Afternoon Men

By Anthony Powell

Book Overview

Written from a vantage point both high and deliberately narrow, the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and the strange drivers of human behavior. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, Powell's early works reveal the stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in his epic, A Dance to the Music of Time . In Afternoon Men , the earliest and perhaps most acid of Powell's novels, we meet the museum clerk William Atwater, a young man stymied in both his professional and romantic endeavors. Immersed in Atwater's coterie of acquaintances--a similarly unsatisfied cast of rootless, cocktail-swilling London sophisticates--we learn of the conflict between his humdrum work life and louche social scene, of his unrequited love, and, during a trip to the country, of the absurd contrivances of proper manners. A satire that verges on nihilism and a story touched with sexism and equal doses self-loathing and self-medication, Afternoon Men has a grim edge to it. But its dialogue sparks and its scenes grip, and for aficionados of Powell, this first installment in his literary canon will be a welcome window onto the mind of a great artist learning his craft.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 022618689X
• ISBN13: 9780226186894
• Release Date: November 2014
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Afternoon, Evening or Nighttime

Powell is one of the truly great writers of the second half of the 20th century. His 12 volume Dance to the Music of Time is a monument of British literature.This is a lesser book, but still great. No one writes what the English like to call Comedy of Manners like Powell.His command of the language makes anything he writes a joy to read.

A superb social satire!

It is regrettable that Anthony Powell's splendid satire "Afternoon Men" is out of print. I learned of Anthony Powell's work through his obituary in The New York Times in March, 2000. Mr. Powell (the name rhymes with "Lowell") had been highly regarded as a brilliant author by such literary giants as Evelyn Waugh, a fastidious and snobbish critic who seldom had a kind word for any writer. Since I admire Waugh's work, and since he had read and enjoyed Mr. Powell's novels, I immediately read "Afternoon Men," a shorter work and, I might add, an excellent introduction to his vast literary output. "Afternoon Men" deals with a group of rather seedy eccentrics in Bohemian London during the time between the World Wars. It is peopled with those characters so beloved by readers of Waugh and Kingsley Amis: the bored, intellectually witty survivors in a new society, surviving through alcohol and shakey friendships with often disreputable people. Mr. Powell's satire is razor sharp, but not cruel, particularly when he chronicles the pathetic and disastrous love affairs of these vulnerable people. His dialogue is beautifully developed, especially in the several alcoholic party scenes that were a major part of this generation. The character of Fotheringham, for example, is a beautifully delineated eccentric who appears throughout the book and whose dialogue is tight, witty, and hysterically funny.(Fotheringham's dialogue was quoted by The New York Times in Powell's obituary.) Yet Mr. Powell captures, with a few literary strokes, the inner pathos of Fotheringham's character. The story is told through the person of William Atwater; the book is more of a character study of Atwater's friends and their foibles, eccentricities, amorous needs, and survival instincts. Anglophiles who read 20th century British satire will probably want to search for this out-of-print book in second-hand book stores or in libraries. I found a dusty copy on the top shelf of my local library that had not been checked out since 1949. Perhaps Little, Brown and Company will sense a renaissance of Powell's work and reissue this book. At any rate, I am about to embark on the adventure of reading Anthony Powell's masterpiece, "A Dance to the Music of Time," a six-novel, satirical saga of British life in the 20th century.