Particularize Books Concering Any Human Heart
| Original Title: | Any Human Heart |
| ISBN: | 1400031001 (ISBN13: 9781400031009) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Logan Mountstuart |
| Setting: | London, England England Paris(France) …more New York City, New York(United States) Oxford University, Oxford, England France Spain Bahamas Nigeria …less |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2002), Prix Jean-Monnet de littérature européenne du département de Charente (2003), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2004) |
William Boyd
Paperback | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 4.27 | 14534 Users | 1359 Reviews
Ilustration Supposing Books Any Human Heart
Logan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism, and abject poverty.Mountstuart's sorry tale is also the story of a British way of life in inexorable decline, as his journey takes in the Bloomsbury set, the General Strike, the Spanish Civil War, 1930s Americans in Paris, wartime espionage, New York avant garde art, even the Baader-Meinhof gang--all with a stellar supporting cast. The most sustained and best moment comes mid-book, as Mountstuart gets caught up in one of Britain's murkier wartime secrets, in the company of the here truly despicable Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Elsewhere Boyd occasionally misplaces his tongue too obviously in his cheek--the Wall Street Crash is trailed with truly crashing inelegance--but overall Any Human Heart is a witty, inventive and ultimately moving novel. Boyd succeeds in conjuring not only a compelling 20th century but also, in the hapless Logan Mountstuart, an anti-hero who achieves something approaching passive greatness. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk
Details Appertaining To Books Any Human Heart
| Title | : | Any Human Heart |
| Author | : | William Boyd |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | January 6th 2004 by Vintage (first published January 25th 2002) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction |
Rating Appertaining To Books Any Human Heart
Ratings: 4.27 From 14534 Users | 1359 ReviewsPiece Appertaining To Books Any Human Heart
If you can imagine Johnny English meeting Rolf Harris meeting Forrest Gump meeting Grahame Greene meeting Adrian Mole (just after Sue Townshend lost interest in him), then you're not a million miles away from how the plot in this novel is set up.And although it does contain a lot of banality along with quite a few other weaknesses, this doesn't spoil too much what is a very, very special novel.When I read something that moves me, or resonates very strongly with me, I turn over the bottom of theI'll write a proper review later maybe, but my initial thoughts - * This book started out as 'just okay' for me - hovering between three stars and four stars, then became a hazy four stars but very near the end marched up to five stars. * I loved Logan. I came to know him and see him subtly change as the years took him from adolescence to an old man. Always full of sprite and character. I laughed with him and I cried with him. * Because of this I now feel a great sense of loss - I'm going to
ANY HUMAN HEART takes the form of the collected and edited journals of Landon Mountstuart, a British author and art aficionado, who was born in the first decade of the 20th century and who died in the last. It is a fine novel and I loved reading it while on vacation. It is great recreational reading.Mountstuart began journaling while still a schoolboy and continued, off and on, until near the time of his death. The arc of his life included: taking a lowly third at Jesus College at Oxford
Loved the early chapters recapturing Logan's boarding school days , and his trials and tribulations within his peer group, then the teenage anxieties negotiating various rites of passage, and the passages dealing with the Duke of Windsor, but got bogged down in mid section when Logan is imprisoned in Switzerland. Not sure that, for me, the book really recovered after that prolonged incarceration.And, added in April 2018......I remember hearing Ian McEwan interviewed and saying that he hoped his
Any Human Heart was my final read of 2018, and as it turns out, a very appropriate one. It contains the journals of the fictional Logan Mountstuart, son of a wealthy British businessman, beginning with his account of attending a Norfolk public school. From there the diaries detail his days at university before he slips into a career as a respected writer. Everything seems to come quite easily to our narrator until World War II turns his life upside down.Along the way Logan crosses paths with
With the opening Henry James quote, I immediately knew this used bookstore find was a keeper.Structured as the collected diaries of Logan Mountstuart, "Every Human Heart" is the story of a life that spanned most of the twentieth century. Because of the format, the style changes as Logan ages, there are gaps in the story when he didn't feel like writing, he can be touchingly confessional one moment and aggressively self-justifying the next. While he can certainly seem terribly self-involved,
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,
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