One sign of a good book is the sense of emptiness that lingers once the last page has been reluctantly turned. So it was with Any Human Heart, which completely and utterly spoiled me for whatever came next*. On finishing the book I found I missed the central character, Logan Mountstuart enormously, as if his death had been the death of someone I knew and loved. Logan, with all his failings, manages to charm and beguile the reader in the way he charmed many who crossed his path. I loved his wit, his humour and, at times, his sheer anarchy and disregard for convention, religion and mediocrity. “Shelley was so right, atheism is an absolute necessity in this world of ours. If we are to survive as individuals we can rely only on those resouces provided by our human spirit – appeals to a deity or deities are only a form of pretence. We might as well howl at the moon.”Despite his tendency towards self-destruction, philandering and doing everything to excess, often to the detriment of himself and those around him, there is something irresistible about Logan. I realise I read a lot of women writer’s and see their world viewed through a female lens but William Boyd gave me an uncensored view of the world (and women) through a man’s eyes, which at times was revealing. I learned a lot about the male libido. I repeatedly found myself sharing his pain, particularly at the devastating (and unexpected loss to him and the reader) of his wife and daughter. Even the death of his dog towards the end of the novel reveals his frailty and compassion and desperate loneliness, without ever being clichéd or over-sentimental. As Logan’s life, from a teenager to a dying octogenarian, unravels on the pages it’s hard to believe one isn’t reading the diaries of a real person. The meetings with Hemingway, Picasso, Woolf etc all fit seamlessly into the novel, imbuing it with culture and intellectualism without ever any hint of name-dropping contrivance, implausibility or elitism. He poignantly builds a picture of Logan’s life by waylaying and detaining the reader with anecdote upon anecdote.*For me, this Amazon reviewer sums it up:I read pretty much continuously, but was unable to pick up another book for almost two weeks after finishing this - there was no point, I was...replete. It stayed with me for ages - this is the literary equivalent of a nine-course meal with a great bottle of wine. Deeply satisfying.The final pages, when Logan has moved to France are beautifully poignant and evocative. From the New York Times:“In bereft old age the voice simplifies and deepens: relinquishing his maze of purposes, Logan retains only one or two. He has moved to the Midi, where his penury pinches less and his slender means go farther.”Boyd makes his love of France not only evident but alive. The beauty of place, of light, of manners -- the villagers are tactfully helpful to an old man whom they honor as an écrivain -- extend Logan's resources far differently than the dog food that stretched his diet in London.”Boyd’s descriptions of food and simple pleasures abound in this novel, his later descriptions of France are sumptuous and, early on, when a young man at Oxford he says….“After morning chapel Peter and I had a couple of free periods so we went into Abbeyhurst and took tea and crumpets at Ma Hingley’s. Hot crumpets with butter and jam – what could be more ambrosial? The day I can’t enjoy these pleasures will signal some kind of death of the soul.” (p.57)In France about 60 years later:The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendor’s stall. A cold beer on a pavement table of the Café de France – Marie Therese inside making me a sandwich au Camembert. Munching the knob off a fresh baguette as I wander back from Saint-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding in the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. The huge grey, cerise, pink, orange and washed-out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialling tone of the crickets as dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and as I go to sleep the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow. (p.479)What a stunning passage. I am there, in France, totally. I went to an evening with Boyd at the Groucho Club in 2011, just before the televising of Any Human Heart, and asked him whether he was as pre-occupied with food as his characters appear to be. He told me he uses food as a 'shortcut' to describe his characters, you can tell a lot about a person from what and how they eat,Another sign of a good book is the number of passages I want to remember and revisit (I mark them by turning in the bottom corner of the page) – this book was replete with them. It remains one of my all-time favourite reads.
