|
The New Confessions | 
| Author: William Boyd
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (14) Used (62) Collectible (1) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 17222
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0140106995
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780140106992
ASIN: 0140106995
Publication Date: February 25, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Paperback - In Good condition - Tanning to pages - Creasing to spine and covers - Owners initials written neatly inside - A perfectly Readable gem. Photographs available on request. Dispatched from United Kingdom. Postage 2 to 4 days. Any questions: Email us. Satisfaction guaranteed!!
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 More greatness from Boyd September 9, 2008
William Boyd is a brilliant writer, and this sweeping panorama of the 20th Century is one of his best books. Unlike in Any Human Heart, he presents us with a narrator who is, in many ways (maybe in most ways), extremely unlikeable. The fact that we understand the influences and events that have shaped Todd's character doesn't make us overlook his egotism and coldbloodedness--but these traits of his, like Rouuseau's own flaws, are what make the book so fascinating. I do agree with those who didn't like the ending. The last, say, sixth of the book, the later Los Angeles days, don't live up to the first part, but that's a small quibble when confronted by the brilliance of this novel, especially the WWI section.
another triumph April 13, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The New Confessions has similarities to Any Human Heart, encompassing as it does a man's life from boyhood through to old age. The main difference is that while Any Human Heart unfolded contemporaneously in the form of a journal or diary, The New Confessions is written retrospectively - an old man looking back on his life, remembering the highs and lows.
The story is as gripping as any of Boyd's novels, largely due to Boyd's immense talent in imbuing the ordinary with rivetting, magnetic fascination. The ordures of public school initiation, the fierceness of first love (or crush), the passions, terrors, obsessions and regrets of any life, are magnified and captured with breath-catching aplomb. Boyd is one of the few writers - Updike, Ishiguro and McEwan also spring to mind- who can make the reader giggle uncontrollably one minute and in the next reel from some gut-wrenchingly vivid drama.
The New Confessions follows John James Todd from his childhood in Edinburgh, under the care of his austere surgeon father and his sharp-witted and idiosyncratic nanny Oonagh , through schooldays and friendship with the mathematical child prodigy Hamish Malahide, to adulthood with all its attendant thwarted dreams, shocking traumas and rich relationships. John James may be selfish and self-centred - SPOILER: not only is he serially unfaithful to his long-suffering wife Sonia, but he has the cheek to hire a private investigator to see if she herself is being unfaithful; not only does he repeatedly chastise his older brother Thompson in his autobiography for being uncaring, but he manipulates Thompson into arranging a bank loan on which he subsequently defaults, and makes a pass at Thompson's wife; not only does he fail to ask others about their problems or lives but he witters endlessly about his own talent; not only does he cruelly note all physical flaws in his wife and brother but he deludedly comments to himself on his own good looks. Yet despite these glaring faults, John James is also funny, articulate, intelligent and a compelling character to read about. He is passionate about his career, his friends and his one true love. And Boyd's novel transports you in a hypnotised daze through all these beautifully drawn characters and events and manages to be sharp, witty, touching, devastating and gorgeously written at the same time. Another classic from one of our top five living British authors.
Seminal work - utterly spellbinding February 17, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
A witty, twisting Bildungsroman that feeds the imagination with the history of a convincing but fictional life, although I found the mystery surrounding the final years rather disturbing.
This is, to my mind at least, real literary fiction, possibly amongst the best late 20th/early 21st century works. It is a joy to read something well-crafted and unsensational that has detail beyond the call of duty.
I really cannot recommend this book highly enough, although I would say that I prefer the cover design of the American version.
A 20th Century Masterpiece June 21, 2006
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
So utterly convincing at times you wonder if it's all true! William Boyd seems equally at home depicting scenes of domestic drudgery or the glamourous life of the artist in pre-war Berlin. Pathos, farce, tragedy it's all here. There are some brilliant passages describing life in the trenches of the First Word War evoking the horror, bordedom, futility and heroism of life on the western front. Equally well written are laugh out loud sections.
The book is written in the style of an autobiography, which gives the tale an added dimension. As you see everything through John James Todd's eyes, it's not long before you realize that although he may be in some ways brilliant, there is also a lot going on that he really dosen't have a clue about.
As you progress throught the book you'll ask yourself, is our hero mad, or a genious? John James Todd lurches from one scene to another with breathtaking style but not always with dazzling results. It's rather like watching Maradonna charge down a football pitch leaving the opposing teams players strewn on the ground behind him, before scoring the perfect goal, only to realize he's put the ball in his own net.
The plot moves along rapidly and you won't want to put the book down.
How to mess up your life in 500 pages............. November 30, 2004
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
I struggle with some of Boyd's writing - but find the two quasi-autobiographical novels (Any Human Heart and The New Confession) truly outstanding.
They both take you on a rampage across the 20th Century - but whilst based on a similar premise are utterly different.
In this case the lead character is fascinating, flawed and disturbingly like many people you know in his ability to make the wrong decision at each moment of truth.
I am impressed with Boyd's ability to design fictitious lives in such detail - it really makes you feel as if he is a biographer who has researched his subject for years.
Impossible to put down. Truly excellent.
|
|
|
© Shops.UK.net in association with Amazon.co.uk | |
