Bernard Bergonzi, in The New York Review of Books in 1964, said "the presiding genius of The Music of Time is undoubtedly Kenneth Widmerpool"; he continued "For Powell, Widmerpool embodies in an unusually pure form the power of the will: he is obtuse, pompous, socially inept, and at the same time possessed of an almost demonic energy and an unstoppable urge to succeed."[63]