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Anthony Powell

Dancing to the Music of Time

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About this listen

The long-awaited portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's greatest biographers

Anthony Powell: the literary genius who gave us A Dance to the Music of Time, an undisputed classic of English literature. Spanning 12 spectacular volumes and written over 25 years, his comic masterpiece teems with idiosyncratic characters, capturing 20th-century Britain through war and peace.

Drawing on Powell's letters and journals, and the memories of those who knew him, Hilary Spurling explores his life. Investigating the friends, relations, lovers, acquaintances, fools and geniuses who surrounded him, she reveals the comical and tragic events that inspired one of the greatest fictions of the age.

©2017 Hilary Spurling (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Art & Literature Authors Europe European Great Britain Literary History & Criticism World Literature War England Imperialism
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I was really looking forward to this biography of Anthony Powell by Hilary Purling, having recently finished the final volumes of Dance to the Music of Time, which volumes were admirably narrated.
Sadly, we seem here to have a narrator who betrays a lack of ‘feel’ for the author’s voice and what sounds very like a complete ignorance of the historical, sociological and literary contexts which she is required to convey to the listener. She is relying totally on sentence punctuation to give life to the text. This just will not do, because she completely misses the textured subtlety of Spurling’s sinuous prose. Very disappointing indeed. I doubt I’ll be able to listen to the end.

Let down by an uncomprending narrator

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