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. The pretence is carried further by the presence of footnotes (including "corrections" and even a reference to Boyd's own biography of an artist), an index and other later editorial notes, including Logan's introduction, in which he explains, "We keep a journal to entrap the collection of selves that forms us". I think it is the different voices of Logan at different times in his life that make the book work so well: often he is not very likeable, but he has a certain charm, and his triumphs are balanced by tragedy.It is not a continuous narrative, but rather, broken down into journals covering significant periods in his life: school (establishing his key friendships with Peter Scabius and Ben Leeping); Oxford university; London as a writer and journalist (marriage, then a coup de foudre); naval intelligence in WW2; return to a changed London; NY (art dealer); Africa (teaching); London (including links with the Baader Meinhof gang) and finally, retirement in France.The framework of the book lends teenage anxieties more poignancy, e.g. "as ever, my predominant emotion is one of disappointment... could this be the pattern of my life ahead? Every ambition thwarted, every dream stillborn?". At other times, Logan as an old man does insert a retrospective analysis, e.g. "I often wonder if those early sexual experiences with Tess and Anna warped me irrevocably" - a plausible attempt to justify some of his subsequent behaviour.FAMOUS FRIENDSA distinctive conceit of the book is the number of significant real characters Logan gets to know during his life: mostly authors (e.g. James Joyce, Ian Fleming, Virginia Wolf, Ernest Hemingway) and artists (Picasso, Paul Klee), but also the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I am not an expert on any of them, but it rings true, and feels a natural element of the narrative. The only weak part for me is the Baader Meinhof episode, but I suppose that is meant to balance and contrast with his earlier work in naval intelligence. Later on, Logan remembers being told that "the only point of keeping a journal was to concentrate on the personal... and to forget about the great and significant events in the world at large", but this book does both.CATHOLICISMPerhaps the most unusual aspect of Logan's character is that he is a lapsed Catholic who is largely untouched by guilt, even though he has much to be guilty about. He can feel guilt, though only his son arouses it in him. He coldy explains "need and opportunity - the ingredients of all betrayals" and "I absolutely need variety and surprise. I have to have the city in my life... otherwise I dessicate and die". Yet he often feels a victim of circumstance, "A sense of my life being entirely out of my control - which is not the same as being out of control".HAPPINESS?The final question, and one Logan doesn't entirely resolve, is around the pain of having known true happiness - and lost it.ME!One detail that no one else would notice was that there were TWO, albeit very minor, characters called Cecily: Cecily Brewer, at whose home he lodged, and another Cecily who was his mother's housemaid.
What do You think about Any Human Heart (2004)?
*Note to self* Max out 401kI find it very hard to believe that Logan Mountstuart was not a real person. I googled him several times while I was reading this luscious novel by William Boyd. It must be a biography I argued with myself. I'm sure that Simon Vance's first rate narration contributed to my incredulity.The story was a slow starter for me. I almost didn't get past his football games at school but once I got the rhythm of the novel, I loved every witty minute of it. A highlight for me was his posting in the Bahamas during WWII when the Duke and Duchess of Windsor resided there. There is a murder mystery which turns out that Boyd has pretty accurately written about in all material respects. I remember when I was a child, my mother thought the love story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson was the greatest ever told. She either didn't tell me or didn't know about the dark side of their Nazi sympathies.Boyd is still writing and I look forward to reading his newest, Sweet Caress But can anything live up to the life and times of LMS? Those who have read Any Human Heart will recognize that my first comment refers to the abject poverty that LMS eventually faces even though he was a prolific writer and born into British aristocracy. We Americans don't find being reduced to this state quite as shocking as the Brits might and in fact it speaks to many of our fears.LMS is a character, richly drawn, who I will not soon forget. Thanks go to Michael Kindness for bringing this book onto my radar.
