Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
The Valley of Bones
The Valley of Bones: Book 7 of A Dance to the Music of Time | Anthony Powell
2 posts | 2 read | 1 to read
Anthony Powell’s universally acclaimed epic A Dance to the Music of Time offers a matchless panorama of twentieth-century London. Now, for the first time in decades, readers in the United States can read the books of Dance as they were originally published—as twelve individual novels—but with a twenty-first-century twist: they’re available only as e-books. World War II has finally broken out, and The Valley of Bones (1964) finds Nick Jenkins learning the military arts. A stint at a training academy in Wales introduces him to the many unusual characters the army has thrown together, from the ambitious bank clerk-turned-martinet, Gwatkin, to the hopelessly slovenly yet endearing washout, Bithel. Even during wartime, however, domestic life proceeds, as a pregnant Isobel nears her term and her siblings’ romantic lives take unexpected turns—their affairs of the heart lent additional urgency by the ever-darkening shadow of war. "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."--Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times "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."--Naomi Bliven, New Yorker “The most brilliant and penetrating novelist we have.”--Kingsley Amis
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
nocto
post image
Pickpick

This series has really hit its stride; the gradual change in the characters over the years is what really matters here. This book sees Nick in his mid-thirties; I find it a bit alarming that this is the start of the “autumn“ of his life! I was concerned that the military nature of this would take us back to the all male cast that annoyed me in the first book, but I ended up fairly satisfied. The characters are more varied & interesting now.

blurb
nocto
post image

August, you were a terrible reading month. Dragged down by Castle Shade, which was July's #doublespin, and this month's #bookspin being mediocre. What We Really Do All Day is interesting non-fic that's better read slowly. On the plus side I'm really enjoying The Valley of Bones and I got lots of productive work and home stuff done in August. I'm happy-ish with that. Can't win them all.

TheAromaofBooks Some books it's just a relief to get them off the list! 3y
9 likes2 comments