One of my least favourite novels in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time sequence is the sixth, The Kindly Ones. I’m not entirely sure why; it offers one of his most sustained bits of classical reception, the Kindly Ones being of course the Eumenides or Furies – but my love of Powell, and personal response to this book, long pre-date any serious classical interest – and is just as full of unforgettable scenes and character sketches. More than likely it’s my habit of over-identifying with certain characters and then feeling vicariously miserable, and perhaps I simply shouldn’t enquire too closely. But in the last year or so it’s been difficult to avoid being reminded of the book on a regular basis, and that is Not Good – finding oneself in The Kindly Ones is akin to the Chinese curse of living in ‘interesting times’. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Anthony Powell’
Between the Wars
Posted in Musings, tagged Anthony Powell, blogging, politics on August 29, 2019| 1 Comment »
Eine Frage der Erziehung
Posted in Musings, tagged Anthony Powell, Berlin, Bridge of Spies, classical reception, language, translation on February 25, 2016| 5 Comments »
One of the reasons I enjoyed the film Bridge of Spies – others include Mark Rylance, the sights of 1960s Berlin like Friedrichstrasse and Tempelhof, Mark Rylance, Tom Hanks being much less Tom Hanks than usual, and Mark Rylance – was the way that the German and Russian characters spoke German and Russian most of the time: no subtitles, no Denglish with terrible accents (“For you, Tommy, ze Kalte Krieg ist over. Now you are schlaflos in Berlin, oder? Komisch!”).* A really neat bit of alienation; Tom Hanks doesn’t know what the hell is going on, and the audience isn’t going to be any the wiser either, having to rely on tone, facial expressions and body language until the characters/director decide to include him/us in the conversation again by switching to English, not necessarily being completely frank or open. It’s a counterpoint to the shiftiness and duplicity of the CIA bunch, achieving similar effects in plain English through evasion, omission and patriotic rhetoric.
Of course, by this point I had disqualified myself as the intended audience for the film (more…)
Sphinx 