The Romantic: William Boyd

Product Information

Cashel Greville Ross, the hero, is a man who follows his heart and gut feel - “he did what he did because it was what he felt he had to do.” He’s a rather less caddish version of a Flashman-type character. The only part of the story that dragged a bit for me was the London publishers episode, which felt just a little self-referencial and maybe an excuse to have a dig at present-day publishers? There, in 1853, a friend, Deveron Gilchrist-Baird, told him that a prize of 5,000 guineas had been offered for the first person who could discover the source of the Nile, and proposed that he and Cashel should go for it. In 1856 they went to Zanzibar from where they crossed into the mainland. On the plot side The Romantic is smartly stylized to the Victorian novel but it is written the modern explicit manner.

At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.When it comes to his description of love stories, and dalliances, Boyd is rather old fashioned. I did like Cashel’s definition of love “to care more about the person you loved than you did about yourself” (444). Artist Nathwell Tate was born in 1928 in Union Beach, New Jersey. On January 8 1960 he contrived to round up and burn almost his entire output of Abstract Expressionism. Four days later he killed himself. This book offers an account of Tate’s life and work which can be seen either as straight art biography or as fiction. It is an investigation of the blurry line between the invented and the authentic, the wholly false and the utterly real. From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set in the 19th century Picaresque . . . these is a cornucopia of fine things here . . . The Romantic, always enjoyable, ranks with two of his best: The New Confessions and Any Human Heart. Both were intelligent and engrossing, novels you lived with. Both told a fine story very well. The Romantic does just that ― Scotsman You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side.

Had any other writer come up with The Romantic, it might be called a magnum opus , but longstanding admirers of Boyd have come to expect, and delight in, his generous, maximalist approach to both storyline and character. So perhaps it is inevitable that his prose, usually so elegant, occasionally tips over into overripe melodrama. It is understandable that Ross, discovering his true paternity, might curse his real mother as “you whore from hell”, but few writers could get away with a sentence such as the one that has his protagonist vowing to “ruin Shay Corcoran utterly, rescue [my] daughters from his evil influence, and marry Fannie Broome”. He is not a 19th-century person but a 21st-century person, affably and occasionally judgmentally consorting with some 19th-century cosplayers. Beyond this he is a cipher Most of all, this romantic will fall head over heels for a glamorous Contessa named Raphaella, who will never stray far from his mind. Although to this reader, Raphaella came across as vainglorious, manipulative and materialistic as well as (of course) beautiful, this is, after all the romantic era, and Cashel is the ultimate romantic. William Boyd taps into the classic novel tradition with this sweeping tale of one man's century-spanning life Spectator Described by one reviewer as ‘Around the World in 80 Years’, Cashel’s adventures take him across the globe to places as varied as Oxford, Venice, Zanzibar and Madras. It’s during his time in Italy that the most significant event in his life occurs: the moment he meets the Countess Raphaella Rezzo. From the start he is completely bewitched by her. ‘And he knew – as an animal knows that he has found his mate. He need look no further, ever.’ However, as we know from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’.In this second half of Cashel’s life Boyd carefully lets us witness the hazards of Romanticism, including its practitioners’ susceptibility to selfishness. “He thought again of this pattern he had discerned in his personal history,” Boyd writes. “Always moving on, leaving people he loved behind. But he hadn’t discarded them, he insisted to himself. … One day he would return, he was convinced, and make everything right.” He had been in Venice for several years, and was now 82. He had grown a beard as a disguise and lived under the false name of Michael Finnegan.