ANY HUMAN HEART, William Boyd

June 2003, chosen by C

Points: 9.25

Blurb says: 

""Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary." So says Logan Mountstuart, the hero of William Boyd's 8th novel, 'Any Human Heart'.

'Any Human Heart' tells the story of Logan's long and rackety life, which spans every decade of the twentieth century in all its fantastic and humdrum, dangerous and tranquil, tragic and humorous aspects. A novelist who comes to know both great acclaim and astonishing neglect, Logan relates his life through his intimate journals, as he travels from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Oxford in the 1920s, from the Spanish Civil War to global conflict in such unlikely war-zones as the Bahamas and Switzerland. The post-war years see Logan living and loving in New York, West Africa, London and France, meeting all manner of idiosyncratic characters: his three wives, his family, friends, enemies, rivals and lovers. Virginia Woolf, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Ernest Hemmingway, Ian Fleming and the Baader-Meinhof Gang are some of the notables who form his eclectic circle.

'Any Human Heart' is a long, ambitious, all-encompassing novel, charting all the comedy and tragedy, the weirdness and vulgarity, the melancholy and absurdity of existence. A book about the beguiling and baffling mystery of individual lives, it is - in the end - an expansive exploration of whit it means to call yourself human.""

They say:

"A terrific journey through the C20th. Thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable"

"Wise, profound and moving, only the very best novels make you look at your own life and imagine your own future with fresh eyes"

"Sheer, truly brilliant story-telling. He has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries"

"Astonishing, touching, extremely funny. A brilliant evocation of a past era and an immensely readable story. Made me laugh out loud again and again"

"Astounding, one of Boyd's greatest achievements. His storytelling purrs along like the engine of a luxury motor... the ride is a pleasure"

"Superb, wonderful, enjoyable"

We say:

For those Book Bags who hadn't previously encountered William Boyd, he came as a very pleasant surprise. His novels' titles (generally uninspiring) and their presentation had previously been off-putting. Up until "Armadillo", Boyd's novels were strangely marketed as poor man's airport books, not pointlessly fat enough maybe but still bearing the requisite embossed covers and mean formats. This is a crying shame for some of his writing is simply peerless, so good it's easy not to notice it.

"Any Human Heart" is never less than beautifully written, it seeps into you like cream. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, the observations of petty pride, small hopes and triumphs; a delicious acronym (CAUC); Logan's end-of-year tallies. The whole shape of his life, a quest for something to love, is wonderfully described. An episode towards the end, featuring Logan's old friend Gloria, is sublime and beyond merely heartbreaking.

Each journal within the whole loosely takes a decade of the last century and pits Logan against its distinctive characteristics which are not always the most obvious. His life as novelist/reviewer/journalist puts him in the perfect position to meet the eras' most notable creative characters as well as providing a plausible alibi to position him all over the world's major political situations. Occasionally, it is a little clumsy, with events contrived either to shoehorn him into a setting or to act as an ejector-seat when the setting has served its purpose. Such rough-and-ready trigger points would not be noticed in the softening medium of a novel, where the bumps and changes of direction can be soothed to create careful transitions but overall it works since the journal format allows justifiably choppy juxtapositions: often humorous but eliding need for explanation where poignant paragraphs are rounded off with items of housekeeping mundanity. 2 duff episodes in the second half do stand out, but they are sufficiently brief to be excused and were admired to an extent by some of us so we'll leave it at that.

The level of research undertaken must have been immense, but it is lightly worn and seamlessly interwoven, although how authentic the interpretation is of each decade we can't say - was the c-word so widely used in the 30s? But, although it does not change much, the voice of Logan generally convinces, first as a rather pompous 17 year old through early literary success in his 20s and then onto all the haphazard vicissitudes and chance encounters that life has to throw at him including a defining, terrible incident in his 30s, on through to his 80s. There is necessary artifice to zigzag through so many vital characters of the C20th with apparent casualness but the whole is extremely well orchestrated and background information (such as Nigeria's politics in the '60s) is easily assimilated within the general storytelling.

One of the strengths of a journal, be it fictional or not, is its being entirely subjective; as LMS himself reports, by definition it is not a journal's job to create a full picture, but a personal one. So is this also its weakness, there is no-one to assess Logan or his validity as a prism through which to see the world. And in no way is he a perfect character. Touchingly, he is most self-obsessed in times of penury and doubt, when the journal reduces in scale to fold in on himself. He is, however, pleasantly generous towards other writers when it would be more obvious, and less interesting, for Boyd to have him deriding their talent; and he admires, without understanding, modern art. The paintings which hang fleetingly on his wall could make you weep for their future worth.

Bravely Boyd resists the temptation to abuse the privileges of dipping into real life. The big things which happen, happen to the century rather than to LMS, despite him mixing with such movers and shakers as Picasso, Hemingway and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He is not sycophantic towards these all but mythical figures, but nor does he make free with hindsight. And he doesn't mess with Logan in setting him up for cruel falls (although there are moments of anxiety for the reader and it's hard not to cringe at some of the opportunities he squanders). The story is that of a man, any man, admittedly one with plausible entrée to the interesting bits of history, mapped against the bigger story. It is this lightness of touch which is so engaging, he does not bleed fashionable notions of the arbitrariness of fate, the shuttlecock nature of existence; nor render LMS absurd with his own smallness within the more dazzling context, the balance is just right.

We loved "Any Human Heart". Although 2 failed to finish it, they have done so since, which is a first in our group since often the best of "finishing" intentions end up back on the shelf in the rush to get on with the next month's book. This is a marvellous novel, we didn't want it to finish, we mourn its finishing and it is fully recommended. Oh, and dog food will most certainly never be the same again.

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