Journals 1987-1989

Journals of Anthony Powell #2

by Anthony Powell

These journals, started in 1982 when Powell had become 'stuck' on a novel, became the place where he could most happily exercise his extraordinarily acute and often witty powers of observation and record his memories of times and writers past.This, the second volume of the journals sees the writer in his house in Somerset, The Chantry, encountering old friends, journalists, publishers, relations. He reads through the plays of Shakespeare, and also re-reads A dance to the Music of Time, giving an astonishingly dispassionate and perceptive analysis of his own greatest creation. He remembers Evelyn Waugh, Phillip Larkin, Malcolm Muggeridge, Gerald, Brenan and John Betjeman. He is visited by, among others, V.S Naipaul, Alison Lurie, Roy Jenkins, and Harold Pinter. He becomes a Companion of Honour. His beloved cat Trelawney dies. In these frank and entertaining pages, the daily life of a writer unfolds in a volume that will delight his many fans as much as its predecessor did.

Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1996

About the author

People best know British writer Anthony Dymoke Powell for A Dance to the Music of Time , a cycle of 12 satirical novels from 1951 to 1975.

This Englishman published his volumes of work. Television and radio dramatizations subjected major work of Powell in print continuously. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Powell among their list of "the fifty greatest British writers since 1945."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony...

Reviews

[David]

AP reveals himself to be a cantankerous, opinionated, old man. And why not? Surely an octogenarian has earned the right to speak his unvarnished mind. And there are many gems, especially in his comments about books, and the arts in general. Looking at these last pronouncements from the final 10 to 15 years of his life, I am increasingly convinced that I was right never to try to meet him. But I still love his work.

[Garry Nixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up the 2nd and 3rd volumes, apparently unread, for pennies in a charity shop. As The Music of Time is one of my favourite works, I couldn't resist. But they did not make me warm to Powell, and confirmed the view that authors and their works are not to be conflated. I don't think Nick Jenkins would have become a Thatcherite. I haven't even opened vol 3.