 The novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time comprises 12 volumes spanning a period of approximately 50 years ; from the early 1920s to the first years of the 1970s . The title is taken from Nicolas Poussin 's 1634 – 36 painting of the same name . Through the eyes of a narrator , Nicholas Jenkins , the reader observes the changing fortunes of a varied collection of mainly upper @-@ class characters . Their ambience is a bohemian world of art , literature and music , intermingled with more the practical spheres of politics , business and the military . In a 1971 study of the novels , the journalist and editor Dan McLeod summarised the theme of the sequence as that of a decaying establishment , confronted by " aggressive representatives from the middle classes elbowing their way up " . The latter are prepared to suffer any number of indignities in their pursuit of power but the establishment proves capable of resisting the advance of " all but the most thick @-@ hided and persevering " of outsiders . Kenneth Widmerpool becomes the principal embodiment of these incomers . 