—Janet
4.5/5That was a good life. A good, male life, lived through almost the entirety of the twentieth century. Or at least, it made for good reading material, but I'd like to think that in the end, Logan was happy in the least regretful sense that an old man can be. I have to say, becoming a writer was probably the best thing he could have done in this time period. He met so many renowned folks, and took part in so many historical events as he traveled the world over. That may be my bias towards writing over other occupational paths talking, but you have to admit, people like Hemingway and Joyce popping up made the writing especially interesting. And it was in such a natural, unassuming sense. It's only much later that Logan realizes the worth of these chance meetings, and he never really stops being surprised at that being the case. Besides that, I really don't think that the summary of this book does Logan justice. Yes, he accumulated failed marriages as a result of his womanizing, but had the tragedy of WWII not occurred, I believe that this particular trait would have been greatly reduced in his character. Also he didn't end his life in absolute poverty. Unless my definition of poverty is different from the standard.All in all, I really enjoyed reading about this life that interacted so often with the world at large, both in the historical as well as the locational sense. It was also interesting to watch Logan's writing change over time as his life shifted around his values. His last years were especially beautiful, and it's regretful that he had to become a very old man in order to finally appreciate the simple life enough to write about it. But that's what always happens, I suppose.
—Aubrey
I'd been putting this off - or saving it. Either way I had intended to read it on holiday at the end of April, the reason being that I thought it would be a tough book to tackle; not difficult or unenjoyable, but the sort of thing I would need lots of time and proper concentration to really appreciate. However, a few days ago my Kindle broke and, with nothing else available while I wait for it to be replaced, I decided to get stuck in to Any Human Heart. I soon realised that - as with Fingersmith, another one I thought dauntingly lengthy but raced through in a matter of days - I had completely underestimated how readable this book would be. It's a big, meaty tome, and certainly an intelligent read, but nevertheless it is an incredibly easy book to enjoy. This is partly down to the narrative format; it's written as a series of journals, charting the life of Logan Mountstuart - journalist, novelist, spy, prisoner, art dealer; lover, husband, father, divorcé, widower - from his schooldays to the weeks preceding his death. This journey takes the reader from the mid-1920s to the cusp of the 1990s, with so many different international settings I am struggling to remember all of them. There is also an incredible cast of characters, including the many famous names (writers, artists etc) and public figures (most notably the Duke and Duchess of Windsor) Logan encounters during his career(s). As many others have observed, the narrative is incredibly convincing and authentic. It's only now I've finished the book that I can see how brilliantly Boyd has adapted Logan's voice throughout the different periods of his life. The character's writing constantly evolves, but the change is just that - evolution - absolutely recognisable as the same person, yet subtly developing and adjusting all the time. Reading this made me want to start keeping a paper journal (something I did obsessively in youth but very sporadically now) again. The relationships, too, are painfully realistic. I kept expecting Land to reappear in Logan's life, right up to the very end, but of course she didn't; if this had been a different (lesser?) book, they would have reunited and found their happy ending in old age, or something. Logan's loveless marriage to Lottie, his never-equalled love for Freya, his unfulfilling relationship with Allanah - all (well, most - I wasn't sure about the Monday episode, the only incident in the book that felt like a plot device to move the protagonist from one place to another) his interactions are wholly believable. Friends change beyond all recognition; people come in and out of Logan's life, some re-entering unexpectedly; little incidents happen that have nothing to do with anything else; there are surprises, some of them wonderful, some devastating - the stuff of life. It's simultaenously life-affirming, heartbreakingly sad, and funny (I couldn't stop laughing at the elderly Logan's assessment of his hospital ward-mate 'No-Fuss'). Do I give this four or five stars? I'm going to go with four, as on a personal level I don't think it will rank with my own absolute favourites, though it is technically 'better' than a number of them. But it's a qualified four, a 9 rather than an 8 out of 10. I don't think I will read the book again in its entirety, but I'm certain I will return to it, if only for the beautifully written, poignant, and inspiring diarised style. (NB: I haven't seen the recent TV adaptation; not sure I want to, as the book created such vivid images in my mind and I feel they are sufficient.)
—Blair
