A Dance to the Music of Time: Voices

Abstract

Powell’s best characters come to life in their talk. The pairings and groups in which they converse and comment on one another are often surprising. Any voice can break in at any point in the story, regardless of time and place. Not only do the characters ‘on stage’ constantly interrupt the narrator; other members of his cast intervene to comment, even when they belong to different eras of his life, past or future. This is noticeable in the first chapter of The Kindly Ones.