Book Review: "The Romantic" by William Boyd

William Boyd is perhaps known as one of the greatest writers of this age and, if any of you have read “Any Human Heart” then you will know that very well. To be honest, I have only read one other book by him apart from this novel being reviewed and his magnum opus, but I am sure to read more of his novels in the future, especially after this particular experience. So without further interruption, I am simply dying to tell you all about this wonderful novel about a man named Cashel Ross. He was born in 1799 and has had the most wonderful adventures.

Born and raised in County Cork, Ireland, Cashel is told by his ‘aunt’ that they must get up and leave for Oxford where he will become not only a great student, but will also learn a horrifying secret about his existence that he believed to be something entirely different the whole time. Spurred on by this existing lie and his resentment towards the people involved, he heads off at the age of 16 years’ old to become a soldier, injured in the Battle of Waterloo and deemed unfit for service. I know that this is pretty impressive for a child of that age, but it simply gets better.

Fighting in the wars in India later on, Cashel is sent home for refusing to carry out a needless massacre of the natives. He is now both physically wounded and emotionally hurt and so, unable to return home fully and believing there is no life for him cut out there - he becomes a traveller, wandering the earth in search of experience and space to grow and become the person that, as a teenager, he was told he could be.

In Italy, he meets Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. And, in a funny encounter in which he offends my personal favourite poet, he also encounters the untimely death of Percy Shelley who was, at first lost at sea until his body washed up on the shore. Including historical characters such as Trelawney who wrote upon the deaths of Byron and Shelley and the literary heiress herself, Mary Shelley - this book only keeps getting better and better. Cashel decides to publish his own book, but before he becomes a swindled literary gentleman, he gets into a relationship with a woman named Raphaella. She will come to dominate his entire existence to the point of no return.

From Italy back to England, from debtor’s prison to America from Cape Town to Bader-Bader - Cashel Ross is one of the most travelled and well written characters I have read in a very long time. I believe that this might be the case because he is a wholly unlikeable man but also there is another thing - he is the closest character to an actual human being that I have read of existing in this era. The characters he meets along the way are many and even though they all have their own personalities, they also have their own character flaws. For example: the publisher who refuses to pay up has a problem with gambling, one of Cashel’s brothers is a bit rough around the edges when it comes to dealing with people and Brid is a woman horribly changed by Cashel’s disgusting behaviour towards her. Cashel himself is a man with little purpose and so, travels the world seeking one and hoping that one day, he can find it.

As characters change and die along the way, he refuses to give up, knowing that one day he will establish himself. From becoming a soldier to a celebrated author, from running his own brewery to becoming an anonymous writer - he tries to do so much in his life that sometimes, he doesn’t savour things the way he should. This is probably his most human quality - he runs off too quickly and doesn’t think too much about it. Filled with regret for the rest of his life, it will take him around forty years to return to the place where he knows he should be. That will be until someone comes looking for him as he again, has taken off towards another adventure.

All in all, this is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time and I think that if you really like to get to know a character then you cannot possibly know a character more than you know Cashel Ross in this book. He is a flawed, narcissistic and deceptive man who also has a compassionate and emotional side which rules every decision he makes. Maybe sometimes it is better to lead with your heart.