Dance to the Music of Time
A few words of explanation before I start this blog moving. 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is my all-time favourite work of literature, and 'Hearing Secret Harmonies', the twelfth and final volume of the sequence, is my favourite part. It pulls together the many strands of the story in a much-anticipated but understated way. It deals with resolution, but not in an artifically neat tying-up of loose ends.
In it, Powell's narrator, Nick Jenkins, discusses 'Orlando Furioso' by Ariosto. From the brief section quoted, this is a long, densely-written poem in an old style of language, even in translation. Fortunately Nick summarises and explains the poem, one part in particular, where a character visits a valley on the moon, and is shown all things lost on Earth:
"...lost kingdoms: lost riches: lost reputations: lost vows: lost hours: lost love. Only lost foolishness was missing from this vast stratospheric Lost Property Office, where by far the largest accretion was lost sense."
His achievement is to recover the lost ideals of his friend Orlando.
To me, this is an optomistic image, of second chances rewarding expended effort. I shall follow Nick's example, and use this image as a structure for this blog.
posted by Alec @ 8/03/2005 05:24:00 pm
2 lost thing(s)
2 Comments:
.... Pen and I had wondered if it also applied to the Whitfield valley?
I have not read "Dance to the Music of Time" but remember it very clearly from the R4 adaptation/serialisation - in particular I remember the execrable Widmerpool - described by his mother-in-law (I think) as "a chateau bottled shit" - a thoroughly accurate epithet in my recollection.
It certainly does apply to Whtifield. Have you been peeking ahead in this blog, young man?
You're quite right about the description by Widmerpool's mother-in-law. (I only know because I've just finished reading that part.)
The Channel 4 dramatisation was excellent, in my view, let down only by finishing at the end of the Second World War, and thus missing out what I think are the best parts of the story. Presumably the one you remember covered the whole sequence?
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