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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new genre for Boyd - and he masters it well, 31 May 2007
Although a fan of Boyd's writing, I was quite pleased to see his latest novel, Restless, was something of a departure from his usual storyline centring on a bumbling Englishman plauged with absurd misfortune, usually in some exotic setting. It's always a test of a good writer to see if they can pull off a story in a different genre to their staple area - and Boyd passes the test.
Restless is a spy thriller, with two strong and interesting central characters, fast paced, well plotted, and with a couple of good, original twists. The story is told in alternating first and third person chapters; the first person narrator being Ruth, a single mother in 1970s Britain; the third person narrative telling the story of Eva, a young woman recruited into the murky world of British spying/propaganda in Europe and America during WWII. The lives of the two overlap in modern times as Eva turns out to be Ruth's mother - now living an apparently ordinary life as an English widow - and has decided the time has come to settle some old scores.
Boyd's writing style is always a pleasure to read, and lends itself surprisingly well to this genre. His attention to detail and ability to make the mundane seem interesting, as well as bringing out the absurdities of life, are ideal for creating atmosphere and setting the scene, and it seemed somehow much more plausible than many spy stories.
The idea of combining the war era with peace times isn't entirely original, but it did work quite well here and brought home the story's central point of how spy work changed the mindset of a person forever.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it very gripping - one of those it's difficult to put down. Maybe not a book that would stay with me forever, but certainly a good read whilst it lasts. I would place Boyd up there along with masters like Le Carre, and would look forward to reading anything else he writes in this genre.
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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, but not his best, 29 Mar 2007
As a fan of both Boyd (An Ice Cream War & Any Human Heart, especially) and WWII spy fiction (Alan Furst being the master) I looked forward to this. And it is indeed a page turner, the 1940s part of the narrative being particularly gripping.
It's the 1970s stuff with the daughter that lets it down. Too many pointless characters and dead ends (the Iranian protesters, the German hippies, etc.). I wasn't around in the 40s, so I can't speak for its authenticity there, but some of the 70s scenes are simply anachronistic - a history prof with a computer on his desk in 1976? No way. And I can only assume that Boyd has no children, because I have NEVER heard a pre-school aged kid speak the way that "Jochen" does - he sounds like a very well-educated 40-year old!
Worth reading, but it won't go down as one of his best.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
tough but tremendously readable, 4 Mar 2007
'Restless' is a confident, pacey novel by a brilliantly mature writer. Switching between seventies Oxford, pre-war Europe and a US on the point of entering the second world war, it builds and maintains an impressive, page-turning momentum. Much has been made of Boyd writing as a woman but it doesn't seem to matter; there is little sex or eroticism in the novel (for which much thanks), but much passion and longing, and maybe this serves to illustrate that, at the emotional level, there is less difference between the sexes than we like to imagine. More problematic is the sketchiness of much of the characterization (though personally I had no difficulty fleshing out the characters for myself) and the oddness of the structure - Eva's story is presented as the manuscript of a memoir which she has been writing, but really doesn't read as such. Ruth (Eva's daughter) doesn't add much to the overall story and it's hard to see why it couldn't have been written straight, as a first person narrative... or as a simple memoir, a form for which Boyd has shown fondness in the past. In the end though, the novel is easily strong enough to overcome such problems, creating an almost tangible sense of gnawing unease, paranoia and often nameless terror which begins almost as a game for Eva but ends by almost choking the lives of both her and her daughter. Better than I'm making it sound, a tough but tremendously readable novel.
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by William Boyd
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