Should I bother with the rest of 'A Dance to the Music of Time'?

From memory, things do start to get more compelling with the second one and I think it would at least be worth trying. If you don't like that, I'd give up. The early-to-middle books are the best, and the quality does shade off towards the end of the sequence -- he's less comfortable once it gets past the end of the 50s -- but if you're still reading by that point you'll probably have come round to the view that second-rate Dance is still better than no Dance at all.

I actually rather liked the first book, but not to the point where I feel the need to extend the experience for another (probable) 11 weeks. I think I was expecting it to be hilariously funny, for some reason, and it wasn't.

I think I'll give the second one a try - not right way, maybe it'll be on my Christmas list - and take it from there. I'm hoping that spreading it out over time will make it easier.

I find lots of it hilariously funny.

I read this in 2000/2001 and am surprised how much of the whole thing I remember. And also how much I'd like to read it again.

If you're looking for hilarious, look no further than Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis.
I'm more likely to finish the entire Dance To The Music of Time series starting from scratch than I am of ever finishing Masters of Atlantis. And I say this as a Charles Portis fan.

Just started rereading it today.

yeah

read 1 from somewhere in the middle of the cycle a bunch of years ago (forget the title, it's set during the 2nd world war) & liked it enough that i resolved to some day read the whole lot of em from the beginning

started doing that thing a few days ago & so far, 2 thumbs up

imo best way through it is taking it as individual short novels - roughly the same length as his earlier comic novels or Decline and Fall by Waugh, say - rather than the big “seasonal” blocks.

i know there are those who can’t stand the fetishising of the decadence of the english class system and its artefacts but i really enjoyed it, particularly 1-6 ie up to and including The Kindly Ones.

my gf is reading this atm and enjoying it, will press her for more detail later

The sequence as a whole definitely follows a hump-shaped curve - slow to start, peaking around the middle, a steep decline in the last couple of books (although they still have their moments).

Oh yes, she says the first book was heavy going but 2 and 3 are excellent and very funny

i must admit i think the first three are as good as anything else in the sequence. agreed the last few have their moments and the arc of widmerpool is grotesque and fascinating.

I started this a few years ago and stalled after the first book. I enjoyed it but I felt the creeping fatigue of what Fizzles called 'the fetishising of the decadence of the english class system and its artefacts' even in that short book .

Tolerance for the first book depends on how much of goings on in a quasi-Eton setting you can take, I suppose. Much of it reads like a slightly melancholic version of Jennings & Derbyshire. But the early appearances of Widmerpool and Uncle Giles lend it an air of absurdity and are already well-realised comic characters with (in Widmerpool's case) a sinister edge. It "opens up" more in subsequent books and (FWIW) the war trilogy is some of the best writing about WWII that I have read.

Melancholic version of Jennings? I'm nicking it off her when she's done