Mention About Books Any Human Heart
| Title | : | Any Human Heart |
| Author | : | William Boyd |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | January 6th 2004 by Vintage (first published January 25th 2002) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction |
William Boyd
Paperback | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 4.27 | 14534 Users | 1359 Reviews
Representaion Supposing Books Any Human Heart
Logan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism, and abject poverty. Mountstuart's sorry tale is also the story of a British way of life in inexorable decline, as his journey takes in the Bloomsbury set, the General Strike, the Spanish Civil War, 1930s Americans in Paris, wartime espionage, New York avant garde art, even the Baader-Meinhof gang--all with a stellar supporting cast. The most sustained and best moment comes mid-book, as Mountstuart gets caught up in one of Britain's murkier wartime secrets, in the company of the here truly despicable Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Elsewhere Boyd occasionally misplaces his tongue too obviously in his cheek--the Wall Street Crash is trailed with truly crashing inelegance--but overall Any Human Heart is a witty, inventive and ultimately moving novel. Boyd succeeds in conjuring not only a compelling 20th century but also, in the hapless Logan Mountstuart, an anti-hero who achieves something approaching passive greatness. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk
Particularize Books Concering Any Human Heart
| Original Title: | Any Human Heart |
| ISBN: | 1400031001 (ISBN13: 9781400031009) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Logan Mountstuart |
| Setting: | London, England England Paris(France) …more New York City, New York(United States) Oxford University, Oxford, England France Spain Bahamas Nigeria …less |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2002), Prix Jean-Monnet de littérature européenne du département de Charente (2003), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2004) |
Rating About Books Any Human Heart
Ratings: 4.27 From 14534 Users | 1359 ReviewsNotice About Books Any Human Heart
This is not my favorite book, this is not the most lofty book I've ever read, its not going to break into the top ten list (although I think it has become cemented into the top 20) However, It was a total page turner that kept me up late and wishing my subway rides would last longer but some how managed to feel important and slightly intellectual at the same time. It was amazing and I'm afraid to even recommend it because if you don't love it as much as I did it will break my heart.There areI'll write a proper review later maybe, but my initial thoughts - * This book started out as 'just okay' for me - hovering between three stars and four stars, then became a hazy four stars but very near the end marched up to five stars. * I loved Logan. I came to know him and see him subtly change as the years took him from adolescence to an old man. Always full of sprite and character. I laughed with him and I cried with him. * Because of this I now feel a great sense of loss - I'm going to
I do love William Boyd, but I think I should have read this back in 2002 when it first came out because now it feels like meeting up with an old friend that you haven't been in touch with for a while only to find that you have both moved on and no longer have much in common. Or maybe it suffered from my timing: coming to it after the wild joyride that Ali Smith can can give me, (a re-read of Autumn) it just seems a little conventional. But then William Boyd doesn't claim to be anything but a
If you can imagine Johnny English meeting Rolf Harris meeting Forrest Gump meeting Grahame Greene meeting Adrian Mole (just after Sue Townshend lost interest in him), then you're not a million miles away from how the plot in this novel is set up.And although it does contain a lot of banality along with quite a few other weaknesses, this doesn't spoil too much what is a very, very special novel.When I read something that moves me, or resonates very strongly with me, I turn over the bottom of the
I enjoyed this tremendously, even though I watched the TV adaptation a few weeks earlier, so I already knew the characters and plot (though there are some differences).STRUCTURED AS MEMOIRSThis is presented as a compilation of journals kept by Logan Mountstuart from shortly before he left school in the 1920s until just before his death aged 85. Consequently, they describe things as they were at the time, with candour and an absence of hindsight. It also means there are gaps and changes of style.
Any Human Heart was my final read of 2018, and as it turns out, a very appropriate one. It contains the journals of the fictional Logan Mountstuart, son of a wealthy British businessman, beginning with his account of attending a Norfolk public school. From there the diaries detail his days at university before he slips into a career as a respected writer. Everything seems to come quite easily to our narrator until World War II turns his life upside down.Along the way Logan crosses paths with
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