Publisher's Synopsis
The dance of the music of time continues and spring is followed by summer. The three novels that make up the second volume of this great historical fresco on 20th century England are located between 1934 and 1939, with long flashbacks to previous decades. Powell continues his immersion in the world of aristocrats, bourgeoisie and bohemian artists, here against the backdrop of the rise of fascism in Europe, the emergence of the artistic avant-gardes, the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the threat of the Second World War more and more present. The wide roster of characters includes, in addition to the protagonist and thread of the story, Nicholas Jenkins, the obese upstart Widmerpool; Erridge Tolland, the red aristocrat who will come to the aid of the Spanish Republic; the composer Hugh Moreland; the bohemian Lady Molly; the suicidal artist Maclintick; the old writer St. John Clarke; and the young lsobel Tolland, whom Jenkins marries. In the pages of this second volume love and death coexist and collide, the country mansions and pubs of London's Soho, social rituals and tormented intimacies, while the catastrophe of war looms over Europe. Powell, who has been considered by critics to be the English Proust, intermingles with unmatched talent for humor and drama, density and wit to cast a scrutinizing and uncomplacent look at modern England in this vast narrative cycle that time has confirmed as one of the Summits of Contemporary English Literature.
