Book review: William Boyd draws widely from literature in 'whole life novel' The Romantic

William Boyd evokes the heyday of the 19th century novel form with his own unique take on its possibilities.

• The Romantic
• William Boyd
• Penguin, €14.39

What larks! 

In The Romantic, William Boyd addresses the novel form as if he were writing during the 19th century, rather than about that period. 

He is aiming at the romantic genre, so a reader can expect something more like Vanity Fair than an iteration of Any Human Heart. 

All that is missing from The Romantic, as an example of an earlier prose format, are those endearing chapter headings such as, ‘In Which the Hero Discovers the Mystery of his True Origins’. 

Not to worry, Cashel Greville Ross does discover the fundamental secret of his congenators, but Boyd communicates the facts under the mundane title, ‘Chapter Two’.

Boyd has long nurtured an interest in the ‘whole life novel’ and has written several. This one, unlike his others, is written in the third person, necessitating, according to its author, a more plot-driven approach. 

Things, in the absence of an interior monologue, have to keep happening and action must be packed into the pages. 

The content can hardly be new in the historical circumstances as writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, have chronicled the times already.

Here is the protagonist, Cashel, as a drummer boy in Belgium during the year 1815. 

Boyd cracks a hindsight joke when his characters discuss the future name of the battle, positing Nivelles as the likely choice. Wrong. 

That skirmish has long been known as Waterloo. Later — also reminiscent of Vanity Fair, Cashel joins a regiment of the East India Company. 

There is a delightful scene at a tailor’s shop, in London’s Savile Row, when he is fitted out in his uniform, including the headgear, which is a ‘stovepipe shako with black ostrich-feather trim’. 

The Anglo-Irish family of Thackeray’s wife was from Doneraile, Co Cork, and there are sections of The Romantic which resemble not only the great English writer’s books but also Bowen’s Court, written by the scion of another Protestant ascendancy family.

Cashel is raised by the governess at a Big House which is the twin of Elizabeth Bowen’s birthplace. One character, Guy Stillwell, has the same dynastic ideals as Bowen’s antecedents and the same attitudes to life. 

He believes that one should live in an elegant and gracious manner, with servants and stables, irrespective of capital, income, or debt. He finds himself, as Bowen’s father did, with no male heir and so favours the governess’s ward, Cashel, offering financial support for his education and, later, buying him a commission as lieutenant, stationed at barracks in Madras, India.

Like many men of his generation Cashel travels extensively and to this extent The Romantic is a picaresque tale, structured episodically as the adventurer, Cashel, adopts several identities and as many professions. 

The cover depicts an aerial view of Venice, the city of Casanova, indicating that Cashel is a lover. Stillwell encouraged him, as a boy, to travel and sow a few wild oats before settling down into adulthood, hinting that this might forestall trouble. 

Cashel takes this advice to heart extending his youthful wanderings into later life, although it would be impossible to describe him, even in old age, as having reached his maturity.

Boyd draws widely from literature, being particularly taken with Stendhal’s autobiographical piece, The Life of Henry Brulard. 

He describes the French author as a romantic, similar, not only to his main character, but to himself. Stendhal’s Henry, like Boyd’s Cashel, is a romantic in the more usual sentimental sense. 

This potpourri of William Boyd’s reading life is not just about spotting influences, it is also a headlong scamper and a pleasure to read.