AT LADY MOLLY'S

by Anthony Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 24, 1958

A continuation of the series known as The Music of Time which began with A Question of was followed by A and The World (Scribner published these) again has no immediate objective in sight over and above the entertainment it affords. As social portraiture it is perhaps unequalled the individual volumes are more formless than C.P. Snow's class-structured of a changing England, but they manifest a satiric which justifies the comparison which has been made with the carly Waugh.... Again in intermittent the characters introduced before reappear--- the lives of the younger people (Stringham, Templer, Widmerpool, and Nicholas Jenkins- the spectator ) are no further resolved; the older members of the society they frequent are figures silized in an earlier era, Jenkins is the intermediary through whose quizzical eyes they are seen; Widmerpool, still aggrieved and sententious, as he contemplates marriage with a certain malaise to the twice-widowed, older Mildred Baycock; Lady Molly, at whose house they sometimes convene, whose casygoing life draws criticism, as does her lower class husband Jeavons who escapes domesticity in occasional rounds of dissipation; Quiggin, the left wing critic, who loses his faithless Mona to the eccentric Erridge; Jenkins himself always desultory in his relationships, who seems closer to commitment by the close of this book as he intends to marry Erridge's sister.... In England, this series has met with unqualified enthusiasm; the audience here may be more marginal and can best be gauged by the previous books.

Pub Date: July 24, 1958

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1958

Categories: FICTION