Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell is the twelfth volume of the chef d’oeuvre A Dance To The Music of Time, which is included on some of the most prestigious (perhaps all of them) lists: The All-TIME 100 Best Novels, The Modern Library’s Best 100 Novels, and it is ranked 329th on the Greatest Books of All Time site, most important for this space, it is one of my Top 50 Favorites…you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are the stars

 

Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell is the twelfth volume of the chef d’oeuvre A Dance To The Music of Time, which is included on some of the most prestigious (perhaps all of them) lists: The All-TIME 100 Best Novels, The Modern Library’s Best 100 Novels, and it is ranked 329th on the Greatest Books of All Time site, most important for this space, it is one of my Top 50 Favorites…you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are the stars

 

10 out of 10

 

Alas, I have reached the end of A Dance To the Music of Time https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/hearing-secrets-harmonies-by-anthony.html for the second time, in a few years, maybe there will be a return to Hearing Secret Harmonies and the rest of this magnum opus

 

There is a lot going on, and after a spoiler alert – which seems rather superfluous, for who will read this take on the last out of twelve volumes, unaware of what is to be expected? – I will mention some of the surprises, probably the most unpredictable event would be the transformation of Kenneth Widmerpool and his fall

Scorpio Murtlock is the most important new character in this last volume, he plays the nemesis to Widmerpool, eventually, the former becomes the leader of this cult, and allegedly a re-incarnation of Dr. Trelawney https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/04/a-buyers-market-is-second-novel-in.html who had died

 

Humor and tragedy are mixed, Kenneth Widmerpool becomes the chancellor of a university, somewhere near the start of Hearing Secret Harmonies, and the Quiggin twins (daughter of critic and publisher Quiggin and his wife Ada) pour paint over the official, it makes the news on television, but then the three get together:

The American author and academic Russell Gwinnett has finished his biography of X Trapnel, which had involved the affair with Pamela Widmerpool, the latter committing suicide, because she had been refused by Russell maybe, who is awarded a prize and then they have this reception where Widmerpool comes with…

 

The Quiggin twins, who throw some stink bomb, use fireworks, create havoc, indeed, the chancellor will soon resign and the villain of A Dance to The Music of Time – at least up to the last volume – becomes a strange figure, animated still by some ambition, but he gives up power, even signs his house over to the cult he joins

Many bizarre events take place within this setting, which remind me of the psychology classic Influence https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/influence-psychology-of-persuasion.html wherein Robert Cialdini uses the example of the cult that moved to South America, where many (almost all) committed suicide

 

One of the 6 Principles of Influence is Respect for Authority, and humans to go incredible lengths due to that (look at MAGA and their Demented Orange Leader) Scorp makes his followers engage in various rituals that would prove terminal, at least for one of them, and what about the outré, if not worse, sexual rites?

 

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