A Dance to the Music of Time 12 - Hearing Secret Harmonies

Hearing Secret Harmonies is the final novel in Anthony Powell's twelve-volume masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. It was published in 1975 twenty-four years since the first book, A Question of Upbringing appeared in 1951.

Completing his meditation upon the themes of time and will, the author recounts the narrative in the voice of a convincingly middle-aged Jenkins. (In the television adaptation of the novels an older actor was chosen to play Nick in the final part.)

Whilst evading the trap of tying up every plot line Powell nonetheless satisfies the reader's pent-up desire to know the fate of the principal surviving characters.

Though well received critically, Hearing Secret Harmonies has sometimes been held by academics to be the weakest of the twelve novels in the cycle. However Powell scholars like Hilary Spurling and his biographers, Michael Barber and Nicholas Birns broadly disagree.

A lyrical quality in the writing, not present in earlier volumes, has been detected, although the development of the character of the cult leader Scorpio Murtlock lends some astringency to the narrative. The sketch of university life in the late 'sixties offers a dryly satirical interlude before Widmerpool loses his final power struggle and expires in bathetic circumstances.