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British Spy Novel --- Tops in GenreSeptember 3, 2007 Middle-aged Professor(NY'er living in Ohio) 28 out of 29 found this review helpful
This is a spy novel, not a thriller, and there is a real difference between the two genres. Think John LeCarre and Graham Greene, not Robert Ludlum and Ken Follet. With the spy novel, you have the ever-so-slow peeling of layers, deeper characterizaion, a frequent sense of foreboding and, until all is revealed, some confusion. The thriller, in contrast, is the page-turning, up-all-night, action-packed adventure that you can't put down. After finishing a thriller, you are likely to say "where can I get another fix," but not to reflect on what you have just read, and if you try, you may not remember and, if you do, it may not make sense. With the spy novel, you may want to wait a while before reading another, but you will spend some time reflecting on what you've just read, and it provokes you in a more serious, literary way.
I like both genres but find it important to orient my expectations going in.
For the spy novel genre, Restless would have to rank among my favorites. In addition to the terrific writing, the likeable-but-far-from-perfect heroines and the World War II intrigue, the novel offers some additional pleasures.
First, it is quintissentially British. The book involves, among other things, a single mother raising her son, the world of Oxford academia, and all sorts of emotionally powerful events. These all come across with the British stoicism, stiff-upper-lipism and "no winging (whining)" ethic that make the book very different from an American treatment of the identical plot. Not better, or worse, just different and thus very interesting to the American reader. The cultural difference (accurately renedered I should say) is a fascinating sidelight for the American reader.
Second, the author employed heroines rather than heroes. I would be interested to hear from female readers, but I was very impressed with the author's ability to create characters of the opposite sex who seemed nonstereotyped, but true. There is nothing of "the weaker sex" to the heroines, but they are not at all the same as they would be if written as men. In short, they're real women (or at least seem so from my, male, perspective)in a genre that does not frequently offer that.
Third, the novel spends a great deal of time on the intrigue, spying and propoganda surrounding British efforts to persuade the United States to join World War II. In an interview, Boyd says that he mostly used his imagination in creating the spying, but it certainly seems realistic and oh so relevant today. The wheels-within-wheels manipulation of the media and public opinion and the "trust nobody" mantra say more about contemporary foreign affairs than many current nonfiction treatments, which themselves simply repeat the spin that interested actors have given the authors.
Enjoy.
"THE FINEST STORYTELLER OF HIS GENERATION"November 8, 2006 Gail Cooke(TX, USA) 17 out of 21 found this review helpful
British actress Rosamund Pike is probably best known for playing the gal who caught James Bond's eye in Die Another Day. While that performance certainly grabbed audience attention, she has numerous other noteworthy credits both on stage and in films. She does another star turn as she inhabits two narrative voices in the 9th novel by William Boyd. He's been called "The finest storyteller of his generation," and Restless again demonstrates how splendidly he can spin a tale.
Set in Oxfordshire, England during 1976 our story opens with a bit of a shock - Sally Gilmartin gives her daughter, Ruth, a memoir she has penned. Ruth is amazed to learn that her mother is not at all who she believed her to be. In actuality, Sally Gilmartin is Eva Delectorskaya, A Russian who worked for the British Secret Service during World War II. Sally or Eva has guarded this secret well for almost 30 years.
Now, she is revealing the truth about herself to her daughter not because she wishes to be open but because she fears for her life and Ruth is the one person in the world she believes she can trust. Ruth is not only astounded but disbelieving, wondering if her mother may be delusional at the onset of old age. Nonetheless, for her mother's sake she tries to find Romer the man who recruited Sally/Eva and with whom she had an affair.
Restless is related in parallel stories, probably the most compelling are the accounts of Sally/Eva's enlistment, training, and experiences. Following the war she returns to England, adopts an identity and marries. She has every reason to believe her past is well behind her.
Not so!
Highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
Boyd Strikes AgainDecember 30, 2006 A. Ross(Washington, DC) 12 out of 15 found this review helpful
At this point in his career, I don't know if Boyd is capable of writing a bad book. With his past work he's shown himself to be a writer at ease in multiple locations and time frames, and here he plays to that strength with a narrative moving back and forth between 1939 Paris and 1976 England. The story starts in the latter, where single mother Ruth Gilmartin is given a rather shocking manuscript by her aging, Cotswold village-dwelling mother, Sally. It's a well-worn adage that we can never truly know our parents, and Ruth is given prime evidence of this, as her mother's manuscript reveals her true identity. The sharp, white-haired, garden-tending widow grew up as a White Russian émigré in Paris, and was recruited into the British Secret Service in 1939.
The story of Sally's three year espionage career in Edinburgh, Belgium, and U.S. are meted out through further manuscript packets over the course of weeks. Anyone with a penchant for spy stories will find the details of this fascinating, from her training in mnemonic tricks and losing six-person tails, to her work in a unit dedicated to planting false stories in newspapers around the world, with the intent of both misleading German intelligence and bringing the U.S. into the war. (This is all based on the very real presence and activities of British intelligence agents in the U.S. during World War II.) However the modern story has its own element of more immediate intrigue, as Sally is convinced that someone is out to get her. Ruth thinks her aged mother is just paranoid, but agrees to try and track down the mysterious man who recruited her almost forty years previously -- if only to prove her wrong.
Yes, the mother's doling out of her life story in manuscript installments is a rather clunky device, but Boyd has always had a fondness for having characters speak through letters, diaries, and so forth. And yes, these epistletory devices are always much more fluid and dynamic pieces of writing than any normal person would pen, but Boyd sweeps you along with his elegant prose and good pacing. Some reviewers have criticized the book for an imbalance in interest between the stories of the mother and daughter, however that may well be missing the point. Sure, Ruth is "just" a English-as-a-second-language tutor with a young son to look after, an everchanging roster of awkward foreign students, and an unfinished history dissertation. But such normalcy serves to both highlight the difference between her life and the secret life of her mother's, and give the reader someone to identify with. This may feel to some as "Boyd lite" due to the espionage storyline, but such pigeonholing seems to smack more of knee-jerk genre snobbery than anything else. Boyd is among the finest novelists of his time and once again he proves his ability to write female characters better than almost any other male novelist out there. Great stuff.
Well-written page turner, very worthwhileOctober 19, 2006 E. Fasolino(NY, NY) 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Restless is the story of a mother who has concealed her true identity from her daughter. Chapters alternate between WWII and contemporary Oxford. The characters are complex and the settings detailed and evocative. I loved this book and read it in one sitting--I wish it had been longer. I love William Boyd's novels--he has a historically detailed imagination and knows how to tell a story.
Finest spy novel I've ever read.January 9, 2009 Richard Snyder(La Canada Flintridge, CA) 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Cannot fathom the 4 stars reviews; especially the reviewer who states: "plot is hampered by a slightly overwrought literary device, the mother doling out her diaries at intervals, conveniently allowing the author to flip back and forth in time." The device is brilliant. You want to read straight forward and mundane, well, stick to Ludlum or Silva or whomever. The discerning reader will note the author's subtlety and craft. His slight of hand if you will. The slow way the substance of the tale is revealed. It's like being lost in a forest. You believe you know which path to take out. The sun is shining. You come upon a meadow here, a brook there. No, wrong way. It is only when all is revealed and you are safely out that you say, well, I knew where I was all the time. But, you didn't. Boyd never disappoints. I stumbled upon him long ago when I read The Ice Cream War. His novels are all dissimilar. He's vastly underrated because he's so accessible. I cannot wait to see what he gives us next.
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