British · 1935–2021
Anthony Powell's twelve-novel sequence "A Dance to the Music of Time" chronicles English upper-class life from World War One through the 1970s with Proustian scope and comic detachment. The British author populated his sequence with hundreds of characters whose lives intersect and diverge across decades. Powell's narrator, Nick Jenkins, observes more than he participates, recording the foibles of bohemians, socialites, and military men with dry precision. The sequence demands patience and rewards it.