Perry Anderson and John Lanchester: Powell v. Proust

In Different Speeds, Same Furies (Verso), which is based on essays published in the LRB in 2018, Perry Anderson measures the achievement of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time against Proust’s more celebrated In Search of Lost Time – and finds Powell to be superior in certain key respects.

On the centenary of Proust’s death, Anderson discussed why a comparison between two writers at once so similar and dissimilar sheds new light on their greatest work, and literary construction more generally. He’ll be in conversation with novelist and LRB contributing editor John Lanchester, for whom both writers have been lifelong touchstones.