Swimming in the tank

Dancing to the Music of Time

From today's NY Times, Evelyn Waugh on Anthony Powell's creation:

Less original novelists tenaciously follow their protagonists. In the ‘Music of Time’ we watch through the glass of a tank; one after another various specimens swim towards us; we see them clearly, then with a barely perceptible flick of fin or tail, they are off into the murk. That is how our encounters occur in real life. Friends and acquaintances approach or recede year by year.