A Dance to the Music of Time 10 - Books Do Furnish a Room

Books Do Furnish a Room is a novel by Anthony Powell, the tenth in the sequence of twelve comprising his masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. It was first published in 1971 and, like the other volumes, remains in print.

The book conveys the atmosphere of post-war austerity in which the characters attempt to resume life before the intervention of the conflict. For the non-combatants this time-shift proves manageable, but others find themselves irrevocably altered by the experience, and ill at ease in a landscape that has changed both physically and socially.

Pre-war characters reappear, and a younger generation spear-headed by Pamela Flitton take the lead in the narrative. Some of Nick's contemporaries are seen to have become middle-aged and staid, others more radical.

A change in the political tide is conveyed with some satirical fun at the expense of the more doctrinaire figures. The introduction of the bohemian Trapnel moves the centre of gravity towards literature, with a discussion of naturalism in the novel recurring.