One of the best books I have ever read. Boyd is a master at inserting the reader right into the mind and soul of his characters.
I found this book really hard going for the first few chapter. Ah typical male attitude I thought but I was determined not to let it get the better of me.
Let me state up front that as a working professional writer, I generally do not like books about struggling writers, and that bias may have colored my attitude toward this book. Although I have enjoyed other of William Boyd's novels, this one disappointed.
I have been a William Boyd fan since reading "Brazzaville Beach" (one of my favorite books) many years ago. I think this book is his best work yet.
As formula novels go, this one is quite good. The formula here is to deploy the narrator's diaries as a record of his life, with a `shell' narrator filling in some gaps and rounding the story off after that life has ended, and it is fair to assume from the book's title that we are supposed to relate the events to our own lives.
Any Human Heart, a novel that is written as an autobiography that spans nearly 80 years in the life of Logan Mountstuart, is a hilarious and sophisticated piece of work. It gives us account's of his life from his years in an English prep school, his take on the British social system, his years at Oxford, his marriages, the curse of two wars and their effects on his life, certainly exacerbated by his imprisonment for 2 years during WWII.
Gee the reviewers of this book are sparing in their praise. "Quite affecting...
William Boyd is the true inheritor of Evelyn Waugh, and stands as the finest English writer alive today. (He doesn't get nearly as much attention as the likes of Martin Amis and others because he seems not to like the public eye.
Once again William Boyd has produced a jewel. His ability to bring true history into a novel is totally unmatched.
'Any Human Heart' is the autobiography of a fictitious twentieth century literary character, Logan Mountstuart. Despite his rather dodgy name, this character grows up into a rather interesting man.
This is a 500 (or so)-page fictional diary of a man from the start of his adult life to his death, containing imprints of his experiences in England, continental Europe, America, Africa and France. The big insight you get out of this: how much you lack control over your life.
This was the first book by William Boyd I read. Now I know what "compulsive reading" is.
The diary follows the life of the narrator and all of it holds your interest. It was his life, but it was also everyone's journey, although most of ours are not so full of adventures.
In Any Human Heart, William Boyd manages to create a not entirely likeable character, Logan Mountstuart, who nonetheless is an entirely sympathetic protagonist. Logan is not the nicest person in the world.
A good, sometimes brilliant, effort by William Boyd: a fictional diary spanning the bulk of the 20th centry "written" by a minor British literary figure. I found sections of this novel extremely compelling: the World War Two diaries, the New York diary, and parts of the diaries devoted to his life and education at Oxford in the 1920s.
