Powell Course at New York Society Library

I am teaching a course this spring on the first 6 novels of A Dance To The Music of Time. It will be held at the New York Society Library, 11:00 AM to 12:30 AM on the following dates: March 19, April 16, May 14, and June 4.

It is $50 for all four sessions, $15 for one session.

You also must be a member of the library, which costs $270 for a full year, $200 for a half year. I have been a member for some years and find it more than pays of itself in terms of books you would have otherwise bought being able to borrow, and good availability unlike the public library system. Also I have made very many good friends through my membership.

See below for the course description

• Anthony Powell’s A Dance To The Music of Time is one of the longest and most absorbing novels in the Englishlanguage—with twelve books, hundreds of characters, and an astonishing broad coverage of British and world culture from 1914 to 1971. We will read the first six books of the series, taking the story from Eton in the 1920s  up to the beginning of World War II, and meeting such unforgettable personages as enigmatic, aristocratic Stringham, the hearty businessman Templer, the promiscuous bohemian Gypsy Jones, and the saga’s two major characters—our astute, sophisticated narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, and his nemesis, the obtuse, ambitious Kenneth Widmerpool. We will immerse ourselves in the social history of England in the 20th century; life, love and loss in these changing times; the tragedy of two world wars; and a philosophical perspective that embraces both the merriment and melancholy of the human condition. Reference books by Hilary Spurling and Mr. Birns will help make sense of Powell’s tragicomic epic increasingly valued as one of the great masterpieces of world literature