Sep 29, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min · 10 segments
This week, Aatif Rashid discusses the fifth book in Anthony Powell's *A Dance to the Music of Time* series, *Casanova's Chinese Restaurant* (1960).
Aatif RashidHost
And it's a novel, as we're going to see, that's primarily about married life and about marriage.
And it makes sense because, as we've said, these novels are tracing... tracing the life of Nick Jenkins from roughly the 1920s, when he was a schoolboy, to, as we'll see with the final novels, the 1960s.
It's also tracing this against the backdrop of a changing Britain, a changing social order.
They have been novels about being young and your relationship with your friends when you were young.
They have been novels about your first interests in love and in the idea of love.
The last novel, At Lady Molly's, was an amusing comedic novel about marriage and getting married.
Now this novel then takes us one step further into the life of a person from this time period and explores what it means to be married and explores the darker sides of married life, the strain, the anger, the recriminations, the bitterness.
As I've said before, as Powell writes these novels, Nick himself recedes into the background as a character.
And of course, a happy marriage does not make for good drama or good storytelling.
And so instead, Powell does not make Nick the protagonist of this novel, not really.
The protagonist of this novel is really Hugh Morland, who is introduced at the beginning of this novel and who essentially is the animating figure of this novel.
And it's a novel, as we're going to see, that's primarily about married life and about marriage.
And it makes sense because, as we've said, these novels are tracing... tracing the life of Nick Jenkins from roughly the 1920s, when he was a schoolboy, to, as we'll see with the final novels, the 1960s.
It's also tracing this against the backdrop of a changing Britain, a changing social order.
They have been novels about being young and your relationship with your friends when you were young.
They have been novels about your first interests in love and in the idea of love.
The last novel, At Lady Molly's, was an amusing comedic novel about marriage and getting married.
Now this novel then takes us one step further into the life of a person from this time period and explores what it means to be married and explores the darker sides of married life, the strain, the anger, the recriminations, the bitterness.
As I've said before, as Powell writes these novels, Nick himself recedes into the background as a character.
And of course, a happy marriage does not make for good drama or good storytelling.
And so instead, Powell does not make Nick the protagonist of this novel, not really.
The protagonist of this novel is really Hugh Morland, who is introduced at the beginning of this novel and who essentially is the animating figure of this novel.
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