Talk:A Dance to the Music of Time

message: *The Anthony Powell Society
Balliol 17:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External link

message: Thanks to 79Spirit for some useful additions to the entry. I have however taken the liberty of reverting two of the amendments in line with the research, usually regarded as definitive, into the Dance character models by Dr Keith Marshall and Julian Allason, which have been extensively discussed. Bobby Roberts was in fact a source for Books Bagshaw rather than Peter Templer. While Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller was originally believed to be the character model for Widmerpool Powell was clear that this was not so and subsequently admitted that Widmerpool was based upon Denis Capel-Dunn. See  http://anthonypowell.org/
--Balliol 18:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See new entries for both Kenneth Widmerpool and Denis Capel-Dunn  -- Balliol 22:42, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Character Models

message: Added details of the original Classic serial version - with casr lsit from Anthony Powell Society site.
Arachrah (talk) 20:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Adaptations

message: How many pages in all? How many for each novel? C'mon... how epic is this novel set really?Dr. Locarno (talk) 15:18, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page count 

message: Is there a reason the cover illustrations haven't been discussed?
--JESL2 (talk) 01:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illustrations 

message: I've added back in the table with references to historical figures that helped inspire the fictional characters.  There has been ample scholarly work on the various figures that inspired Anthony Powell when writing these novels.  I don't want to re-hash the 'roman a clef' debate; but while Anthony Powell did say he didn't want the book scene ONLY from that light, it's apparent that actual people had a hand in forming the fictional characters in the novels.  It's a very helpful resource for those reading the novels for the first time as well.PVarjak (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Representations of historical characters 

message: I'm very skeptical of the claim that the "novel series" is "one of the longest works of fiction in literature." For starters, the linked article explicitly focuses on single novels, which seems like a reasonable criterium; if we're going to measure novel sequences, this particular series probably doesn't hold a candle to several series I have on my shelves. I think the "longest" claim smells more like puffery than actual, objective information. 74.232.78.141 (talk) 01:22, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  On this note, I don't like the infelicities introduced into this article with the phrases "novel sequence" and "novel series". There seems to be a lack of consensus on whether Dance is one long novel that happens to have been sliced into 12 separate physical volumes, or whether it is 12 separate novels. A third possibility is that those aren't the only two options and that there is a third metaphysical entity, which is a bunch of novels that mostly revolve around the same characters, and that there ought to be (is there?) a word or phrase that literary critics use to describe such situations. I see that the New Yorker in 2018 described it as "an immensely long, multivolume novel". Novellasyes (talk) 15:17, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  longest works? 

message: Substituted at 06:16, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This sentence from the intro seems (obviously) wrong to me: "Little is told of Jenkins's personal life beyond his encounters with the great and the bad." It's true that the miscarriage is handled highly elliptically. But we know a vast amount about his personal life: Visits, interchanges, meals, parties with family members, school mates, his social circle. Novellasyes (talk) 15:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jenkins personal life 

message: I think that the section of the article currently called "Analysis" ought to be expanded. I propose that it be renamed "Interpretation, literary critique and background" and that it be significantly expanded. If it were significantly expanded, it could incorporate a variety of interpretations, literary critiques and background that will indicate to any readers of the article what the most prominent and interesting perspectives are on what Powell was trying to do in the sequence, its main themes, and so on. It should also draw out where critics/analysts differ (such as the interpretation that says that the first three books in the sequence constitute a Bildungsroman versus those who say that it does not. That's just one example. Presumably, it would take some time to build up the content in this way. Novellasyes (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Having discovered Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels it looks like the preferred way to get into the type of content I'm advocating for is with a section called "Themes" which then has as many subsections as one needs (for each different theme to which one is drawing attention). I'm not 100% sure that "themes" in that sense is the right way to approach Dance (as opposed to, say, "interpretations") but I think it is an okay starting point. Novellasyes (talk) 20:59, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Expand the analysis section

message: and .  Karoly Cornis edited the article to say "At the beginning of the first volume, Nick falls into a reverie while watching snow descending on a bucket of burning coke" instead of what it had previously said, which was, "At the beginning of the first volume, Nick falls into a reverie while watching snow descending on a coal brazier." I was curious about that so I looked up exactly what Powell did write, and it was "Gathered round the bucket of coke that burned in front of the shelter, several figures were swinging arms against bodies and rubbing hands together with large, pantomimic gestures: like comedians giving formal expression to the concept of extreme cold." So, I agree with Karoly Cornis's edit there. Novellasyes (talk) 13:20, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done in finding the accurate source. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:18, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Bucket of burning coal