very well indeed. widmerpool is a creation of absolute genius. these are long reads, which could not be described as page turners, that I found myself captivated by.

the books themselves are, for me, as good as writing gets. they are often criticised for focusing on the lives of the upper classes, but i don't think that is valid. the books offer a wonderful insight into british society in the first half of the century.

I cannot recommend these books highly enough. Not everyone will enjoy them, but those who do will absolutely adore them.

modern classic

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can't wait to start the next part of the trilogy audiobook. like a trip in a time machine to the past and all its forgotten ways. beautiful writing and narration. skip the final chapter, spoilers.

marvellous book

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If you could sum up A Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement in three words, what would they be?

Good, better, best.

What does Simon Vance bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

His range of voices.

Any additional comments?

If I were Powell, perhaps I would be able to write well enough to describe how fantastically good this cycle of books is—but I am not. What I can say is that it is an astonishing work of literature. The writing is simple and clear, it is by turns humorous and tragic, just like life.
I enjoyed every sentence; when I had to stop I was irritated by the interruptions; I was sorry when it ended and I feel that reading it was my time best spent.

Simon Vance, who narrated the entire twelve books, gave voice to a whole world of men and women, all with their own vocal affectations, habits and accents, all distinct and recognisable. He is obviously a truly talented artist but that sort of reading needed far more than just talent, it required the sort of application that most people would have trouble holding for a few hours, let alone the weeks or even months that recording this massive work would have involved.

The irony is that both writer and actor put so much work into the Music of Time books and they are so skilled at their jobs that the whole thing appears completely effortless.

A privilege to have read it

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Excellent acting, excellent characterisation. If the teeny social world that the books inhabit has become interesting, or if Powell's orotund but stunning prose has gripped you in the first three volumes, these are unmissable. "Casanova's Chinese Restaurant" deals with issues like infant mortality and the Spanish Civil War that Powell can't manage. Then "The Kindly Ones" locates the shambles left by the First War, and the encroaching terror of the Second War, and it's just brilliant. And you can't read six until you've read five. Difficult. Half way there.

Volumes 4-6 of the Twelve volume sequence

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