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A review by coronaurora
Restoration by Rose Tremain
4.0
With Restoration, Tremain has unlocked the secrets to write enduring historical fiction. All the deadweight of imbibing fictional characters movements and language with the period's nuances besides convincingly making them engage with landscapes and humanity three centuries old is accomplished masterfully by duplicating the written cadences and vocabulary of the famous diarists and commentators of the era. If there was an anachronism, it completely passed me as I galloped through this addictive and funny adventure which for the most part was like trying plate after plate of amuse bouches.
She smartly enrols her fictional character, Merivel, on a professional path of a physician, that inevitably brings him close to the humanity around him, and then an extra fold is added to his personality: he is a Reluctant physician, who serendipitously finds himself in the King's court and quickly succumbs to the decadence and debauchery that comes from the monarch's benefaction. The persisting wrinkle of his reluctance to "his calling" takes him on a journey of self-realisation with the kaleidoscope of the late 17th century Britain as an enchanting backdrop. With the farting and bodice-ripping Merivel in tow, you get to live and breathe through most of the century's social mores first hand: from the incredulous particulars of a monarch's "sponsorships" to the casual licentiousness at the parties of the "gentry" to the speech of the bargemen on the Thames and the lives of washerwomen inn-owners and finally to the soul-crushing hubbub of the teeming poor and mad in the bedlams and workhouses.
A growing-up yarn is the last thing I expected from a period piece, and yet here it is in all its glory, fall and rise from the ashes. Tremain's masterstroke is writing this in first person as Merivel and imbibing him with all the contradictions and fallibilities of a living, breathing person. Outwardly crude, mediocre, and a slave of his appetites; inwardly self-aware, self-mocking, witty, modest, curious and generous all at once, Merivel makes for an exquisite pair of eyes to observe the world around him. When you finally find him reaching that summit of self-realisation, piece by piece channelling the humane, courageous side of his personality, Tremain is busy choreographing this precise moment with his benefactor's restoration of the belief in him; a benefactor who he held in singular, earnest high esteem despite all the world's misgivings and the said benefactor's dubious treatment of Merivel, and it made for a well-earned, cockle-warming feel good climax.
Part of the book's triumph is that Tremain draws all the characters around Merivel with as much colour and individual spectacle as each of Merivel's impulses. The enigmatic, recently restored King who is revealled to be a discerning patron stands out as much as the Quaker best friend who doubles up as a searing critic to Merivel's follies to the wife-figure he aches to possess but cannot. I'll remember them all, and will be re-reading Restoration for the sheer humour with which Merivel receives all the insults and how very little comes in the way of him telling us his "response" to the world and people around him. That is after I have dipped some more into his antics in Tremain's sequel. She has created a bit of a small literary legend with Merivel.
She smartly enrols her fictional character, Merivel, on a professional path of a physician, that inevitably brings him close to the humanity around him, and then an extra fold is added to his personality: he is a Reluctant physician, who serendipitously finds himself in the King's court and quickly succumbs to the decadence and debauchery that comes from the monarch's benefaction. The persisting wrinkle of his reluctance to "his calling" takes him on a journey of self-realisation with the kaleidoscope of the late 17th century Britain as an enchanting backdrop. With the farting and bodice-ripping Merivel in tow, you get to live and breathe through most of the century's social mores first hand: from the incredulous particulars of a monarch's "sponsorships" to the casual licentiousness at the parties of the "gentry" to the speech of the bargemen on the Thames and the lives of washerwomen inn-owners and finally to the soul-crushing hubbub of the teeming poor and mad in the bedlams and workhouses.
A growing-up yarn is the last thing I expected from a period piece, and yet here it is in all its glory, fall and rise from the ashes. Tremain's masterstroke is writing this in first person as Merivel and imbibing him with all the contradictions and fallibilities of a living, breathing person. Outwardly crude, mediocre, and a slave of his appetites; inwardly self-aware, self-mocking, witty, modest, curious and generous all at once, Merivel makes for an exquisite pair of eyes to observe the world around him. When you finally find him reaching that summit of self-realisation, piece by piece channelling the humane, courageous side of his personality, Tremain is busy choreographing this precise moment with his benefactor's restoration of the belief in him; a benefactor who he held in singular, earnest high esteem despite all the world's misgivings and the said benefactor's dubious treatment of Merivel, and it made for a well-earned, cockle-warming feel good climax.
Part of the book's triumph is that Tremain draws all the characters around Merivel with as much colour and individual spectacle as each of Merivel's impulses. The enigmatic, recently restored King who is revealled to be a discerning patron stands out as much as the Quaker best friend who doubles up as a searing critic to Merivel's follies to the wife-figure he aches to possess but cannot. I'll remember them all, and will be re-reading Restoration for the sheer humour with which Merivel receives all the insults and how very little comes in the way of him telling us his "response" to the world and people around him. That is after I have dipped some more into his antics in Tremain's sequel. She has created a bit of a small literary legend with Merivel.