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  • A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement

  • By: Anthony Powell
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 23 hrs and 12 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (13 ratings)

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A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement

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. In this climactic volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, Nick Jenkins describes a world of ambition, intrigue, and dissolution. England has won the war, but now the losses, physical and moral, must be counted. Pamela Widmerpool sets a snare for the young writer Trapnel, while her husband suffers private agony and public humiliation. Set against a background of politics, business, high society, and the counterculture in England and Europe, this magnificent work of art sounds an unforgettable requiem for an age.

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.

©1971 Anthony Powell (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Vance's narration captivates listeners throughout this outstanding examination of a life in progress." ( AudioFile)
"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)
"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience." ( The New Yorker)

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5 stars for the book, awful commentary at the end

I have written more detailed comments for previous volumes of this audiobook. 5 stars for the content of Powell's masterpiece and 5 stars for Simon Vance's narration. BUT, 4 stars overall because of the dreadful, flawed commentary by "experts" following completion of the book. Identical recording after all 4 volumes, this must be an artifact of the US audiobook - it needs to be edited and corrected, please.

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