Anthony Powell A Life

In the first full-length biography of Anthony Powell, Michael Barber — publisher, journalist, and man-about-town — takes a close look at the man and the writer. He finds someone whose temperament was often at war with his upbringing. The son of an army officer, educated at Eton and Oxford, Powell chose as his closest friends people like Malcolm Muggeridge and the composer Constant Lambert, who were not out of the top drawer, or the one below it. Although happily married for more than sixty years to Lady Violet Pakenham, the daughter of an earl, he admitted that he had "always been attracted by girls who looked as if they'd slept under a bush for a week." Powell believed that creative writing was, like alchemy, a mysterious, indefinable process by which experience became art.

Michael Barber focuses on the experience that provided Powell with his raw material. He pays particular attention to the entre-deux-guerres, that sharply divided cultural interlude when the artists and good-timers with whom Powell identified in the twenties were followed, in the thirties, by the politicians and the prigs. Amusing, candid, and highly entertaining, this is a delightfully readable account of the author.

"Barber proves an adept critic....For those who know this too-little-known modern master, here's a chance to revisit old friends." Booklist

"Nothing could jar more with Powell's measured, ironic persona and precise, understated prose than Barber's clumsy, sophomoric humor....Despite its conspicuous flaws and lack of critical acuity, Barber's chronicle is smooth and surprisingly compelling. This is that rare literary specimen: a pretty good bad book." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)