There's no getting away from it, William Boyd, is a classy writer. And in Any Human Heart he demonstrates this once again. Set out in the form of a series of diaries from various periods in the life of one Logan Mountstuart, we follow his progress through the twentieth century. The action starts at public school in England, where the topics of interest and writing style are definitely those of a teenager discovering what life is all about, with a distinct focus on his sexual awakening. We see how losing his father affects him, and how he sets out on a series of jobs, including novelist, and relationships, which leads to his happy marriage and the birth of a child. But the Second World War changes everything. He kind of ends up as a spy (recruited by Ian Fleming), but is incarcerated abroad and when he comes home, it is to the shattering discovery that his wife and child have been killed by a bomb. I felt that Logan never really recovered from this, and he stumbles from one thing to another, usually fuelled by an inordinate amount of alcohol - at one time becoming involved in a subversive political movement (though probably more to earn money than actually believing in the cause!) - and other times he's an art dealer. He travels the world, but finally ends up in France after he inherits a property from a long term friend who he nursed through the last weeks of her life. It's here he seems to find little peace and his story comes to its natural conclusion. At times, Logan is a very unsympathetic character, but totally human in his flaws, hopes and dreams. I may not have always liked him, and he often brought his troubles onto himself, which usually puts me off a book, but the author writes with such aplomb that I kept on wanting to find out more. Would Logan redeem himself, would he find happiness? Maybe. Maybe not. His story is wrapped up in all the key events and people of the 20th Century - we even see him mixing with the Duke of Windsor and the waspish Wallace Simpson, which, unsurprisingly, doesn't end well! Maybe there was a little too much name dropping - could one person really have met all these people and had all of these experiences I wonder - but this is still a very readable exploration of the life of a man living through modern history and well worth anyone's time.
My STAR rating: 4 STARS.
Length: 528 print pages.
Price I paid:Free, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, MP3 CD, ebook.
