Quite enjoyed this, but it was a pale imitation of Boyd’s brilliant 'Any Human Heart'.
Set one hundred years earlier, and involving an equally peripatetic central figure, it just carries a lot less weight than the earlier book. Partly I think, because it has little context; Cashel Ross does wander round the world meeting all sorts of interesting people (Shelley & Byron in Italy) but it is just him and his travels, which bear much less weight than when Morgan(?) meets Edward V111 and his wife in Spain in mid-WW2. But he loves the same woman throughout his life, without understanding that she needs to marry into wealth (which she does three times) in order to survive economically.
Comments