Description
The literature on Dance is a drop in the ocean compared to that on Proust. Yet in construction of plot and depiction of character, Anderson ranks Powell above him. How much do particular advantages of this kind matter, and why is Powell an odd man out in English letters? At once so similar and dissimilar, the intricate retrospectives of the two novelists on bohemia and Society, upbringing and mortality, relationships and personality, invite interrelated judgements.
The closing chapters of Different Speeds, Same Furies reach beyond their handlings of time to chart the historical novel from Waverley to Underworld, and the breakthrough in epistolatory fiction of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, held together by what its author described as 'a secret chain which remains, as it were, invisible'.
Powell vs Proust
About the Author
Perry Anderson is the author of, among other things, Ever Closer Union? and The H-Word. He is an Editor at New Left Review and also writes for the London Review of Books.
Reviews
It is Perry Anderson's achievement that stimulated me to have another go at Proust, even while his original criticism of Anthony Powell was instrumental in provoking yet one more reading of A Dance to the Music of Time. -- William H. Pritchard * Wall Street Journal *
Book Information
ISBN 9781804290798
Author Perry Anderson
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 319g