- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0747586209
- ISBN-13: 978-0747586203
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 240 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #832,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Terrific Literary Page Turner,
By Kelly Rossiter (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Restless (Hardcover)
What a fun ride it was reading Restless by William Boyd. A bit of a mystery, a bit of an English spy story and a bit of a family drama all rolled into one. The book is broken into two narrative streams. The first is Ruth who teaches English to foreigners rather than finishing her doctorate. The second is the story of her mother Sally (real name Eva) who in fact, was a Russian who gets hooked into spying for the English immediately prior to and during World War II. The sections surrounding Ruth are fine and have the aura of a small town mystery story as she is surprised to learn about her mother's past, but it is really Eva's story we want to know about. Those sections crackle with a real sense of danger as Eva makes her way through the world of espionage while trusting no one. I liked the juxtaposition of Ruth's mundane, simple post-war life with the covert life of Eva, truly surviving only by her wits. I'll never look at a very sharp pencil the same way again. The story is clever, as are the historical twists and Boyd tells it in an engaging style. This is a something akin to a literary page turner and it's about the length that you could curl up one evening and devour whole.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"THE FINEST STORYTELLER OF HIS GENERATION",
By
This review is from: Restless (Audio CD)
British actress Rosamund Pike is probably best known for playing the gal who caught James Bond's eye in Die Another Day. While that performance certainly grabbed audience attention, she has numerous other noteworthy credits both on stage and in films. She does another star turn as she inhabits two narrative voices in the 9th novel by William Boyd. He's been called "The finest storyteller of his generation," and Restless again demonstrates how splendidly he can spin a tale.Set in Oxfordshire, England during 1976 our story opens with a bit of a shock - Sally Gilmartin gives her daughter, Ruth, a memoir she has penned. Ruth is amazed to learn that her mother is not at all who she believed her to be. In actuality, Sally Gilmartin is Eva Delectorskaya, A Russian who worked for the British Secret Service during World War II. Sally or Eva has guarded this secret well for almost 30 years. Now, she is revealing the truth about herself to her daughter not because she wishes to be open but because she fears for her life and Ruth is the one person in the world she believes she can trust. Ruth is not only astounded but disbelieving, wondering if her mother may be delusional at the onset of old age. Nonetheless, for her mother's sake she tries to find Romer the man who recruited Sally/Eva and with whom she had an affair. Restless is related in parallel stories, probably the most compelling are the accounts of Sally/Eva's enlistment, training, and experiences. Following the war she returns to England, adopts an identity and marries. She has every reason to believe her past is well behind her. Not so! Highly recommended. - Gail Cooke
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (72 customer reviews) 83 of 86 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
British Spy Novel --- Tops in Genre,
By Middle-aged Professor - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Restless (Paperback)
This is a spy novel, not a thriller, and there is a real difference between the two genres. Think John LeCarre and Graham Greene, not Robert Ludlum and Ken Follet. With the spy novel, you have the ever-so-slow peeling of layers, deeper characterizaion, a frequent sense of foreboding and, until all is revealed, some confusion. The thriller, in contrast, is the page-turning, up-all-night, action-packed adventure that you can't put down. After finishing a thriller, you are likely to say "where can I get another fix," but not to reflect on what you have just read, and if you try, you may not remember and, if you do, it may not make sense. With the spy novel, you may want to wait a while before reading another, but you will spend some time reflecting on what you've just read, and it provokes you in a more serious, literary way.I like both genres but find it important to orient my expectations going in. For the spy novel genre, Restless would have to rank among my favorites. In addition to the terrific writing, the likeable-but-far-from-perfect heroines and the World War II intrigue, the novel offers some additional pleasures. First, it is quintissentially British. The book involves, among other things, a single mother raising her son, the world of Oxford academia, and all sorts of emotionally powerful events. These all come across with the British stoicism, stiff-upper-lipism and "no winging (whining)" ethic that make the book very different from an American treatment of the identical plot. Not better, or worse, just different and thus very interesting to the American reader. The cultural difference (accurately renedered I should say) is a fascinating sidelight for the American reader. Second, the author employed heroines rather than heroes. I would be interested to hear from female readers, but I was very impressed with the author's ability to create characters of the opposite sex who seemed nonstereotyped, but true. There is nothing of "the weaker sex" to the heroines, but they are not at all the same as they would be if written as men. In short, they're real women (or at least seem so from my, male, perspective)in a genre that does not frequently offer that. Third, the novel spends a great deal of time on the intrigue, spying and propoganda surrounding British efforts to persuade the United States to join World War II. In an interview, Boyd says that he mostly used his imagination in creating the spying, but it certainly seems realistic and oh so relevant today. The wheels-within-wheels manipulation of the media and public opinion and the "trust nobody" mantra say more about contemporary foreign affairs than many current nonfiction treatments, which themselves simply repeat the spin that interested actors have given the authors. Enjoy. 34 of 35 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of his best,
By Newton Munnow "Newton Munnow" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Restless (Paperback)
Over the last twenty years, William Boyd has, for me, been among the most consistent writers of narrative fiction. There have been books that will stand the test of time (New Confessions) and ones that already seem dated (Stars and Bars), but Restless finds him in good form. Boyd, as flexible as ever, turns his attention to the spy genre. We are presented with a double narrative, mother and daughter. The plot is hampered by a slightly overwrought literary device, the mother doling out her diaries at intervals, conveniently allowing the author to flip back and forth in time. Still, Boyd remains a wonderful writer. His characters are incisive, full blooded and captivating, even the ones we're not supposed to like. Boyd, like McEwan, manages the perfect blend of literature and thriller and Restless reads very quickly. That alone is a reason to buy it, but add in the Paris of 1939, spymasters and double dealings and Boyd is on to another winner.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Needs more editing,
By P. L. Petersen - Published on Amazon.com
Restless: Two Stories in OneIn Restless William Boyd gives us two stories in one: the stories of Ruth Gilmartin and Eva Delectorskaya. But sadly only one of the stories is fully developed. Ruth Gilmartin, a single mother, teaches English as a second language and lives in Oxford, England with her son Jochen. Her life gets complicated when her mother, Sally Gilmartin, gives Ruth her memoirs revealing herself as the British spy Eva Delectorskaya. Boyd structures the memoirs one chapter at a time into the novel. This results in alternating chapters of the two women's lives, with two viewpoints, two settings, and two time frames, the seventies and the forties. Ruth, along with the reader, becomes absorbed in her own mother's past. And what a Machiavellian past Eva had: a contrast to the routine existence Ruth lives. Boyd's creative use of two storylines within one novel makes reading interesting. Eva's undercover story takes center stage. Each chapter ups the ante in violence and intrigue. Her entanglement with Lucas Romer, her boss, leads her to plant fake documents meant to encourage the U. S. to engage with the British in World War II. Boyd packs this thriller with mystery, drama, and devious manipulation, compelling the reader to search for answers. He builds a complicated plot for Eva's story, and withholds information as well as any mystery writer. By the time the story has played out he ties up all the pieces with finesse. He is not as meticulous writing Ruth's story. He inserts plotlines and leaves them unfinished. What happened to Hamid's love for Ruth and his connection to the protests against the Shah, to Ludger, Ilse, and their connection to the Red Army? What about Detective Constable Frobisher? Why did Boyd build so many fascinating questions in Ruth's story and not resolve them? One writing theory is if the author puts a gun on the mantle in the first chapter, he better let the reader know why it was there by the last chapter. Boyd put too many guns on Ruth's mantle and we still don't know why in the last chapter he included them in the story. Though William Boyd is a talented writer, this careless oversight keeps the novel from being exceptional. Boyd needs to go back and edit. |
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