This has been a central question of many of the stronger novels by the contemporaries who joined Boyd on Granta’s famous 1983 Best of Young British Novelists list: Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot , Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow and Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy could all be said to be about the leftovers of a life – and what remains of history. For all the hijinks that keep us turning his pages, Boyd is ultimately an artist of diminishment – one who tracks, in The Romantic , the ways in which a seemingly “great” life, lived over an entire century, can still dwindle, inexorably, into almost nothing: “tied bundles of letters received, drafts of letters sent, some little sketches, maps and plans, some photographs . Her books include acclaimed biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper, as well as a biography of the poet Stevie Smith.

The real and romantic: the life and work of Eric Ravilious The real and romantic: the life and work of Eric Ravilious

In Any Human Heart, I was able to identify with the protagonist's journey, from early unearned comfort and success, through failure and penury to achieve an authentic comfort at the close of the the novel. The fictional biography of Cashel Greville Ross takes us from his beginnings as an orphan living with his aunt in rural Ireland through the many adventures and loves in his life. Since his rise to fame, and as the generation of the original purchasers passes away, these have increasingly entered the market, together with work that remains unsold at the time of his death, and a considerable number have gone into public collections.Later when he and his aunt move to England he gradually comes to understand that his upbringing wasn't quite what he thought and this prompts him to leave home early and join the army. There's an apt description of memory as "a fawning courtier to its master the autobiographer" and Boyd's delight in exploring the unreliability of recollection permeates the narrative. There is a moment in this novel where the protagonist reads his own obituary – then cheerfully moves on.

The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between - Waterstones The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between - Waterstones

Admittedly it is a fair criticism that you do eventually come to expect the inevitable outcome of his endeavours.

Spalding is the author of biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper (as well as the poet Stevie Smith). As i finished the book, I found myself thinking at first that the end - Ross's death - felt a tad underwhelming. What other hero in literature could have suffered the nicknames “the Cashelmite”, “Cash-Cash-Coo” and “Cashelnius the Great”?

Romantic by William Boyd | Goodreads The Romantic by William Boyd | Goodreads

The story - a fictional autobiography - picks up his life from this point and follows it all the way through. There is a gleeful attitude in playing fast and loose with history and certain details, such as the unfortunate end of the Nile explorer John Hanning Speke, which could easily have emerged from the pages of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman chronicles. I've been disappointed with some of his more recent books but this takes me back to wonderful saga style that he is so brilliant at. As it is, the book is almost a straight run through of the main character's life without consideration of how he felt about his situations; almost 'and then Ross did this, then he did that etc.Although the story never becomes bogged down with historical or geographical detail, it’s still completely immersive and I loved every minute I spent in Cashel’s world.