THE MILITARY PHILOSOPHERS

by Anthony Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 1969

Another novel in a series intended to develop, in aggregate, the master plan indicated by the title, The Music of Time. Powell's concept is vast; its manifestations, within the context of the total work, technically fine. The gloved touching of personalities, the groupings, helter-skelter meetings, congruences are forced by the times, present a chance pattern, inconclusive but a pattern nonetheless. Powell's characters are never transformed-they merely adapt. They are upper class, articulating, ""riding through."" In this latest and last, in the war trilogy, Jenkins is assigned to a War Office Section with the Allies of World War II. Somehow the times never seem quite out of joint and Widmerpool continues his career climb; Pennistone wittily regards a bureaucracy; Farebrother's jaunty buccaneering is further tolerated; the deaths of Stringham and Peter Templer are noted as blankly as the horror of an offstage holocaust. Odd entities are accepted as just that-a dreadful girl named, dreadfully, Pamela Flitton; a blind bat of a bureaucrat named Blackhead. Also foreign military; one hapless Prince; compeers recognized and noted-the cast is enormous, with the agreeable dissonance of chiming clocks. For those with an accrued interest in the complete work.

Pub Date: March 5, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION