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William Boyd

The New Confessions Paperback – 3 Jun. 2010

by William Boyd (Author)

4.1 2,000 ratings

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'Brilliant. A Citizen Kane of a novel' Daily Telegraph
__________________________________

Meet John James Todd:
Scotsman, auteur, Rousseau-fanatic - and 'subversive element'

Born in 1899, John James Todd is one of the great, failed geniuses of the last century. His reminiscences, collected in The New Confessions, take us from Edinburgh to the Western Front, the Berlin film-world in the Twenties to Hollywood in the Thirties, Forties and beyond.

Suffering imprisonment, shooting, marriage, fatherhood, divorce and McCarthyism, Todd is a hostage to good fortune, ill-judgement, bad luck, the vast sweep of history and the cruel, cruel hand of fate . . .

__________________________________

'A magnificent feat of storytelling and panoramic reconstruction' Observer

'Paced and plotted with sinewy, unfailing skill . . . Boyd has given us a work of rich, ripe and immensely enjoyable entertainment' Sunday Times

'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Independent

Print length

592 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin
Publication date

3 Jun. 2010
Dimensions

13.08 x 3.81 x 20.07 cm
ISBN-10

0141046910
ISBN-13

978-0141046914
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Product description

Review

"An entertaining and darkly comic novel, a novel given weight and ballast by the pressure of recent history." --The New York Times "Here is the rarest of books, the sort you want to read again--even before you've finished it the first time. . . . Boyd gives us a magnificent experience." --People "Boyd has created an important and complex character in a vividly evoked series of settings. . . . He has written a subtle and provocative history of our time." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "Entertaining and intellectually engaging." --Time -An entertaining and darkly comic novel, a novel given weight and ballast by the pressure of recent history.- --The New York Times -Here is the rarest of books, the sort you want to read again--even before you've finished it the first time. . . . Boyd gives us a magnificent experience.- --People -Boyd has created an important and complex character in a vividly evoked series of settings. . . . He has written a subtle and provocative history of our time.- --Los Angeles Times Book Review -Entertaining and intellectually engaging.- --Time

About the Author

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of fifteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (3 Jun. 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 592 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141046910
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141046914
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.08 x 3.81 x 20.07 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 168,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 2,448 in Love, Sex & Marriage Humour
- 12,520 in Humorous Fiction
- 17,555 in Historical Fiction (Books)

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4.1 2,000 ratings

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William Boyd

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William Boyd is the author of ten novels, including A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Any Human Heart, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet; and Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year.

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M. J. Gilfedder

Unusual but compelling

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 14 March 2023

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This is my first William Boyd book and on the strength of The New Confessions I would definitely read more of his work. He's a natural storyteller and has a very good grasp of the written language. You see the first half of the 20th century through the eyes of John James Todd, a very flawed character but you can't help rooting for him at times, as he has some redeeming qualities. The tone of the novel is a bit cynical at times but on the whole I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of Boyd's novels. He's certainly a very gifted writer.

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Martin G

Atmospheric journey through the first half of 20th century

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 22 April 2023

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Well written, atmospheric journey through the years of two world wars and the evolution of cinema. A far from perfect hero gives the story a great deal of depth and the secondary characters are well developed. It is a multi-layered depiction of its times and the level of detail is as good as a history book.

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Brian G

My favourite book of all time

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 17 October 2021

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Reading the reviews of this book it’s clear that many of those who read it migrated to ‘New Confessions’ from Any Human Heart. As someone who started my William Boyd adventure with the story of John James Todd I have to say that it remains the definitive Boyd novel for me. It is, quite simply, a historical epic. Todd is a deeply flawed and, at turns, unlikable character. This is not unusual in WB books, but it is generally unusual. And it’s what makes his writing so relatable. His ‘heroes’ are as prone to impulsive misjudgment as you or me, They are not Captain America, they can’t repel bullets, they are not impossibly beautiful. As a Scot I relate to the caledonian roots of Todd or Logan Mountstuart and that helps. I care not a jot for Jean Jacques Rousseau or his life story and the lengthy descriptions are best skim read. Nevertheless, New Confessions is quite simply a tour de force, a work you can return to time and again. Which might explain why I am reading it for the fourth time in Oct 2021. Quite simply, it is magnificent.

7 people found this helpful

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talmine

A Couple of Thoughts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 15 May 2015

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Enough information is provided in the formal Description and the accompanying reviews for the potential reader to decide whether to purchase this volume. For this reason I will confine my remarks to just two wartime incidents experienced by the protagonist, Todd, in the story.

The first happens at the end of Chapter 16 when visiting an old school friend, Hamish, who is then (1944) a mathematician involved in making and breaking codes at a US government department attached to Princeton University, where refugee talent from Europe has migrated. Hamish introduces Todd to one of the senior staff, Kurt, who is an admirer of the films Todd made in Berlin. This is in fact a reference to Kurt Godel, a famous mathematician responsible for the Incompleteness Theorem (1931). This was the mathematical equivalent of detonating an atom bomb in the world of mathematical logic. To be very brief it states that in any system of arithmetic based on a consistent set of axioms, there are truths which can be EXPRESSED within the system but which cannot be PROVED using that system. (Any reader who is interested can find out more from Wikipedia).

The second incident occurs immediately afterwards in Chapter 17 where Todd himself is on his way to the Mediterranean (as a camera man/journalist) to report on the American Invasion of St Tropez on the French Coast. I found this quite interesting because I was at College in London in the summer of 1944 when on 6th of June the D-day landings on the Normandy beaches took place. These clearly overshadowed the later St. Tropez invasion on 16th August.

The British clearly thought this unnecessary because it diverted both British and American forces from pushing north into Italy. Indeed it was a point of dispute between Churchill/Montgomery and Roosevelt/Eisenhower.

2 people found this helpful

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Philip

Another marvellous Boyd story, although I began to flag

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 August 2016

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Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed The New Confessions, it was not for me in the same league as Boyd's Any Human Heart - one of the finest books I have read in a long time.

This is a lengthy book, another 'fictional autobiography'. I started off well but became a little bored - sometimes confused - in the latter part of the book. To be fair, this may have been my own doing as I began to 'lose the plot' towards the end - perhaps because I was keen to finish the book. At the end, I was left rather confused.

All that said, The New Confessions is a fine book and, of course, beautifully written, as are all Boyd's works. Note: I read this on Kindle and I have to say that the editing of Kindle books never seems to be up to scratch. As a proofreader, I would have made numerous amendments and corrections to the text. I wonder if the book version is the same.

One person found this helpful

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NJL1974

One for Boyd completists

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 June 2014

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A beautifully written first-person retrospective of a twentieth century life. John James Todd, a Scot confused about his identity, is shaped by his experience in the First World War, during which he becomes fascinated by the work of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and in particular his work, Confessions. Todd spends his twenties in Berlin and then, via a series of personal errors, unfortunate circumstances and comical mix-ups, spends time in the US, Mexico, Scotland and Europe, driven by a doomed love affair.

Boyd is a wonderful writer and there is a confidence in the writing that emerges from the first page. But...

The New Confessions falls down in its obvious comparison with (the far superior) Any Human Heart. The simple reason for this is that Boyd asks his reader to spend hundreds of pages in the company of Todd, who describes himself as "a chronic impulsive with only minimal control over his emotions". In truth, Todd is neither fascinatingly malicious, nor irredeemably 'tragic'. He is by turns unlucky, selfish, romantic, noble, petty and maligned, but also prone to introspection and (whisper it quietly) dullness and self-obsession. However varied his life, and however well-researched the associated period detail, it is these latter elements that over-whelms for large periods. The parallels between narrator and his favourite author are numerous, but to limited purpose.

No William Boyd book is a chore, and this remains a superior work, but from such an accomplished and established writer, it must rank as a (mild) disappointment.

2 people found this helpful

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