The Destiny Of Nathalie X (1997) - Plot & Excerpts
A rather pointless collection of unremarkable stories that has taught me to avoid the works of William Boyd in future. He's everything I dislike in a writer -- an adherent of understatement, a low concept technician, obsessed with trivial domestic situations and petty character interaction, bland in the extreme, middle class and superfluous. And yet...And yet there are occasional glimpses of a talent that is being suppressed and attenuated by a warped aesthetic of 'less is more'. At such times the author does one thing quite well -- namely an exploration of so-called unpalatable self-insights. For example in the stories 'Never Saw Brazil' and 'The Dream Lover' two of the main male characters are very specific about the nationalties of the girls they want as girlfriends: Lusitanian or French respectively, with nothing else acceptable, a minor detail that is very calculated, very male, very insensitive, very pointless and very TRUE. There *are* men who set themselves such formulae in life. In fact it's a common male trait, hidden as best as we're able to do so...However, such redeeming moments are rare, and don't lead to anything else. William Boyd has forgotten the art of the TALE, believing that a few emotions bundled together into a rough set suffices to create a short story. It doesn't. The title story is perhaps the best piece in this collection, a satire against Hollywood featuring an African filmmaker (who is actually no less pretentious and exploitative than the Hollywood types he deals with -- not that William Boyd has the guts to satirise *him* in the same way.)
What do You think about The Destiny Of Nathalie X (1997)?
Difficult to judgeGiven that this was my first try out of Boyd and that it's a while ago that I read these short stories, I don't feel very able to judge them (e.g. whether it's his best, etc). My memory is hazy. But I am sure that the range was wide and that I admired the power of imagination and colour of the varied themes and viewpoints.And I did make a note of this nugget: "You know the way your instinctive apprehension is often more sure and certain than something studied and sought for: the glance is often more accurate than the stare." This is stated in 'The Persistence of Vision' when the protagonist: "... was oddly positive that [I] had seen somebody I knew." (The person turns out to be his wife's lover). I felt there was a huge truth in this; and it is for such truths I search when I read fiction.Another quote I noted, and liked at the time of reading, was: "One of my problems ... is my deep and abiding fear of insanity. ... Of course, it goes without saying that such a deep fear of insanity is insanity itself." Though, on reflection, I do think that this one did not work so well; it strikes me as rather obvious and ends up being shallow. A sort of attempt at a deep truth that is actually quite a shallow cliché.In the story 'Hotel de Voyageurs', I liked the mystery element, folded into the holistic question of who was actually deceiving whom?In short: I read enough good stuff in these stories to whet my appetite for reading more Boyd.
—Paul The Uncommon Reader
