A Dance to The Music of Time – First Movement by Anthony Powell, the whole magnum opus consists of twelve volumes, and it is included on The Best Library Best 100 Novels list, also on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read one, it is ranked 316th on the Greatest Books of All Time site, and the twelve books have been reviewed on my blog, the plug here is for the best gig there https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 A Dance to The Music of Time – First Movement by Anthony Powell, the whole magnum opus consists of twelve volumes, and it is included on The Best Library Best 100 Novels list, also on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read one, it is ranked 316^th on the Greatest Books of All Time site, and the twelve books have been reviewed on my blog, the plug here is for the best gig there https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

I just thought of that doctor joke, where he comes in to his patient and says he has bad news and good news, and when the sick man wants the bad first, the physician says ‘you have cancer and will die in just a few months’, terrified and stupefied by this, the dying fellow is still puzzled on what could be the good news in all this

 

-          You see that nice assistant, I am having sex with her

 

This is one of the old, tasteless jokes, you would not do that today…oh, wait, we have the likes of Orange Woland elected in the USA, and a crowded lineup of other fools, MAGA is on the rise and they want blood, no more laws, tariffs, judges rule this, well God damn the justice system, when it does not serve their purpose

So the good news here is that A Dance to The Music of Time is very good, when read for the second time, at least A Question of Upbringing, I have reviewed the novels more than once already https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-dance-to-music-of-time-by-anthony.html and eventually, there will be more

 

-          The bad news is that I did not find this mesmerizing, as the first-time encounter was

 

Yes, it has to do with knowing what happens in large part, I guess, albeit I could not say reading the pages was a déjà vu experience, still, I knew what will happen to Le Bas, the head master who suffers from this prank, Stringham calls the police to inform them that a wanted man has been spotted nearby and they must get him

Nonetheless, what the boy has in mind is for the law to apprehend their professor and that is what happens, which is so hilarious when first learned, but when you know the punch line, it does not have the same effect

 

Kenneth Widmerpool was amusing last time around, but now, I somehow realize that he becomes a sinister figure, he does quite a few evil things in the next instalments and this knowledge casta shadow, I could not see him as funny, though this is speculation, and the sad thing is that maybe I will not take the second part soon

The car accident was another occasion for mirth – maybe it was because I used to read this at the jacuzzi, at the spa, as the spouse keeps saying, when she accuses me of (well, almost anything objectionable) spending too much, looking for g strings there, that the narrative was so thrilling, enchanting some years ago?

 

The other day however, the ride with Peter Temple and his friends from London was not as pleasant, for I knew what will happen, more or less, the worrying thing is that if this failed to offer A Dance to The Music of Time…

 

-          Then, what will?

 

A great mind has insisted that we need to read an old book again, before moving to a new one, every single time, come to think of it, it could be Googled, but why bother, it may be safe advice, but if it does not work here?

Perhaps it has to do with the new arrangement, I now take to put those books on the screen of the computer, whereas in the past, it was with the kindle, this could damage the experience, along with this lack of concentration…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’