A dance to the music of time

A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12-volume roman-fleuve by Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid-20th century. The books were inspired by the painting of the same name by Nicolas Poussin. The sequence is narrated by Nicholas Jenkins. At the beginning of the first volume, Jenkins falls into a reverie while watching snow descending on a coal brazier. This reminds him of "the ancient world—legionaries ... mountain altars ... centaurs ..." These classical projections introduce the account of his schooldays, which opens A Question of Upbringing. Over the course of the following volumes, he recalls the people he met over the previous half a century and the events, often small, that reveal their characters. Jenkins's personality is unfolded slowly, and often elliptically, over the course of the novels. Time magazine included the novel in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. The editors of Modern Library ranked the work as 43rd-greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. The BBC ranked the novel 36th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels.