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The Romantic

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The Romantic

By: William Boyd
Narrated by: Kobna Holbrook-Smith
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover.
One man, many lives.

Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.

From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century.

***PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD***

'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd Novel' Sunday Times

'One of our best contemporary storytellers' Spectator

'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

© William Boyd 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 20th Century Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Fiction Comedy Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

The Romantic by William Boyd was the novel I enjoyed most this year. It's incredibly ambitious, its hero moving from Co Cork to London, then from Waterloo to Zanzibar, and at one point even joining the East Indian Army, but it was such an easy, indulgent read (Sathnam Sanghera)
[One of the] most enjoyable new novels I read this year . . . [it] offers deep pleasure to those who love novels, instruction to anyone setting out to write one (Allan Massie)
Boyd is as magically readable as ever, and, as always with his whole life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity
William Boyd's The Romantic is disguised a an historical biography - The Real Life of Cashel Greville Ross - but is actually an utterly engrossing adventure story . . . Cashel, we understand, is searching for himself, but in the process he provides romance, entertainment and enlightenment for his readers. How better to spend the relaxed days around Xmas than following his footsteps (Antonia Fraser)
Storytelling is what floats my boat and William Boyd's The Romantic, a return to his "whole-life" novels, has it in spades. Following our hero Cashel Greville Ross (Boyd is big on names) from Ireland to the Battle of Waterloo, then India, Italy, New England, Africa and beyond, it has enough engrossing variety to fill several books, not just the one (Peter Brookes)
Cashel ultimately emerges as a one-off - an inimitable character, whether he knows it or not . . . what is often lost behind the sheer pleasure brought by [Boyd's] books is their layered Chekhovian subtleties: Boyd is abundantly talented at capturing life's disconnections . . . it is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun
William Boyd's new novel is one of his best
A rambunctious, swashbuckling tale, told with panache by a master storyteller . . . Those who fall in love with The Romantic may wonder whether their own lives lack adventure. Surrender to this fine novel's spell, though, and it will vicariously supply more than enough thrills for anyone
Boyd's back, baby. The great writer of big, splashy (mostly) historical adventures has gone all guns blazing on this one . . . The pages brim with famous names and exotic locations - with Florentine palazzos, debtors' prisons, scandalous love affairs, Byron and the Battle of Waterloo . . . pure, joyful escapism
If it's true escapism you're after, William Boyd can always be relied upon to transport the reader from reality and his next offering, The Romantic, another epic that follows Cashel Greville Ross from 19th-century Country Cork to Zanzibar via Oxford and Sri Lanka, offers a wonderful literary getaway as the nights draw in
All stars
Most relevant
Although this reminded me of Any Human Heart, it somehow didn’t quite match the story. As others have said, the reader puts on terrible accents which is off putting earlier on in the book but shouldn’t deter the listener from listening!

Reminiscent of Any Human Heart

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Boyd excels in his ability to maintain a narrative; never better than when the back-bone is the life of an individual. So it is here with the life of Cashel Greville Ross. This is a novel of adventures, incidents, glories and disappointments. So much doing in one person’s life. There is a question that haunts the listener (or reader) in how far to rely on the main character’s views and interpretation of events. He is certainly a character that is prone and likely to follow his heart, not necessarily to his benefit or credit. But this is not a novel about a ‘hero’, but a man that is energetic, passionate, adventurous, and fallible. There is significant room to wonder about other people’s motives. The narratives pulls like a train. This is also a novel where the main character finds himself in significant events in history, or in the company of several famous people. The closing pages of this novel, then, do pose the general question that Boyd raises himself, “What do we leave behind us when we die?” Our hearts go out to Cashel Greville Ross and there is a something of a chill which might cause the listener’s own introspection. Can a life well lived, following the heart be adequate substitute to a known legacy? Character and narrative with Boyd are well honed and there will be no concerns in this novel. As often the case, Boyd may use a word or phrase that makes you wonder or to look it up. All to the good. The performance of this audio-book by Kobna Holbrook-Smith I wonderful, sympathetic, touching and so good. When some performers make a hash of deal with foreign pronunciations, here there is simple wonder as to how he achieves such confident authenticity. One of the several benefits from keeping to hand the hard-copy or electronic version of a book when listening to an audio-book is being able to glance back, or to see something that the audio-book omits. Sometimes the omission deprives the listener of that they might have wanted to hear. So is the case with ‘The Romantic’. The audio-book does not include the ‘author’s note of the hard-copy I had to hand and this is a loss. None the less, a wonderful book that with engage, maintain the listener's attention and intrigue. Try it.

“What do we leave behind us when we die?”

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I am a big fan of William Boyd and feverishly wait for the next novel. I listen when I am running and love a book where I can lose myself. This certainly met the brief, as I was transported back to the 19th Cenury to many adventures with our hero.
The narration was brilliant and ideally suited to Cashel and his contempories. Overall my listening was a very satisfying experience.
Whilst 'Any Human Heart' remains my favourite Boyd novel, I have listened to it too many times now. The Romantic is up there with the best of them and a repeat listen in a year or so will no doubt add to my enjoyment of this story.

A great romp across the century

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Loved the early and late sections of the story, but felt it flagged in the middle, especially the African adventure and it’s subsequent twists and turns. Narrator has a good pace and helped sustain my interest. Some interesting things to say about the nature of autobiography and it’s reliability (or unreliability?)

Roller coaster story

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Thoroughly gripping, full of surprises and perfectly narrated. I especially appreciated the convincing pronuciation of foreign speech as well as all the variety of spoken English.

Wonderful!

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