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  • A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement

  • Written by: Anthony Powell
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 21 hrs
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement

Written by: Anthony Powell
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Publisher's Summary

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. Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkinsa budding writer shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars. Includes these novels: A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer's Market, The Acceptance World.

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.

©1951 Anthony Powell (P)2010 Audible, inc.
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What the critics say

"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)
"Vance's narration captivates listeners throughout this outstanding examination of a life in progress." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement

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Simon Vance’s narration is incomparable

It was through discovering audiobook narrators that I heard “A Dance to the Music of Time” was Simon Vance’s favorite recording. I am a huge Vance fan, having set sail with him at least twice through the first eight books of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series (his characterizations of “the good doctor” Stephen Maturin are inspired!). In this meaty novel by Anthony Powell, he is just as inventive: from the doughy Widmerpool to the smarmy Stringham. It is a big novel, probably as ambitious as Proust but accessible and quite funny at times. #Audible1

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