Synopses & Reviews
Unsavory artists, titled boobs, and charlatans with an affinity for Freudsuch are the oddballs whose antics animate the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell. A genius of social satire delivered with a very dry wit, Powell builds his comedies on the foibles of British high society between the wars, delving into subjects as various as psychoanalysis, the film industry, publishing, and (of course) sex. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, these slim novels reveal the early stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in Powells epic
A Dance to the Music of Time.
In Whats Become of Waring, Powell lampoons a world with which he was intimately acquainted: the inner workings of a small London publisher. But even as Powell eviscerates the publishers less than scrupulous plotting in his tale of wild coincidences, mistaken identity, and romance, he never strays to the far side of farce.
Written from a vantage point both high and necessarily narrow, Powells early novels nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and what makes people behave as they do. Filled with eccentric characters and piercing insights, Powells work is achingly hilarious, human, and true.
Review
“A must for Powell devotees.” Edmund Fuller
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“Gratifyingly eccentric.” New York Times Book Review
Review
“Beautiful and hilarious, and the whole nutty arrangement ends too soon.” Paul Pickrel - Harper's Magazine
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“A master of irony . . . a writer of social comedy as revelatory as any written by Evelyn Waugh or Henry Green.” Observer
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“The quest for the historical Waring becomes the wildly entangled pursuit and exposure of a literary charlatan, and involves a gallery of British comic types. . . . There is laughter all the way. . . . A must for Powell devotees.”
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“A Christmas tree for the display of a grand, glittering array of splendid comic characters doing funny things. Mr. Powells prose is beautiful and hilarious, and the whole nutty arrangement ends too soon.” Paul Pickrel - Harper's Magazine
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“I do not see how anyone who is not an imbecile can fail to be amused and delighted with Whats Become of Waring.” New Yorker
Synopsis
WHAT’S BECOME OF WARING (1939) satirizes a small independent publisher in London run by two brothers who don’t get along. It’s told from the point of view of a young man who reads manuscripts for them and assists the younger brother in undermining the elder’s authority. Here Powell brilliantly pokes fun, not just at certain types, but at timeless human failings: self-satisfaction, pride, delusion, arrogance, lust, sloth, greed, and cowardice. The action zooms around from London homes to the South of France, and back. This is the funniest of Powell’s early novels, involving a missing best-selling author, wild coincidences, mistaken identity, romance, whacky surprises and a satisfying close.
About the Author
Anthony Powell (1905-2000) was an English novelist best known for A Dance to the Music of Time, which was published in twelve volumes between 1951 and 1975. He also wrote seven other novels, a biography of John Aubrey, two plays, and three volumes of collected reviews and essays, as well as a four-volume autobiography, an abridged version of which, To Keep the