Review: Restless by William Boyd
May. 27th, 2009 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizabelle** (out of a possible *****)
I'm amused that the first "official" review on here is going to be such a negative one, because I'm usually quite a soft reviewer. I'm easily pleased: I can overlook a few flaws if a book has moved me enough.
Unfortunately, Restless failed to move me in the slightest, unless you count the number of times I rolled my eyes when I bumped up against yet another cliché or problem.
I should probably say that I enjoyed the book despite its flaws. It's an easy read, and a vaguely interesting one at times. I was keen to read the wartime setting, since that's an old favourite of mine, and the first chapter, in which twentysomething Ruth introduces us to her son and her widowed mother, was pretty engaging.
The book moves between 1976 (Ruth's storyline) and World War II (her mother's story). Ruth's chapters are told in the first person and Eva's/Sally's in the more distant third person POV; this may or may not be relevant later on.
It was when we moved onto Eva's story that the eyerolling commenced. The very first words of her story are "Eva Delectorskaya". Eva Delectorskaya? Delectorskaya? Come on, Mr Boyd. You just wanted to make everyone think of "delectable" when they saw her name, didn't you?
Ahem. So Eva Delectorskaya's brother dies in mysterious circumstances, after which she is recruited by an equally mysterious (but also mysteriously attractive) British man. She isn't keen initially, but he dangles the bait of her brother's murderers and eventually, to no one's surprise, she complies (this is all the first chapter, by the way; I'm not spoiling anything).
So far, it's your fairly typical spy plot, and I have no complaints about the set-up. However, the story soon subsides into an aimless meander around the world of spies, while Eva follows mysterious orders and falls in love. I found myself turning to the Ruth chapters in relief; at least I was vaguely interested in what she was up to, although Ruth's account is liberally spattered with dead ends and I felt the setting was pretty shaky - Boyd seems to have relied on constant references to Bader-Meinhof to remind us that we're in the seventies, but otherwise it could largely have been set today.
The characterisation felt very...odd, which actually makes me wonder if Boyd was trying to be too clever for his own good. Some of Eva's actions towards the end are distinctly strange (sending her daughter to interview a man she believes to be a killer and traitor?); is it possible that we're supposed to doubt the veracity of Eva's account, hence the third person point of view? If so, it didn't work (for me, at least); I believed Eva's story, despite everything that failed to add up in the end. Various other loose ends are abandoned, including the bait at the beginning: we never do find out what happened to Eva's brother, although I suppose we can draw an assumption.
Mainly, I found the characters and plot implausible, and it's always annoying when you spot the baddie in chapter three and spend the rest of the narrative yelling at the characters for being so dim.
I'm amused that the first "official" review on here is going to be such a negative one, because I'm usually quite a soft reviewer. I'm easily pleased: I can overlook a few flaws if a book has moved me enough.
Unfortunately, Restless failed to move me in the slightest, unless you count the number of times I rolled my eyes when I bumped up against yet another cliché or problem.
I should probably say that I enjoyed the book despite its flaws. It's an easy read, and a vaguely interesting one at times. I was keen to read the wartime setting, since that's an old favourite of mine, and the first chapter, in which twentysomething Ruth introduces us to her son and her widowed mother, was pretty engaging.
The book moves between 1976 (Ruth's storyline) and World War II (her mother's story). Ruth's chapters are told in the first person and Eva's/Sally's in the more distant third person POV; this may or may not be relevant later on.
It was when we moved onto Eva's story that the eyerolling commenced. The very first words of her story are "Eva Delectorskaya". Eva Delectorskaya? Delectorskaya? Come on, Mr Boyd. You just wanted to make everyone think of "delectable" when they saw her name, didn't you?
Ahem. So Eva Delectorskaya's brother dies in mysterious circumstances, after which she is recruited by an equally mysterious (but also mysteriously attractive) British man. She isn't keen initially, but he dangles the bait of her brother's murderers and eventually, to no one's surprise, she complies (this is all the first chapter, by the way; I'm not spoiling anything).
So far, it's your fairly typical spy plot, and I have no complaints about the set-up. However, the story soon subsides into an aimless meander around the world of spies, while Eva follows mysterious orders and falls in love. I found myself turning to the Ruth chapters in relief; at least I was vaguely interested in what she was up to, although Ruth's account is liberally spattered with dead ends and I felt the setting was pretty shaky - Boyd seems to have relied on constant references to Bader-Meinhof to remind us that we're in the seventies, but otherwise it could largely have been set today.
The characterisation felt very...odd, which actually makes me wonder if Boyd was trying to be too clever for his own good. Some of Eva's actions towards the end are distinctly strange (sending her daughter to interview a man she believes to be a killer and traitor?); is it possible that we're supposed to doubt the veracity of Eva's account, hence the third person point of view? If so, it didn't work (for me, at least); I believed Eva's story, despite everything that failed to add up in the end. Various other loose ends are abandoned, including the bait at the beginning: we never do find out what happened to Eva's brother, although I suppose we can draw an assumption.
Mainly, I found the characters and plot implausible, and it's always annoying when you spot the baddie in chapter three and spend the rest of the narrative yelling at the characters for being so dim.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-31 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-03 06:36 am (UTC)