The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell is the sixth volume of the chef d’oeuvre A Dance to The Music of Time, one of Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels, also part of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read compilation, ranked 339th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, and more important for this corner, it is one of my Top 50 Favorites – you have a few thousand reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell is the sixth volume of the chef d’oeuvre A Dance to The Music of Time, one of Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels, also part of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read compilation, ranked 339th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, and more important for this corner, it is one of my Top 50 Favorites – you have a few thousand reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other pages on my blog  https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

 

10 out of 10

 

A Dance to The Music of Time is overwhelming https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/04/casanovas-chinese-restaurant-by-anthony.htmlat the second encounter, and I am sure it will me mesmerizing when I will read it for the third, or fourth time, Insha’Allah, if the war in Iran, the one in Ukraine and others do not prevent that

 

The Kindly Ones is full of surprises, meditation on life and death, even when combined with humor: Dr. Trelawney is both hilarious, and he may be the proof that ‘jesters do oft prove prophets’ https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/king-lear-by-william-shakespeare.html which comes from King Lear

 

This cult leader reminds me of the Orange American Psycho, the shaman of the MAGA crowd, he had people, even children, running with him in the first part, but then he is rather decrepit towards the end, he locks himself into the bathroom – there is a stunning meeting with general Conyers, who acts as if he was a disciple

‘The Essence of the All is the Godhead of the True’ is the greeting and the answer to this is ‘The Vision of Visions heals the Blindness of Sight’ and then we have ‘There is no death in Nature, only transition, blending, synthesis, mutation…Death is a mere phantom of ignorance’ or else, we have a mix of jocularity and philosophy

 

A Dance to The Music of Time has more than three hundred characters, Bob Duport meets with the narrator and he tells him what a ‘bastard’ Widmerpool is, indeed, Nick Jenkins asks a favor, to help him get a position in the army, and that insidious character acts despicably, turning the tables and using his interlocutor

Furthermore, as they get to Lady Moly’s residence, they see Gypsy Jones delivering a firing speech, and Widmerpool is again atrocious, scared that her communist ideas will compromise his inflated position – this is not spoiler alert, just speculation: I think he will be a sort of Trelawney towards the end of A Dance and he does get so much power

 

This is more how I vaguely remember what I have read some years ago…another climatic moment takes place during the visit of the general, when one of the servants has a breakdown, and she comes naked in front of the hosts and guests, then later – spoiler alert I should say, even I will say this is immodest, assuming people read this – Conyers becomes a widower, and he plans to marry a surprising figure: Miss Weedon

Uncle Giles dies, he is cremated, and though we have heard about his financial troubles in the previous volumes https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/04/a-buyers-market-is-second-novel-in.html he does leave all his fortune to the fortune teller, Mrs. Myra Erdleigh, who shows up in the second half, it is about seven thousand pounds that she will inherit

 

That is a considerable sum of money, the equivalent of maybe half a million today, Moreland is helped by Lady Moly, when Matilda leaves him – the spoiler alert is up there – but he is not sure about the situation, I mean it is a calamity, but he is not sure if he wants her back, she had gone to her former lover, the rich Sir Magnus Donner…war is about to start, although Widmerpool had said there will be no conflict, and in the next volume, The Valley of Bones, the hero will have joined the army, I know because I have already started reading it again, he had tried to get some help, and in the end, it came from an unexpected source, Jeavons has a brother…

 

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