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Suggesting that the literary world is just beginning to realize the extent of Anthony Powell’s achievements, Nicholas Birns provides a fresh examination of the British writer’s career and growing reputation in this introduction to his work. Birns takes a global view of Powell’s corpus, situating his works in context and explaining his place among Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Henry Green, in the second generation of British modernists. Birns adds to the understanding of how Powell and his compatriots pioneered a "next wave" modernism in which experimentation and traditional narrative combined in a sustainable mode. Birns offers readings of Powell’s entire oeuvre, including the novels Afternoon Men, Venusberg, and The Fisher King, and his journals, which appeared in print between 1995 and 1997. Looking especially closely at A Dance to the Music of Time, the twelve-volume sequence of novels that is Powell's masterpiece, Birns sets the series in its social and historical context, emphasizing the role that both world wars and the cold war played in Powell’s life and writing. He makes a particular study of the novel’s dominating force—the arrogant, opportunistic Widmerpool, a social climber who delights in his own good fortune and gloats over the sufferings of others. While noting Widmerpool’s central position, Birns illumines Powell’s subtle aesthetic resistance, epitomized by minor characters and the voice of the narrator, against Widmerpool and his ilk. Birns shows that instead of setting forth a single champion against evil, Powell subtly communicates a half-melancholy, half-humorous sensibility in which he invites the reader to share.
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UNDERSTANDING ANTHONY POWELL Understanding Contemporary British Literature Matthew J. Bruccoli, Series Editor Volumes on Understanding Kingsley Amis • Merritt Moseley Understanding Martin Amis • James Diedrick Understanding Julian Barnes • Merritt Moseley Understanding Alan Bennett • Peter Wolfe Understanding Anthony Powell • Nicholas Birns Understanding Anita Brookner • Cheryl Alexander Malcolm Understanding John Fowles • Thomas C. Foster Understanding Graham Greene • R. H. Miller Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro • Brian W. Shaffer Understanding John le Carré • John L. Cobbs Understanding Doris Lessing • Jean Pickering Understanding Ian McEwan • David Malcolm Understanding Iris Murdoch • Cheryl K. Bove Understanding Tim Parks • Gillian Fenwick Understanding Harold Pinter • Ronald Knowles Understanding Alan Sillitoe • Gillian Mary Hanson Understanding Graham Swift • David Malcolm Understanding Arnold Wesker • Robert Wilcher Understanding Paul West • David W. Madden UNDERSTANDING ANTHONY POWELL Nicholas Birns University of South Carolina Press © 2004 University of South Carolina Published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press Manufactured in the United States of America 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Birns, Nicholas. Understanding Anthony Powell / Nicholas Birns. p. cm. — (Understanding contemporary British literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57003-549-0 (alk. paper) 1. Powell, Anthony, 1905– —Criticism and interpretation. 2. Autobiographical fiction, English—History and criticism. 3. England—In literature. I. Title. II. Series. PR6031.O74Z625 2004 823'.912—dc22 2004004430 Contents Editor’s Preface / vii Preface / ix Chronology / xiii Chapter 1 Understanding Anthony Powell / 1 Chapter 2 A Company of Giddy-Heads Understanding Powell’s Fiction of the 1930s / 26 Chapter 3 Widmerpool and Theocritus Understanding A Dance to the Music of Time / 60 Chapter 4 Man’s Permitted Limits Understanding Powell’s Fiction of the 1980s / 257 Chapter 5 The Other Side of the Dance Understanding Powell’s Memoirs / 275 Chapt