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A review by darwin8u
Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell
4.0
"Imagination must, of course, select and arrange reality, but it must be for imaginative ends: all too often the role of imagination in this sequence is to funny-up events and people whose only significance . . . is that Powell has experienced them."
- Philip Larkins, in a review of 'Books Do Furnish a Room'
Anthony Powell's 10th book in his 'Dance to the Music of Time' cycle starts with a discussion of Robert Burton's [b:The Anatomy of Melancholy|557658|The Anatomy of Melancholy|Robert Burton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320436436s/557658.jpg|4439201]* and this book (and themes of melancholy and love) reappear frequently throughout the novel.
The central plot thrust of book 10, or the first book of the final season/October (if you will) centers on X. Trapnel a novelist loosely based on Julian McLaren-Ross a writer described by his biographer as "mediocre caretaker of his own immense talent". This novel is the first of the post WWII novels. It takes place in the years immediately after WWII when England is dealing with the social and economic turmoil of the Post war years. Powell describes these changes by describing how the sea and tides will roll certain things back, lose certain things, and propel new things onto shore. I'm obviously paraphrasing because it is late and I haven't the energy right now to find the damn quote. Anyway, it was an interesting brick in this series, not my favorite, but rewarding for some of its dialogue and plot twists.
* An amazingly rich work that I'm almost done with myself (I've got two hundred pages left in the last of the three partitions. I've spent about 3 years worth of Sundays intermittently reading while sitting through church. I'm not sure of my wife is thrilled with me reading Burton in Church, but Burton's explorations of Melancholy seem to almost need an altar or some sacred space to read it near.
- Philip Larkins, in a review of 'Books Do Furnish a Room'
Anthony Powell's 10th book in his 'Dance to the Music of Time' cycle starts with a discussion of Robert Burton's [b:The Anatomy of Melancholy|557658|The Anatomy of Melancholy|Robert Burton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320436436s/557658.jpg|4439201]* and this book (and themes of melancholy and love) reappear frequently throughout the novel.
The central plot thrust of book 10, or the first book of the final season/October (if you will) centers on X. Trapnel a novelist loosely based on Julian McLaren-Ross a writer described by his biographer as "mediocre caretaker of his own immense talent". This novel is the first of the post WWII novels. It takes place in the years immediately after WWII when England is dealing with the social and economic turmoil of the Post war years. Powell describes these changes by describing how the sea and tides will roll certain things back, lose certain things, and propel new things onto shore. I'm obviously paraphrasing because it is late and I haven't the energy right now to find the damn quote. Anyway, it was an interesting brick in this series, not my favorite, but rewarding for some of its dialogue and plot twists.
* An amazingly rich work that I'm almost done with myself (I've got two hundred pages left in the last of the three partitions. I've spent about 3 years worth of Sundays intermittently reading while sitting through church. I'm not sure of my wife is thrilled with me reading Burton in Church, but Burton's explorations of Melancholy seem to almost need an altar or some sacred space to read it near.