by ANNA ROGERS
W
illiam Boyd receives three times
as many fan letters about his
2002 novel, Any Human Heart,
as about anything else he has
written. He has some credible theories
to account for this, but the overwhelm-
ing reason, surely, is that it’s a fine novel.
The first-person, 20th-century-hopping
adventures of Logan Mountstuart are
compelling, involving and
funny. Boyd went for a simi-
lar sweep of time, though less
successfully, with his last novel,
Sweet Caress. Now he’s sweeping
again, from Edinburgh in 1894
to the Andaman Islands in 1906,
as he relates the adventures
of Scottish piano tuner Brodie
Moncur.
To escape his bizarre and
domineering clergyman father,
young Brodie takes a job in Paris, where
he meets famous Irish pianist John Kilbar-
ron and his mistress, Lika, a beautiful but
only averagely talented soprano. Brodie
and Lika fall for each other, but the peril-
ous and melodramatic results of their
liaison force them to flee through Europe
and beyond. Along the way, amongst
other things, Brodie develops tuberculosis
and is involved in a duel.
Logan Mountstuart is always
excellent company, but trav-
elling with Brodie Moncur
soon becomes wearying and
even a little tedious. The use
of the third person inevitably
adds distance, but the real
problem, sadly, is that
this is not an especially
well-written book.
Boyd can, as always,
conjure up some good
period atmosphereand evocative descriptions of landscape
and interiors. (There are, though, too
many accounts of food and drink and
possibly rather too much information
on late-19th-century piano tuning.)
But, overall, the writing has a curiously
mechanical, lifeless quality and a dulling
sameness of pitch.
Brodie’s love for Lika, which should be
the heart of the book, is never convincing,
not least because Boyd relies on sentences
such as, “He felt his sphincter loosen and
a bubble of air expand to fill his lungs” to
convey emotion. Regrettably, this is not
the only time unfortunate anatomical
reactions are invoked in response to the
beloved.
The acclaimed author of 14 novels, five
short stories and three plays should know
that this is bad. And if he doesn’t, his
editor should – and tell him. The novel is
distressingly full of the kinds of
mistakes much less experienced
writers are advised to avoid:
too many rhetorical questions,
a surfeit of “wondering” and
“realising”, lumps of stodgy
and unnecessary explanation.
Several times he makes the
rookie error of dropping in
obvious time markers, such as
having Brodie read about the
Dreyfus affair, Queen Victoria’s
jubilee and a review of “a shocking new
novel called Dracula”. The editor should
also have prevented an 1890s character
from saying “at the end of the day” or
mentioning his “health issues”.
Love is Blind had the narrative potential
and the exotic settings to be intrigu-
ing and original, but although there are
tantalising hints and glimpses of what
could have been, the novel fails to fire.
Missing are genuine sympathy for, and
involvement with, the characters. Gone,
too, is the picaresque vigour of Any
Human Heart. The journey this time is
far too long and becomes less and less
interesting as Brodie racks up the
miles. By the time he fetches
up on his far-flung island,
and succumbs to his last
consumptive haemor-
rhage, it is difficult to
feel anything but
relief. l
LOVE IS BLIND,
by William Boyd
(Viking, $37)Love is a bore
A doomed romance in
exotic settings fails to
excite.
William Boyd: rookie
errors.